The Medieval Stud Farm of Royal Mullamast: A Story to Read and Hear

The excavation opened a transect through the village, revealing boundary ditches, roadways, a possible village green, a number of house plots and a pond—the latter may have been used by the villagers for fish. (The exact locations of a church and a castle documented at Mullamast are still unknown to us today.) The boundary ditches along the edges of roadways and around house plots were substantial. Along with delineating lands, they also provided necessary drainage channels. Evidence for actual building structures was less clear, as the buildings were probably constructed on pads, as opposed to wall footings and foundation trenches. Cattle, sheep and pigs were reared and slaughtered for their meat, but also supplied milk, bone tools, wool fleeces and hides. Animals were also traded at fairs in nearby settlements. Bones of other animals and birds from the excavations included dog, cat, deer, pine martin, fowl, pheasant, crow, goose, mallard, grouse and squirrel. Evidence for the harvesting and processing of cereal crops, like oats, barley, wheat and rye, shows that that arable farming was also a very important aspect of village life and sustenance. A long-cross silver penny of King Edward I discovered at Mullamast was minted in Canterbury between 1294 and 1299. A most unusual find was a fourth-century AD Roman coin, possibly of Constantine the Great, which was found in the foundations of a building, perhaps inserted there for good luck by a returning pilgrim.

The distinguishing feature of the settlement was the unusually high proportion of horse remains in the animal bone assemblage and especially smaller horses corresponding in stature to the hobby. The hobby is a small, agile horse, which was prized and bred for raiding and scouting in times of war. They would have been rode by the specialist light cavalry called hobelars. They were bred, trained and exported from Ireland for use in military campaigns abroad; for example, to serve in Edward’s campaign against the Scots. The village of Mullamast may well be the first attested stud farm in the long history of horse breeding in County Kildare and a place where the villagers specialised in horses bred for warfare.

Mullamast flourished in the 13th and 14th centuries. Like other similar settlements, its decline probably resulted from a combination of factors, rather than a single catastrophic event—factors like climate deterioration, geography, the Bruce Invasion in 1315, the Black Death, and a resurgence of the native Irish. An added, possibly significant, reason for the decline of Mullamast was a weakening in the market for the hobby horse, owing to the waning popularity of the hobelars in favour of mounted longbow men.