Down and Out at Dysert O'Dea

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Exploring the Gaelic Social Order through Castle Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Díseart Molanín castle was constructed by a leading lineage of the O’Dea clan in the late 15th century in north central Co. Clare, Ireland. The clan occupied a territory within a composite chiefdom that had been dismembered and incorporated into a primitive state in the 12th century AD, led by the O’Briens. The O’Deas hung on to their lands as aristocratic clients of the O’Brien leaders, and in the specific case of Díseart Molanín on account of the status of the O’Deas of as high-ranking clergy and coarbs of an ecclesiastical territory. Though the O’Deas and their successors the Neylons weathered the political turmoil of the 16th and 17th centuries, they fell prey to the negative consequences of downward genealogical emplacement and the monetization of the political economy. The archaeological survey of fields in the castle’s vicinity clarified the organization of the local political economy as expressed by the organization of land enclosure. What the survey highlighted was the continuity of this economy from the Early Medieval Period. The excavation carried out on the grounds of the castle revealed the physical impact of Oliver Cromwell’s 1649 invasion of Ireland.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Exploring the Gaelic Social Order through Castle Archaeology

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22916