Pre-Famine rock dwelling unearthed

Dwellings cut into a rock face in a West Cork town have been unearthed, making it a possibly unique discovery.

Volunteers from a Tús project stumbled upon pre-Famine-built houses while clearing scrubland in Skibbereen.

Cork’s county archaeologist, Mary Sleeman, said she was very enthusiastic about the prospects of the site at Windmill Rock, which overlooks the town.

“I have visited a lot of vernacular houses in the county and we have mud houses and stone-built houses bonded with bulls’ blood and mortar and a combination of both,” she said.

“And sometimes there’s been the use of rock face to form a wall but I have not seen rock-cut houses like these before — forming three sides with unusual niches cut into the walls.”

The Friends of the Rock scheme made the discovery.

The rear and side walls of six rock-cut houses still survive, cut into the bedrock.

The houses are all of similar dimensions, with side and back walls rising to about 1.5 metres.

According to a local authority heritage unit report, “there are intriguing rock-cut features cut into the wall. The function of these features is unclear at present — some look like seats, others look like niches to support roof timbers. A more careful study is required to determine their nature and function”.

However, buildings such as these have no historical protection, as they fall outside the general remit of archaeology and built heritage.

An archaeology survey of Cork found a lot of similar buildings dating to post-1700 and they are designated as “recorded monuments”.

There has been a suggestion by the national monuments section of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht that post-1700 buildings are removed from the record because of their date.

However, after much controversy and publicity, the Jimmy Deenihan, the heritage minister, has promised to examine the matter.

The Skibbereen houses were actually photographed in the early 20th century and are included in the Lawrence Collection in the National Library Dublin.

Images indicate they were single-storey houses, three bays wide with central doors — typical of the small vernacular early 19th century dwelling houses used at around the time of the famine, the heritage report says.

In addition, the Griffiths Valuation Map circa 1850 shows all six houses.

According to records in the Skibbereen Heritage Centre, run by Terri Kearney, which has one of the biggest famine exhibitions in the country: “One- roomed cottages were the usual dwelling place for the poorest people in society in the 19th century. In 1841, just prior to the Famine, around 40% of the West Cork population lived in these houses. Many of the occupants were landless labourers.

“Houses were simple structures, about 3.6m [12ft] to 4.5m [15ft] wide internally and of varying lengths. The poorest cottages had no chimneys so that the turf or peat smoke escaped through the roof and door.

“Animals were often kept at one end of these cottages, with the family living at the other end.”

Meanwhile, author Claudia Kinmonth, in Irish Country Furniture 1700- 1950, writes: “Common features [of such houses] were the stone fireside seats built into the hearth wall, the recessed ‘keeping holes’ which were left in the back wall of the hearth and much larger recesses fitted with slate shelves and wooden doors, which sometimes flanked the hearth.”

Tús project chairman Bryan Harris says the project hopes to eventually incorporate the houses into an education trail in the town.