archaeological & built heritage assessment - The Heritage Council

stone anchor/net sinker in Kilglass Lough (NMI ?) and oxbone teeth and a stone net sinker in Lough Allen
(NMIIA/273/47 & 1944:840 respectively).
The early medieval period in Ireland saw the introduction and establishment of Christianity. The process
of conversion of the native population would not have been rapid but rather one of steady infiltration.
Over and above the change in religious outlook that conversion would have meant for the individual, the
establishment of the Irish Church was to have profound implications for political, social and economic life,
in no small part due to the introduction of writing into the country. In Ireland there was from now on ‘in
existence an organisation part of whose function was to maintain contacts, both in ideas and through
individuals, between Ireland and the rest of Europe’ (Mallory and McNeill 1991). The introduction and
establishment of Christianity is attested to in the archaeological record by the presence of church sites,
associated places for Christian burial and holy wells. There is very little evidence of early medieval church
establishment within the study area in comparison with important early ecclesiastical centres further
south along the River Shannon such as Clonmacnoise and Clonfert. However there is reference to an
early church at Mohill said to be found by St Manchan in the sixth or seventh century (Anon. 1940, 43;
MacNamee 1954, 723), of which nothing survives (Lewis 1837, vol. 2, 376; Pinkman 1942 36-9). There are
also six known holy wells within the waterways corridor, one of which is dedicated to St. Beo Aodh.
The late medieval period (AD 1169 – 1600)
The arrival and conquest of large parts of Ireland by the Anglo-Normans (or more correctly Cambro-
Normans) in the late-twelfth/early thirteenth century marks a watershed in the political history of Ireland.
The remains of castles built by the Anglo-Normans at this time survive in the form of mottes. A motte is a
conical, flat-topped, earthen mound, artificially raised and often surrounded by a fosse. In many cases a
bailey or embanked enclosure was built to one side of the motte. Atop these mottes was a wooden
superstructure, with a palisade and tower. These sites are often referred to as ‘timber castles’. By the late
thirteenth/early fourteenth century, the Anglo-Normans began constructing moated sites and rectangular
enclosures. These are square, rectangular or trapezoidal enclosures. Their main defensive feature is a
wide, often waterlogged, fosse with an internal bank. As in the case of ringforts, these enclosures
protected settlements; the buildings, usually of wood, seldom leave any visible surface trace today. There
are many rectangular enclosures located in the country, which cannot be confidently classified as moated
sites. This may be due to interference with the standing remains, uncertainty as to their date, or because
the site is known only from cartographic, documentary or aerial photographic evidence. There are two
examples of moated sites located within the study area. One is situated at Corry, Co. Leitrim on the
northern shores of Lough Allen, which is possibly the ‘house of MacConsava’ referred to in the Annals of
the Four Masters (1530). The other motte is located on Inishtirra Island in Drumharlow Lake, Co.
Roscommon. Furthermore, there are four rectangular enclosures recorded within the waterways
corridor.
The feudalisation of Gaelic-Irish society c. 1000AD, demarcated by the apparent abandonment of ringforts
in the period around the turn of the millennium and the very low numbers of newly-built ringforts in the
early centuries of the second millennium AD, involved the new divisions of land of which the modern
townland is the descendant. The actual boundaries of these land units, however, must have reflected very
closely the rural geography of Ireland in the immediate pre-feudal period. By the same token, the land
units of the Anglo-Normans – the cantreds and manors – were themselves copies of the territories of
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