We walked to campus to catch the bus at 9:30am. Our professor and a PhD student handed out packets to us with where we were going and the field trip 'rules' and we headed off to our first site. On our walk to the bus it had been a little rainy and windy, but overall pretty normal for Cork winter weather.
We pulled up to the first site in the middle of farm fields and cottages and hopped over a fence to the far side of the field. It was raining and windier than in the city which made it slightly difficult to hear the professor, but overall an interesting stop. Garranes Ringfort is known as one of the nicest ring forts because it does not just have one berm and trench, it has three sets which would give extra protection. There is also evidence for a large wooden entrance gateway, adding the prominence of the fort and most likely the people who lived inside it. It is thought that the more trenches you have, the more followers you have because they will come to dig the trenches. The excess soil from the trenches then create the berms which make the trenches seem even deeper.
The middle of the ring fort where huts would have been
The berms that were built up for protection
The class walking across the middle of the ring fort
Standing in the middle of the fort, looking out, the trees would not have been there when the ring fort was in use
The entrance which would have had a large wooden entrance way along the entire length
Ballinacarriga Tower House was the next stop about an hour away. A tower house is basically a big open room which in this case had an arched roof and then had another hall located above with a normal A-frame roof. This tower house was built before 1585 and housed a prominent family of the time. We were able to see the bottom floor as well as go up to the fourth floor which is the top floor under the A-frame roof. Archeologists are not completely sure what this was used for but there is evidence that it was used to hold mass after England decreed that Catholic mass could no longer be held. The roof is now gone and at this point in the trip as well as the rest of the time we were at the tower house it was extremely windy and raining almost to the point where we had to be careful not to stand too close to the edge (although the walls were pretty high). Once we got back outside our professor was telling us more about the outside aspects of the tower house but because of the wind I only heard about half of it. Luckily it won't be on my quiz next week!
The outside of the tower house
Steps leading up to the tower house
Tower house entrance
Looking to where upper floors would have been and their windows- this is one of the largest
Doorway from stairs to what would have been the second floor
Some of the windows
The upper room probably used as a chapel, a lot of people are finding shelter in the old fireplace
We piled back onto the bus to dry off and warm up and headed to a small town named Clonakilty for lunch. A few of us went into a little pub called Mick Finn's and ordered some soup with brown bread, a classic pub lunch although I was really tempted to get a caesar salad.
Our next stop was a four story semi-fortified house built in 1616 called Coppinger's Court. It was really interesting to see this after seeing a tower house because it is structured completely differently even though it was built probably less than 100 years later. It is focused more on appearance and functionality than defense, which is the main attribute to the tower house. Coppinger's Court is more focused on individualized living, with separate bed chambers for people instead of having one big room where everyone sleeps, like in tower houses. It had lots of big windows and was more symmetrical and appealing to the eye, similar to houses we would see today. We weren't allowed to go in, because it has not been reinforced and so it is not safe to have 60 odd students wandering around. We headed back to the bus and on to our last stop of the day.
Our last stop of the day was Dromberg where we saw a Stone Circle and Fulacht Fiadh. The Stone circle is somewhat similar in design to stonehenge, yet this one is totally different. Stone circles are always comprised of an odd number of stones most of which are standing up for maximum strength. There is one stone which may have been used as an alter of sorts and it is aligned on the setting sun at the winter solstice. It was most likely used for rituals or religious ceremonies. Next to the stone circle was the remains of a small hut that was used as a house, possibly for a religious figure or someone who was in charge of guarding the stone circle.
The stone circle
The view from the stone circle
The alter like stone in the stone circle
Our professor Tómas imparting his knowledge
The outline of the hut
There was also a Flaucht Fiadh on the site, which is a horseshoe shaped berm with a big water trough and an oven like area. It was used to cook large amounts of meat. They would place the meat in the water and then heat stones on the fire. They would then throw the stones into the water and use it to boil the water thus cooking the meat.
The water trough to put the meat in
Drainage from the Flaucht Fiadh
We headed back to the bus for the trip back to Cork and the wonderful bus driver dropped us off only a few blocks away from our apartment instead of us having to walk the 15 min from campus!
No comments:
Post a Comment