FIELD SURVEY AT COOLEY GRAVEYARD 2014...Bernician Studies Group: Inishowen Fieldwork 2014 8 Our earlier surveys The 2014 survey at Cooley is the third of our Inishowen field seasons

Bernician Studies Group: Inishowen Fieldwork 2014 1

FIELD SURVEY AT COOLEY

GRAVEYARD 2014

Above Lough Foyle: Max Adams discussing the skull house with Cowan Duff and Sean Beattie

The Bernician Studies Group Newcastle upon Tyne

November 2014


The work of the Bernician Studies Group on Inishowen In August 2014 we made our third visit to conduct fieldwork on the Inishowen peninsula of County Donegal. We focussed our attention on the Cooley graveyard on the side of a hill above the town of Moville and overlooking the waters of Lough Foyle. • We have recorded early cross-marked grave slabs. • We have conducted a magnetometry survey in the

field around the graveyard. • We have begun a detailed ground survey of all the

features of the graveyard.

On Inishowen, from the 5th century, a line of kings descending from Éogain developed the powerful kin group and state we know as Cenél nÉogain. The kings built their first centre at the south-east tip of the peninsula at Elaghmore; and later, when their power reached beyond the peninsula, they built Grianán of Aileach within the ring of the prehistoric hillfort. A set of large stone enclosures on hilltop or hill-slope settings might be understood as centres of the secular elites of the time. Inishowen also has a distinctive cluster of notable early ecclesiastical centres, among them Moville, alongside Lough Foyle.

Some of the ecclesiastical centres are well known because high crosses still stand here, or because the sites continued to be used for burials, and so graveyards (mostly now disused) and ruined chapels are still to be seen. This is the case at Moville where the features of interest are within and around the Cooley cemetery.

Inishowen, Iona, Lindisfarne

Connections In the Bernician Studies Group we are keen to trace the networks of the early Christian era. Bishop Aidan founded the first monastery in Bernicia on the island of Lindisfarne in 635 as an offshoot of the Island monastery of Iona, founded in 563 by Abbot Columcille from Donegal.


Cross-marked grave slabs Small stones placed at the head and foot mark the graves of the Cooley cemetery. Many of these are broken stones, re-used from some other setting. Some among these have a cross carved on to one of the faces, and other stones were cut into the shape of a cross.

These grave markers came to light in 2010 when the Cooley Cross Heritage Development Committee cleared the graveyard of dense undergrowth. The group recognised some of the crosses at the time of the clearance, but we have now identified twenty, from small fragments to a few surviving almost complete. We have also recorded these in a systematic way with high quality photographs and drawings at a scale of 1:5 made on to squared paper. In due course, we will draw up fair copies in ink from these. Of the twenty crosses, 10 are ring-headed crosses carved into a stone slab, such as the example shown here. A feature of particular interest in this one is that the bottom end of the cross shaft tapers to a point. It is as if this cross in stone was carved to represent a wooden cross to be driven into the ground. Martin Hopkins pointed out this feature to us. During our survey we found another example in which only the pointed end survived on a stone that had been broken and set sideways when it was re-used. Several of the cross-marked stones had been placed upside down when they were re-used as markers in this graveyard. Was this accidental, or was there some deliberate reason for this?

The images below are examples of our 1:5-scale field drawings (not shown here at the scale drawn).


Magnetometry survey We have conducted a magnetometry survey in the field around the Cooley graveyard to test for the presence of precinct boundaries and other features of an early monastery site. This technique measures the intensity of the earth’s magnetic field at points across a grid and in this way it enables us to detect features buried beneath the ground surface through variations of the intensity at different points.

The measurements we take in the field are processed by computer software to represent the results as different tonal values for higher and lower readings. We can see an arc of a circle curving around the east (right hand) edge of the graveyard and continuing left in a loop around the top of the survey area. Beyond this arc, further east of the graveyard, is a second arc, concentric with the first. We have but a short length of this and the feature continues north and south beyond the survey area. The inner arc describes a circle of some 85 metres diameter, and if the outer arc also forms a circle its diameter would be 100 – 110 metres. We can think of these features as being precinct boundaries, characteristic of an early Irish monastery site. Extremely high readings (red patches on the diagram) are likely to show the sites of small-scale industrial processes. A particularly large patch lies beside the outer arc. Within the inner precinct, circular marks, possibly the outlines of buildings, show north of the graveyard and also a large rectangular outline at the edge of the field, close to the high cross by the graveyard gate. The double-precinct boundary seen here is closely comparable to those at Carrowmore and Clonca which we found in our surveys of 2012 and 2013; and our test excavation at Carrowmore showed hearths for small-scale metal working at a precinct boundary. These three Inishowen sites have much in common.

To locate the survey The rectangular void, almost totally surrounded by the survey area, marks the position of the Cooley graveyard, with the high cross standing immediately outside its gate, to the left. A road approaches the graveyard from the lower edge, swinging around left by the high cross. The land slopes downwards towards Lough Foyle on the east, the right hand side of the diagram. The survey covers the total area of the large field that surrounds the graveyard and it is clear that features revealed in the survey are extending into neighbouring fields. We need to return to the site and survey these fields to obtain the complete ground plan of the precinct.


