EMAP_Progress_Reports_2009_2.pdf - The Heritage Council

Kerry
Church Island (Ballycarbery West td., Valentia Island), Co. Kerry
Early Medieval Ecclesiastical Settlement
Grid Ref: V43057855 (043050/078550)
SMR No: KE079-032
Excavation Licence: 03E1518
Excavation Duration/Year: Summer 1955; Summer 1956; 2004-05.
Site Director: M.J. O’Kelly (University College Cork); Alan Hayden (Archaeological
Projects Ltd.)
Church Island is a very small island at the mouth of Valentia harbour on the northern side of
the Iveragh peninsula. The site is connected to the nearby island of Beginish by a sandbar at
low tide. Excavations were undertaken over the course of two summers in 1955 and 1956 by
means of a government grant and funds from University College Cork and revealed a series
of early medieval churches, buildings, burials and an enclosing cashel with associated
habitation and ironworking evidence (Fig. 152). Further excavations funded by the DoEHLG in
2004-05 exposed an elaborate terraced shrine mound on a high rocky knoll on the island.
Early monastic activity consisted of a wooden church and circular wooden hut; both probably
contemporary with each other though there was no archaeological evidence to confirm this.
The complete plan of the wooden church was not uncovered as the structure partly underlay
the eastern part of the stone oratory. Five rock-cut postholes defined the line of the southern
(3) and northern (2) side of a rectangular building (2m by 3m).
The wooden church was aligned with thirty-three burials which lay to the west and
northwest. Eleven of the burials partially underlay the foundations of the stone oratory and
were therefore clearly earlier than this later structure. Two bodies were placed in cist-like
structures of stone with the remainder (31) in simple unlined graves.
Part of a circular wooden hut defined by an arc of stone slabs set on edge was uncovered on
the western side of the circular stone house (1). The stones were deliberately set into the
ground appear to have marked the limits of a roughly circular hut, approximately 6m in
diameter which would have continued inside the area of the later stone house (Fig. 153).
The area within the arc and between it and the round house contained a layer of primary
habitation refuse containing charcoal, winkle, limpet shells, animal bone and a large quantity
of iron slag. A possible furnace-base inside the area of the subsequent circular stone house
belonged to the ironworking activity associated with the primary building. A refuse spread
containing iron slag was also uncovered outside the arc and to the west and northwest of it.
The second phase of monastic activity consisted of a rectangular stone oratory (Fig. 1) and a
circular stone house (Fig. 2). The stone oratory contained inclined dry-stone walls and a
collapsed corbel-vaulted roof whose ridge was probably adorned by two stone finials
recovered on the island. The oratory had original internal dimensions of 5.79m by 3.78m, and
survived to a height of 3.3m. It contained a western doorway and two windows in the
eastern and southern walls.
The inner side of the western paved doorway was fitted with a ‘hinged’ door defined by a
heel-stone and a posthole on its northern and southern sides respectively. A thin spread of
charcoal with a small quantity of periwinkle and limpet shells around its edge was uncovered
in the interior’s centre and may represent the remains of a single meal cooked at the time
when the oratory was built. The stone oratory was aligned with a group of six burials outside
its east end and two burials mid-way along the external base of its north walls.
The circular house (1) - internal diameter of 4.5m- contained stone walls surviving to a height
of 3.1m and had a thatched roof supported by twelve postholes evenly spaced around the
floor area just inside the base of the wall. An arc of stonework, two to three courses high
almost completely surrounded the stone house at a distance of 0.5m and was probably built
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