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Clare
Medieval Activity
Significant evidence for medieval burial, industrial activity, surfaces and pathways were
uncovered across the site. Twenty thirteenth century burials were excavated in the interior of
St. Bridget’s church with further medieval burial revealed in the vicinity of the round tower
and St. Caimin’s church. St. Brigid’s enclosure and surrounding area was also used for
industrial activities- stoneworking, metalworking, ironworking and boneworking- in the
medieval period.
Quern-stones appear to have been manufactured to the north of the St. Brigid’s enclosure as
two possibly thirteenth century decorated querns and fragments of other quern-stones were
recovered from a series of pits in the area. Boneworking evidence was also confined mainly
to the north of St. Brigid’s church and comprised fragments of red deer antler, complete and
incomplete bone and antler combs and needles, points and shroud pin. Associated finds of
bronze stick-pins, coins and other objects suggest that this activity was mainly thirteenth
century.
The ironworking evidence was uncovered mainly within St. Brigid’s enclosure to the
immediate north of the church and included fragments of furnace-bottoms as well as
quantities of clinker and bloom from a number of pits. A clay dome in an irregular flatbottomed
straight-sided pit to the immediate west of the church was interpreted as a bronzeworking
furnace. Finds from the furnace included slag, charcoal, scraps of burnt bone and
tiny fragments of green copper oxide.
Post-medieval Pilgrimage and burial
The ecclesiastical complex was remodeled in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with
the construction of a number of drystone pilgrim ‘station’ enclosures surrounding the
‘Confessional’ Cell and the churches of St. Michael and St. Brigid. Areas of paving
circumnavigated the inner face of the enclosures and allowed the pilgrims perform a ‘round’
or circuit of these monuments.
A small post-medieval mortared stone structure and an infant cemetery (Cillín) were
excavated within the ‘station’ enclosure at St. Michael’s. Similarly, the ‘Confessional’ Cell in its
present form was dated to c. A.D. 1700 from the recovery of part of a late seventeenth
century clay pipe from a context under its foundations. A broad paved roadway connecting
the church sites of St. Caimin’s and St. Mary’s was also built in this period.
General Finds
Finds from the sites included iron nails, knives, hooks, bolts, staples arrowheads, medieval
chainmail, 13 th century metal scabbard tip, bronze buckles, pins, needles, mounts, rings,
bone combs, pins, needles, gaming pieces, motif-pieces, stone moulds, trial-pieces,
Romanesque voussoirs and fragments, whetstones, quern-stones, jet bracelet fragments, a
Hiberno-Norse coin quarter, a 12 th century early Norman coin hoard a sherds of Bii ware and
a few sherds of E-ware.
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