WELL PRESERVED
Doneraile is well known for its history and heritage and while the Doneraile Estate is widely visited and hugely popular, the argument could be made that much more lies beneath the surface. A mere three kilometres west of Doneraile town is the site of Caherduggan Castle with its many secrets.
Roughly a decade ago, Cork County Council commenced works to eliminate a dangerous bend located between Doneraile and New Twopothouse and employed Rubicon Heritage Services Ltd to check for any archaeological items of note ahead of the works, resulting in a fascinating discovery being made.
Colm Moloney, company owner and Senior Archaeologist, Rubicon Heritage Services Ltd., noted the importance of archaeological mitigation for civil and road schemes.
“Large infrastructure projects are amazing opportunities to increase the wealth of knowledge of archaeology across the country. As extensive impact assessments are undertaken in advance of route selection, the majority of high status known archaeology is avoided.
“The majority of archaeology we excavate is previously unknown. This provides a fantastic opportunity to fill out the picture of what past landscapes looked like and how our ancestors lived, worked and ultimately died. These are amazing projects to be involved in,” Mr Moloney said.
A medieval tower house and associated defensive works including a revetted fosse were discovered at the Caherduggan site. The discovery of the tower house remains on the 2km realignment, which meant an alternative route was investigated and subsequently designed, allowing the preservation of the castle remains.
In 2011, the peripheral areas of the castle site were subjected to a full archaeological excavation resulting in the discovering of some of Cork’s most significant historical finds.
Excavations on site were led by Rubicon Heritage, who in late November of 2011, discovered a composite leather and metal object, now known to be a ‘peytrel’, a decorative horse harness. A well, associated with the Caherduggan Castle which belonged to the Roche family, was the source of the discovery, which accounts for the preservation of the peytrel.
Surrounding the well was a large defensive ditch that heavily fortified the site and within the well was the peytrel, along with leather shoes, a bone game die and the skeleton of an eagle.
“These objects underwent months of painstaking conservation and are currently in the final stages of specialist analysis by a number of artefact specialists.
“The first images of the newly conserved material proved extremely exciting, and it became immediately apparent that the leather strip was an artefact of extreme importance,” a Rubicon Heritage spokesperson said.
Nearly 1 metre in length, the peytrel was discovered to hold surviving gilt, hinged, copper-alloy suspension-mounts and pendants, each of which portray a shield with a lion, counter-rampant, in relief. Each end of the leather strap retains gilt, copper-alloy buckles, suggesting it was designed to be attached to other leather fittings at either end.
Leather specialist John Nicholl, analysed the piece which he identified to be a part of a horse harness,