Archaeological excavation at Ballaghkeeran, 1982
Item
Format
TIFF
Title
Archaeological excavation at Ballaghkeeran, 1982
Identifier
VHG0001
Depiction
On flat land by an expanse of water, three young men kneeling and trowelling, and one young woman wheeling a laden barrow towards a stack of turves.
Description
The trial excavation pictured here was conducted by Professor Thomas ('Tom') Fanning of the Archaeology Department, UCG, in 1982. His report gives the following details:
'Co. Westmeath 1982. 184. Ballaghkeeran Little, Athlone (12N 073445). T. Fanning of Department of Archaeology, University College, Galway, excavated a number of trial trenches at a fortified promontory on Lough Ree in the R. Shannon. The possibility that the site was a Viking-type longphort was borne in mind due to the mid 9th- and early l0th-century references to a Viking fortification on the Lough.
Excavation of the earthen bank on the landward side of the promontory showed it to have been of a substantial nature composed of a fine sandy subsoil redeposited on the original ground surface. A charcoal stain close to the inner edge of this bank was sampled for a radiocarbon determination. The cuttings within the promontory exposed two shallow parallel trenches c.10m apart. These features, detected in a magnetometer survey by R. Doggart of Queen's University, Belfast, yielded a little charcoal but no finds or other evidence of occupation - the earth had been considerably disturbed by rabbit burrowings and ridge-and-furrow cultivation. Some iron slag and fragments of fired clay were found in a cutting made directly S. of the promontory in a large banked-up hollow beside the mouth of the Breensford River' (T. Fanning, 1983).
Tom Fanning conducted numerous other excavations. For one of these, undertaken at Rinnaraw, Co. Donegal, in 1987-92, there is, in addition to a later scientific report (Comber et al., 2006), a vivid account from the student fieldworker's perspective, provided by Robert Chapple, archaeologist, in his blog (Chapple, 2014).
'Co. Westmeath 1982. 184. Ballaghkeeran Little, Athlone (12N 073445). T. Fanning of Department of Archaeology, University College, Galway, excavated a number of trial trenches at a fortified promontory on Lough Ree in the R. Shannon. The possibility that the site was a Viking-type longphort was borne in mind due to the mid 9th- and early l0th-century references to a Viking fortification on the Lough.
Excavation of the earthen bank on the landward side of the promontory showed it to have been of a substantial nature composed of a fine sandy subsoil redeposited on the original ground surface. A charcoal stain close to the inner edge of this bank was sampled for a radiocarbon determination. The cuttings within the promontory exposed two shallow parallel trenches c.10m apart. These features, detected in a magnetometer survey by R. Doggart of Queen's University, Belfast, yielded a little charcoal but no finds or other evidence of occupation - the earth had been considerably disturbed by rabbit burrowings and ridge-and-furrow cultivation. Some iron slag and fragments of fired clay were found in a cutting made directly S. of the promontory in a large banked-up hollow beside the mouth of the Breensford River' (T. Fanning, 1983).
Tom Fanning conducted numerous other excavations. For one of these, undertaken at Rinnaraw, Co. Donegal, in 1987-92, there is, in addition to a later scientific report (Comber et al., 2006), a vivid account from the student fieldworker's perspective, provided by Robert Chapple, archaeologist, in his blog (Chapple, 2014).
References
Publications:
T. Fanning, 'Co. Westmeath 1982. 184. Ballaghkeeran Little, Athlone (12N 073445)', Medieval Archaeology, 27 (1983), 221.
Michelle Comber et al., 'Tom Fanning's excavations at Rinnaraw Cashel, Portnablagh, Co. Donegal', Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy: Archaeology, Culture, History, Literature, 106C (2006), 67-124. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/ria.2006.0004, accessed 26 July 2023.
'Heaven lies under the baulk | Excavating Rinnaraw, Co. Donegal in 1989', at http://rmchapple.blogspot.com/2014/04/heaven-lies-under-baulk-excavating.html, accessed 26 July 2023.
Contributor
Bibliographic Citation
P. Clancy, J. Waddell, J. Conroy, S.G. Jennings, 'Archaeological excavation at Ballaghkeeran, 1982', Visual History Retired Staff Collection, University of Galway Digital Collections, Asset Id 13714, Archival Record Id VHRS
Spatial Coverage
Temporal Coverage
Period
1980s
Category
colour
group
off-campus
outdoors
Language
English
Publisher
University of Galway Library
Rights
This image may be used for non-commercial purposes under CC BY-NC-SA see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
