A vanishing medieval church site on Ireland’s Atlantic coast: a longitudinal study of coastal erosion at Staad Abbey, Co. Sligo, 1837–2020 Fiona Beglane1 and Jerry O’Sullivan2 1 Centre for Environmental Research, Innovation and Sustainability, Institute of Technology Sligo (beglane.fiona@itsligo.ie)

2 Cregmore, Castletaylor, Ardrahan, Co. Galway H21 Y8C5 Staad Abbey is a ruined medieval church in an exposed bay in north County Sligo, on Ireland’s Atlantic coast. It was once a chapel for pilgrims departing to the monastery on the island of Inishmurray.The church now stands on a low sea cliff, which contains rich midden deposits and other features that are eroding into the sea at a dramatic rate. Ordnance Survey maps, archaeological survey data and local memory are combined in a longitudinal study to map the progress of coastal erosion at Staad. This single case-study is an alarm call to statutory, curatorial and heritage management authorities throughout Atlantic Europe.

INTRODUCTION Ireland’s archaeological heritage is under threat from a number of sources. For archaeological sites on the coast, climate change and rising sea levels are a particular source of concern. The twentieth century saw air temperatures increasing, with warmer, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers. It is forecast that this trend will continue, with increased storm activity and intensity. Average temperatures are predicted to rise by up to 1.6°C by 2060 and sea levels are predicted to rise by up to 0.8m by the end of the century (Daly 2019, 19). Relative sea levels over the Holocene are affected by two factors: increased quantities of water in the oceans owing to the melting of polar ice, and changes in levels of the land owing to isostatic uplift (Kominz 2001). County Sligo has seen little change in relative sea level over the last few thousand years (Edwards and O’Sullivan 2008; Shennan et al. 2018); however, as described below, sea levels have certainly risen somewhat since the Bronze Age. This paper describes one particular case-study in which rising sea levels and increased storm activity are resulting in ongoing destruction of archaeological stratigraphy and building remains, threatening their total loss within a generation. A PILGRIM CHAPEL IN A MARITIME LANDSCAPE Staad Abbey is located in an exposed bay in north County Sligo, on Ireland’s Atlantic coast (Fig. 1) (ITM 562869 849289; RMP SL005-022). Here, a ruined medieval church stands in a pasture field, close to a low sea cliff with a maximum height of c. 3m. In spite of the name it was not an abbey, i.e. a conventual or cloistered building group, but a simple building more

The Journal of Irish Archaeology Volume XXIX, 2020

Fig. 1—Staad Abbey, Co. Sligo: location map.

typical of later medieval rural churches in Ireland.The ruin is c. 12m long by 6m wide, built in mortared rubble, rectangular in plan, with a single surviving window embrasure in the east gable and a doorway in the south wall.An irregular, embanked enclosure at the east end contains a cillín cemetery for unbaptised infants and neonates. Several metres from the west end there are rubble remnants of an outdoor altar or leacht.

Within the cliff face at Staad the stratigraphy consists of four main elements: (a) Carboniferous

177–189