Ground survey of Cooley graveyard A week of concentrated observation and recording in the confined area of the graveyard has convinced us both that there is much we do not know about this site and that detailed, accurate recording can help unpick the sequence in which features appeared.

The small building towards the east end of the site, known as the skull house, is likely to be a mortuary house or reliquary shrine for a saint, comparable with others in Counties Derry and Down. Survey of high accuracy with electronic equipment is showing that the many small marker stones resolve out into pairs, marking the heads and feet of graves set out in rows across the site, north to south. We can now see also that the graves are more tightly packed together towards the east end of the site, close to the skull house, than further away at the west. This might mean that there was prestige to be had in burial close to the shrine of the saint. Three rows run towards the skull house from both north and south but stop short, respecting its position, while the fourth row has a slight curve to sweep round its north side. These points all suggest that the skull house is an early feature on the site; but how early? Two walls standing all-but roof high are thought to be from churches, one a parish church of the medieval era, but it is not possible from surface evidence to trace their footprints beyond the visible walls. One thing certain is that if these walls are from buildings, the row graves take no account of their presence but extend in unbroken lines across the areas of their floors. The churches, therefore, (if that is what they were) must have become ruinous before the row graves were set out. This means either that the row graves must be relatively late features in the graveyard (late medieval or later), or that the buildings must be much older than supposed, possibly from the era of the shrine. We need to look further into all of these matters.

The high cross, just outside the graveyard wall, with Max Adams, Joy Rutter, Deb Haycock.

Broken Stones Re-used We have seen that among the cross-marked grave slabs, some are broken fragments from a larger original, of which some have been placed upside down or sideways. This means that, in the positions in which we find them, they have been re-used from some earlier features. There is a stage of use in this graveyard no longer visible to us.


Scenes on site

Elizabeth Harkin, Colm O’Brien

Mary Kenny

John McNulty

Jack Pennie, Deb Haycock

Still life with survey drawings

Martin Hopkins

Setting out a survey grid: (l-r) Elizabeth Harkness, Martin Hopkins, Joy Rutter, Jack Pennie, Deb Haycock


Scenes on Site

The grave markers: not such a jumble as it might seem; and the wall of a ruined building

Visitors and team at lunchtime


Our earlier surveys The 2014 survey at Cooley is the third of our Inishowen field seasons. In 2012 we surveyed Carrowmore, known for its two high crosses. In 2013 we followed up the Carrowmore survey with a small excavation to test features recorded in the magnetometry survey and we surveyed the neighbouring site of Clonca.

The survey at Carrowmore shows a double-circle precinct, with the outer precinct straddling the present road line and the east edge of the inner precinct clipping the edge of the road. Erosion of the steep gorge of the Carrowmore river has taken away the western edge of the complex. We now understand why the two high crosses, well known features in the landscape, are positioned where they are. One is close to the centre of the whole complex and the other stands outside its main entrance.

At Clonca, surrounding the present graveyard and ruined church, we found a great complexity of features. Here again are traces of a double-circle precinct on the terrace edge above the valley floor, and it looks as though this connects into other land boundaries and what might be a droveway to manage the movement of livestock between the valley floor and the higher ground. The dark green area on the plan represents the graveyard, with the ruined church. The high cross is in the field to the west and we can see a dense cluster of small features around the cross. These might be graves.


Reflections of the findings After our fieldwork at three sites, we are now able to stand back from the fine site-by-site detail and take a wider view of what we have found out, to characterise the early church sites of Inishowen more generally and to see how this compares with cases in Ireland more widely and beyond Ireland in the British isles.

We have now confirmed the presence and the precise positions of three ecclesiastical enclosures on Inishowen, establishing for the first time direct evidence to link the visible high crosses and graveyards with statements from historical records about monasteries and monastic founders. At Carrowmore, where we have tested the magnetometry results by excavation, we have shown that there is good preservation of archaeological features and a high potential for yielding more high-grade information. We now also have unambiguous evidence from a set of radiocarbon dates from the excavation spanning the period AD 600 – 1100 for the use of the precinct in the early Christian era. All of this enables us to propose a characterising of the form of early Christian sites on Inishowen in broad terms: a bounded double-circle precinct whose innermost zone is marked with a monumental cross and possibly a saint’s tomb-shrine, both of which held the memory of the place beyond its original use as a monastery, and which have attracted burials into modern times. We still need to find out such matters as what buildings and other features stood within the monastic precincts and how they were used, but the way is open towards this; and it is now open to us or to others to test this model against other sites on the peninsula and beyond.

Overseas Connections We know also that early Christian people exported this form of ecclesiastical precinct across the seas, for it has been found in Whithorn, in south-west Scotland. The ring-headed crosses carved on grave marker stones, of the sort we have recorded at Cooley, also take us beyond Ireland and to the west of Scotland where there are crosses very similar to those in the Cooley graveyard. In fact, we see simple cross-inscribed stones all the way along the Atlantic fringe of Ireland and Scotland and beyond to the Shetlands. St Columcille’s monastery of Iona then connects us directly with our own home territory of Bernicia, for it was from here that Bishop Aidan came to found the monastery of Lindisfarne in 635. An even closer connection between Inishowen and Bernicia comes in the person of Aldfrith, King of Northumbria 685-703, whose mother was Fina, daughter of the Inishowen king Colmán Rímid.

