Digging up history at Killilagh Church

 

BUDDING archaeologists and historians in North Clare will have the chance to take part in an archeological dig this Saturday at Killilagh Church in Doolin.

The Doolin Heritage Committee and the Save Killilagh Church project are behind the dig, which begins at 10am and continues until 4.30pm. Long-time Doolin resident and commercial archaeologist Joseph McCooey is one of the organisers.

“The dig will be carried out by a licensed archaeologist. The reason for the dig is that builders will be working on a window in the church before the end of the month. They will be putting up scaffolding so before they come on site, we have to make sure anything they do won’t interfere with the archaeology of the site. This dig is open to the public. It is a good way for members of the public to meet with the committee. The archaeologist in charge will be Graham Hull from TVAS [archaeological consultants],” he explained.
While the dig won’t be going very deep, Joseph believes the volunteers could still find artefacts.

“That church hasn’t been touched since the 17th century and we are digging inside it, so you might find nothing but you might find something. The licence is only to facilitate the builders’ equipment. The equipment won’t go much deeper than six inches so we won’t go much more than 10 inches in the dig,” he said.

An ongoing project the group is working on is a survey of Killilagh Graveyard.

“The survey involves taking note of the graves. They haven’t been properly recorded ever. We will also do a small amount of cleaning but we don’t want to be too invasive. The way we will record the graves is that I have written a series of questions and we will answer these on each grave. We will note the size of gravestone, the type, whether it is hand-cut or not, we then take a photo of it and record its GPS. Then down the road people will know where all the graves are because they will be numbered,” Joseph outlined.

“We are trying to involve local people as much as possible. We have found graves from 1760 and Michael Shannon will do the genealogy of the family,” he added.

Information gathered on the survey will be showcased during the Doolin Heritage Weekend taking place on June 22 and 23.

“When a cemetery is used, people know where their own graves are but then when people die out, the location of the graves gets forgotten. The oldest grave we have found is 1633. So there is no living memory of those people.

“The problem we find is that things are not recorded. Maybe there is a man in the village who knows all the graves but he dies, then there is no record of it. We are trying to record these so that won’t happen in the future.

“A lot of the people who have family buried in Killilagh no longer live in Ireland. We are partly funded by The Gathering and what we are trying to do is welcome back families who have gone. Some of these are still living in Clare but there are five or six families that are all in the USA,” he outlines.

The heritage group has been running informative talks on the grounds of the church and plan to continue this until the Doolin Heritage Weekend.

“The heritage weekend last year was brilliant. We built up a lot of contacts and they are still with us. It was very good for networking. This year we are trying to broaden the Heritage Weekend and have more local involvement so if people want to come up with talks for us to put in place, people can do so.

“One talk that we will be doing is on the connection of the McNamaras and Doolin. Some people might say why the McNamaras? Well there is their connection with Dylan Thomas but also they have a large grave at Killilagh.

“Doolin is known for its music but it was one of the biggest mining centres of the last century. We will have a talk on that too. One of the interesting things about the mines is when they were draining for the mines, they found a zoomorphic brooch. Zoomorphic means it is in the shape of an animal and it was found with a tusk and a bronze pin in 1941.

“Because the project needs money, a local silversmith is going to make a replica of this brooch and we will put it up for auction so it is a one-off piece and hopefully that will raise something for us.

“There is also a stone head that had been on the church that was kept in safe-keeping by the Shannon family and is now in the Kilfenora Centre and Brian Hackett is going to make tie pins of the head itself for us to sell too,” he added.

The Doolin Heritage Group have other plans too, including the restoration of the stone wall around the church and the development of a stone wall building course for young people across the county.

“The church is surrounded by a 4ft wall, which is in need of repair. We have come up with a training scheme, where people would be trained in the art of stonewall building and lime mortaring. That is what the church is built of too. Originally these stones would have been held together with lime mortaring.

“So we want a training scheme open to all the people in Clare and we would like to have it in place this year. We are hoping to get young people involved. They will see what we are doing and they will get a trade as well,” Joseph outlined.

“The wall, it turns out, is full of architectural fragments. The east gable fell or was blown down and it is in the wall. It was used to build the wall,” he added.

The group is now looking for volunteers and to increase its links with schools, particularly primary schools and transition year pupils.

“We are looking for volunteers and local people to get involved as much as possible. There are lots of ways to volunteer. They can get involved in the survey. We will train them. We need volunteers for the heritage weekend too and we need ongoing volunteers and administration volunteers. Everyone is welcome really,” Joseph concluded.

Those wishing to take part in this weekend’s dig at Killilagh Church must bring steel toe-capped footwear and wet gear.

The details of the exact location can be found on the Save Killilagh Church Facebook page.