EMAP_Progress_Reports_2009_2.pdf - The Heritage Council

Cork
‘Lisnagun’ (Darrary td.), Co. Cork
Early Medieval Settlement Enclosure
Grid Ref: W41814211 (141819/042115)
SMR No: CO135-031001
Excavation Licence: E424
Excavation Duration/Year: August 1987; August 1989
Site Director: J. O’Sullivan (University College Cork)
Lisnagun is a univallate enclosure situated on a gentle south-eastern slope at 60m OD, which
was excavated as part of a community initiative by the Clonakilty Macra na Feirme.
Excavation revealed evidence for a central round house, various outbuildings, three
souterrains and other structures and features, but the phasing of the site was very difficult to
establish as modern ridge and furrow cultivation had truncated almost all the features and
stratigraphic evidence.
Possible stakeholes, pits and a shallow interrupted ditch were discovered beneath the
enclosure banks. The ditch had steep sides and a U-shaped base and measured 1.3m wide
and 0.5m deep. A rock-cut trench also traversed the outer south-eastern entrance area. The
evidence was too slight to establish whether these features at Lisnagun represented part of a
pre-enclosure field system or the remains of an earlier settlement enclosure.
The surviving enclosure had an external diameter of 53m and an internal diameter of 35m.
Where it survived, a low broad counterscarp bank, 0.5m high and 1.4m wide was identified
outside the ditch. The main bank survived to a max height of 1.4m over the original ground
surface. Its inner face was revetted by a low rubble dry-stone wall (0.65m high), along its
eastern and southern sectors. The ditch was V-shaped in profile with a flat base and
measured between 3.0m and 5.0m wide and up to 2m deep. Transient hearths, identified by
thin spreads of charcoal over scorched soils or settings of stones, were revealed in the base
of the ditch.
The entrance was located along the south-eastern sector of the enclosure and had been
remodelled at least once. Its terminals were retained by a low dry-stone wall which formed a
narrow two meter opening. An area of gravel paving was also associated with this entranceway.
An earlier entrance arrangement which possibly formed an entrance screen and
gateway was identified beneath the gravel-paving and took the form of a substantial trench
(1.2m wide and 0.9m deep) filled with large packing stones and two adjacent large postholes.
A possible round house, defined by a shallow circular gully or trench (0.15m deep and with
an overall diameter of 5.7m), was excavated in the centre of the enclosure. No entrance,
structural features or hearths were recovered though its central location does support its
interpretation as a round house. A concentration of stakeholes and linear slot-trenches were
excavated in the area adjacent to the inner face of the enclosure bank on either side of the
primary entrance. These were interpreted as small rectilinear outbuildings with floor plans of
between six and eight square metres (Fig. 76).
Three earth-cut souterrains were excavated in the interior of the site and typically comprised
a series of low barrel-vaulted chambers connected by narrow creep-ways and ventilated by
stone air ducts. Burnt sediments, probably hearth debris, from the backfilled entrance to
Souterrain I yielded a radiocarbon date spanning the late-ninth/tenth centuries and was
regarded as a terminus ante quem date for the construction of the souterrain.
The location of the entrance of two of the souterrains (I and III) within the circumference of
the gully of the possible round house, tentatively suggests that at least one may have been
entered from this structure. As round houses are less common after the tenth century (Lynn
1978), It is quite possible that the round house and Souterrain I were associated with each
other and in use during the ninth century.
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