Audleystown Cairn (From Valhalla and the Fjörd)

Audleystown Cairn – although it goes by a multitude of names and descriptions; horned cairn, court cairn and court tomb – as well as a track way on the left, follow this sign to the Audleystown Cairn although narrow, there is parking at the bottom of the track at near the site. The first thing I notice when I have parked at the small bay area are the views over the Lough; Chapel Island stands out with its strange looking hump, distant towers dot the landscape and I could sit here and simply take it all in. However, I proceed towards the monument, using the small and narrow muddy track that has been trampled into the long pasture grass. The site is two fields away from the parking area and at the end of the first field outcrops of gnarled trees stand guard like ancient statues. 

Almost tucked away in the corner surrounded by a green fence lies the dual court tomb. The site has two (segmented) galleries and forecourts at each end. As I stand on top of the small grassy mound I have my iPod playing Jamie N Commons (his song ‘Lead Me Home’). I don’t know if it’s the song or the site but there is a feeling of desolation somehow. I sit down and close my eyes for a moment of quiet contemplation, Commons’ husky and melancholy dulcet tones heightening my reflective thoughts.

The site was excavated in 1952 and found that the forecourts contained blocking rubble lying on a roughly paved surface. Excavation also uncovered burial deposits in most, but not all, of the chambers; “…including burned and unburned human bones, animal bones, pottery fragments, flint implements and earth. The human remains represented about 34 individuals, male and female adults and children, one of the largest collections of human remains ever found in a prehistoric burial.” (NIEA, 2009). The cairn material of local stone survives to a height of approximately two to three feet around the chambers and would have covered the entire monument. Excavation also uncovered pottery and flint artifacts including arrowheads and end scrapers that were undoubtedly funerary offerings.

To the east of Audleystown Cairn is a small roughly sub-circular enclosure that isn’t apparent when you initially scan the landscape. This is Templecormick church and enclosure ruins; quite small, they were until recently heavily overgrown almost sucked back in to pasture farmland. A recent survey and subsequent work by Macdonald in 2009 added much more information and detail to previous knowledge of this site as well as clearing much of the undergrowth and erecting a fence. The little church was built using local stone and constructed using dry stone walling with some evidence for ‘wedge’ stones used instead of mortar (Macdonald, 2008, 126). The church site is surrounded by a dry stone enclosure wall (which led to early interpretation by antiquarians that is was a reused cashel). Due to the undergrowth Macdonald’s ground plan is the first detailed one, but I have also created a separate image by overlaying the Archaeological Survey of County Down’s 1966 simple plan over Macdonald’s for reference. There are grave markers (Macdonald recorded thirteen) within the enclosure, but records suggest burial taking place outside the walled confines as human remains were discovered by ploughing outside the enclosure wall (ASCD, 1966, 297). The place name evidence for the site seems to be related to the nearby holy well of Tubberdoney from the Irish Tobar Domhnaigh or ‘Sunday Well’ (NIPNP, 2008, 80). There is a tantalizing potential for the place name to link back to an early Christian lineage; “…all churches that bear the name Domhnach were originally founded by St. Patrick, and he laid their foundations on a Sunday…having remained for seven Sundays in Cianachta, laid the foundations of seven sacred houses of the Lord, each of which he therefore called Dominica which in Irish is Domhnach.” (O’Laverty, 1878, 218). When I first read this I was rather excited, but then reading Macdonald’s survey account he raised a point I had completely forgotten about; the presence of the nearby Chapel Island. Although there are no certainties, it is likely that this account and place name evidence refers to that nearby site. There remains, however, so little known about the history of the idiosyncratic and enigmatic little church and enclosure.

The Winter Nights Draw In

As I continue to write my book (Valhalla and the Fjörd) it has given me time to reflect. I enjoy recanting tales from biking down the peninsula and around Strangford Lough, I am quite far into the writing process but getting it published is the challenge....it has been said that writing a book is the easy part getting it out into the public domain is the mountain you have to climb But researching a lot of the sites (rather extensively) has given me time to ponder my archaeology days. It's made me realise why I studied the subject; it was never to get rich, it was due to a genuine enjoyment of the topic. We have an unbelievable heritage trail - and not just around Strangford, around the whole province and coastline[s]. I have an idea for a second book called 'The Seventh Best' which would be along the same lines but on the north coast run (which is rumoured to be the seventh best motorbiking road in Europe). Whilst I write my manuscript I keep coming back to that shaded glade at Audley's Castle in July of this year. The heat was glorious, the shade even more so and the quiet time it gave me for contemplation was cathartic in the extreme. But I realise what a waste it has been that I am no longer in archaeology. I had lunch the other day with a former colleague and he used those terms (verbatim). It hit me (once again) like a sledgehammer, the acute pain making me wince. I was a fool. However, I also believe that everything happens for a reason....and for me it isn't difficult to find the positives....life is good and happy and that is, after all, what most strive for and never achieve!  

I revisited many sites as follow up fieldwork for the book and for some reason I picked some of the most sombre music for my iPod that day; as I stood at the likes of Audleystown Court Cairn, alone, with the wind rustling the trees, blowing eerily and strongly across the 'plain' I stared out the Lough and began to frown. These moments reminded me of undergraduate and postgraduate thesis' fieldwork trips. Halcyon days now gone, but I had my chance....again, something not everyone gets. 

The more I research the sites, the more intriguing it gets - so many excavations lost in various archives have revealed so much, amazing finds and sites that aren't even visible in the landscape any more. We are too quick, in my opinion, to and all too ready to relinquish our heritage abandoning it to natural forces and the ravages of time. But we lose a link with our past as well as robbing the next generations of knowledge and places to go! I know it sounds slightly melodramatic, but then again maybe the demand isn't there; after all what interests me doesn't necessarily interest someone else.

I am looking forward to Kivi getting a new bike - our biking season always seems to be in cold November, December and January winds as that is when he finishes filming. I remain loyal to the mighty Triumph and even if I had money, wouldn't change her for the foreseeable future.

It is that time of year when the dark nights make you slow down, like some natural hibernation state, the open fire with some logs crackling and glowing is what brings me inner peace.