Ring-headed crosses from Iona.


Our Commitment to public information Our work has attracted a good deal of interest from communities on Inishowen. Some came out to see us, and others who had come to visit the site not knowing we were working, stopped to talk to us. We are making a point of responding to this level of interest by presenting our work and our findings not only in specialist archaeological publications but also to the wider community.

Martin Hopkins and members of the Cooley Cross Heritage Development Committee are doing fine work in looking after the graveyard and in making it known more widely. It has been a pleasure for us to collaborate with them in finding out more about this site and to talk and write about the findings. Towards the end of our survey, we took along our maps, field drawings and notes, and the up-to-the-minute magnetometry survey, just as it was emerging, to Rosato’s bar in Moville where we spent an evening of animated conversation with the people who came to look and to talk to us. We were struck by the extent of interest and the depth of knowledge of the Cooley graveyard held in the local community and we would like to express our thanks to all who made it such an engaging evening, and to the staff at Rosato’s for the hospitality they afforded. If you would like to see the report of our surveys and excavation in Inishowen in 2012 and 2013, you will be able to download the file from our website, where this report is also available.

Martin Hopkins (right) showing visitors from Washington State around the site.

www.bernicianstudies.eu

We have a facebook presence under the name Friends of Bernice. Like the site and you will see the postings we make from time to time.


Our Thank You We have benefitted from the kindness and the assistance of many people. We are pleased to offer here our thanks to people and organisations who have helped us and who have taken an interest in our work.

The costs of running the 2014 fieldwork at Cooley cemetery were met directly by members of the Bernician Studies Group. P&O Ferries and the Lough Foyle Ferry Company helped us with assistance on travel costs. Daniel Doherty Bakery supplied us with bread. Seamus and Cressida Canavan of The Moville Holiday Hostel provided us with accommodation and looked after us. Without the consent of the farmer William Norris and assistance of Michael Hegarty we could not have undertaken our fieldwork. In England, The University of Newcastle, through the good offices of Professor Sam Turner and Dr Alex Turner, kindly lent us surveying equipment, as also did Mike Leddra; and we value the continuing support of Professor Ian Neal of Sunderland University. We enjoyed the company of Elizabeth Harkin and Mary Kenny from the local community of Inishowen who came to help us on site, and it was a pleasure for us to receive visits on site from John Hegarty, Dessie McCallion and Mervyn Watson who helped us at Carrowmore last year and from Sean Beattie, Seamus Doherty, William McElhinney, Neil McGrory, Trish Murphy, Abbie Storch, Caroline O’Donavan, and others whom we do not know. We enjoyed sociability at McGrory’s of Culdaff, and at Rosato’s in Moville where we were able to show our findings one evening. We have benefited greatly from advice, discussion, information generously offered by Sean Beattie, Caroline Carr, Brian Lacey, Neil McGrory. We carried out our work under licence from the Department of Arts, Heritage and The Gaeltacht. We owe a special debt of gratitude to Martin Hopkins who kept us company each day and saw to it that we had what we needed. He has done more than anyone to care for the Cooley cemetery.


The Bernician Studies Group The Bernician Studies Group is a community-based study and research group in north-east England, constituted as a small charity in the UK. It arises out of university lifelong learning and it maintains university links through its Directors of Research, Max Adams and Colm O’Brien, and community engagement through the Explore lifelong learning programme.

Donal Donnelly-Wood, Deb Haycock,

Cowan Duff, Bridget Gubbins.

Geoff Taylor, Sara Anderson

Map work

Group Members 2013-14 Max Adams, Sara Anderson, Georgina Ascroft, Donal Donnelly-Wood, Cowan Duff, Bridget Gubbins, Deborah Haycock, John McNulty, Colm O’Brien, Jack Pennie, Sandra Richardson, Joy Rutter, Ray Shepherd, Geoff Taylor, Sue Ward, Marion Whyte.

Collaborations The Bernician Studies Group runs seminar sessions in conjunction with the Joseph Cowen Centre’s Explore lifelong learning programme in Newcastle upon Tyne.

www.weareexplore.org.uk Dr Sabrina Pietrobono has participated in our work during her tenure of a Marie Curie Fellowship at Newcastle University. Dr Hermann Moisl, Professor Brian Roberts, and Professor Diana Whaley have been welcome guest participants in our discussions.

Website www.bernicianstudies.eu Facebook www.facebook.com/bernicehasfriends

Document Referencing: BSG/Irish Project/Inishowen/Public Reports and Presentations. 12.11.14 Document Authors: Colm O’Brien, Max Adams Document Checking: Bernician Studies Group Photos: Members of Bernician Studies Group

Documents

FIELD SURVEY AT COOLEY GRAVEYARD 2014...Bernician Studies Group: Inishowen Fieldwork 2014 8 Our earlier surveys The 2014 survey at Cooley is the third of our Inishowen field seasons