Linear earthwork in Corrackan,aghareagh West,corrinary (dartree By),corrinshigo (cremorne By),drumavan,drumgrone,aghnaskew (dartree By.),fastry or Racreeghan,killark (dartree By.),lattacrossan,skerrick West,annagheane,cornapaste

The Black Pig’s Dyke is a name that is generally applied to a number of linear earthworks in the south Ulster and north Connaught regions by the map-makers. They form discontinuous sections extending mostly through drumlin country from Donegal Bay in the west almost as far as Dundalk Bay in the east. Other names are the ‘Worm’s Ditch’ or the ‘Worm’s Cast’, and in Co. Cavan the ‘Duncla’. Similar earthworks, like the Dane’s Cast and the Dorsey in Co. Armagh, could be part of the same phenomenon. Linear earthworks have been regarded as providing border defence, but their entire length could hardly have been defended, and it might be more reasonable to suggest that they were constructed to control access points and to hinder cattle raiding (Raftery 1994, 87). Linear earthworks can date from the Late Bronze Age up to the high medieval period, but the Black Pig’s Dyke dates mainly to the Iron Age (c. 500BC-c. 500 AD). It has recently been studied in detail (Ó Drisceoil et al. 2014), and an article on the Monaghan section is published (Ó Drisceoil 2017). In Co. Monaghan, apart from two short sections (MO025-044----; MO025-046----) at the E edge of the county close to the Armagh boundary, one long section extends E from a NE-SW section of the Finn river, south of Scotshouse, at the most western point of the county. From the river at Cornapaste – Corr na Péiste, the hill or hollow of the worm – it runs SE through Annagheane and Killark connecting Laurel Lough and Drumcor Lough. From the E end of Drumcor it turns NE (L c. 670m), rising up Doon Hill in Drumavan, before resuming a meandering eastward course through Skerrick West and Corrackan to Aghernaskew. The section to Aghernaskew is poorly preserved and represented as a dotted line on the 1907 edition of the OS 6-inch map. Eastwards from Aghernaskew it survives in generally good condition through the townlands of Lattacrossan, Aghareagh West, and Corrinary where it takes another turn to the N (L c. 300m) before curving eastwards through Drumurcher where it doesn’t survive visibly and connects with a small pot lake meering with Drumgrone, on the E side of which it crosses the NE-SW Bunoe River and comes to an end (total L c. 6.8km). The earthwork was usually positioned in the valleys and hollows between drumlins, and where it is on a slope it is generally S-facing. Where it survives intact it consists of two banks with associated fosses on the up-slope side or a bank with fosses on either side. Where two banks are present the northern is invariably the stronger. Modern investigations of this earthwork began with Walsh’s excavation (E000839) of a NE-SW portion at Aghareagh West in 1982, which provides a good sample of its original appearance (Walsh 1987; 1991). Before excavation and from the NW it consisted of a fosse (Wth of top 7m; ext. D c. 1m), the wide N bank (Wth of base c. 7m; H over NW c. 3m; H over SE c. 3m) separated by a rounded fosse (Wth of top c. 8.5-9m) from the SE bank (Wth of base 4.5m; H over NW and SE c. 1.2-1.4mm), and the earthworks have a total width of c. 24m. A palisade trench (Wth 0.5m; D 0.9m) that had been burnt was found outside the NW fosse. No artefacts were recovered from the excavation, but samples of carbon from the palisade trench produced a revised C14 date of 310 cal. BC to cal. AD 140 (Ó Drisceoil 2014, 78-9). A gradiometer survey (19R0233) by H. Gimson (2019) of the fields to the NW and SE of Walsh's excavation recorded intimations of numerous pits and possible enclosures. Archaeological testing (98E0245) uncovered an area of brushwood just S of the line of the earthwork at the W edge Cornapaste townland (Moore 2000), but further testing (05E0657) S of its line in the same area produced no related material (O’Hara 2005). However, archaeological testing (05E0915) adjacent to a section at the E end of Lattacrossan townland on the N side of the earthwork produced evidence of a palisade in a layer of burnt clay running parallel with the earthwork which was preserved in situ (Meenan 2008). A remote sensing survey conducted at Corrinary as part of the regional study confirmed the form of the linear earthwork as a double ditch feature with evidence of a burnt palisade trench outside the N ditch (Grimson 2014). As confirmation of these features Meehan (2008) in a limited test excavation (05E0915) at Lattacrossan recorded a spread of burnt clay running parallel with a NE-SW section of the linear earthwork on the NW side. Revised by: Michael Moore Revised date of upload: 8 May 2018 Amended: 14 January 2020 A section of this monument, in the townland of Annagheane, is subject to a preservation order made under the National Monuments Acts 1930 to 2014 (PO no. 4/1990). O’Hara 2005 Archaeological Assessment, Cornapaste, Co. Monaghan. Licence No. 05E06557. Unpublished report, Archaeological Consultancy Services