2025:487 - Kilbrittain, Cork

Archaeological testing was undertaken on the footprint of a single house site in the townland of Clashavanna, on the outskirts of the town of Kilbrittain, in Co. Cork. The proposed house site is located on the western side of a field annotated Church Field on the 1^st edition OS map (1842). An early ecclesiastical enclosure CO123-02201 and associated church CO123-02203 and graveyard CO123-02202 are located 150m to the east of the proposed house site.

Archaeological monitoring and excavation was undertaken by Eachtra Archaeological Projects in association with the development of Kilbrittain GAA Club in 2015 (15E0080). The GAA grounds are located in the south-east portion of Church Field. Nine areas of archaeological potential were identified while monitoring ground disturbance works and seven of these were excavated. They comprised isolated hearths and pits. One of the pits in Area 6, for example, was a possible Bronze Age cremation pit. The bone was examined by Linda Lynch and appears to represent a juvenile (7-12 years) and an adult individual. A sample of cremated bone was sent for radiocarbon dating but it failed to provide a date. A medieval date of cal AD 1270–1381 (UB–30584) was returned from the basal charcoal of the hearth in Area 9.

A total of five test trenches were excavated by machine on the footprint of the house foundations, the entrance and driveway and percolation area. Two trenches, 26m & 24m in length, and cruciform in plan, were excavated across the footprint of the house site. A further two trenches, each 10m in length, were excavated on the footprint of the entrance and driveway. A fifth trench, 10m in length, was excavated in the area of the percolation. The topsoil was generally 0.4m in depth and the subsoil was a stoney orange-brown silty clay with occasional inclusions of iron pan. No modern inclusions of pottery, clay pipe or brick fragments etc. were visible.

No archaeological stratigraphy, features or artefacts were recorded in any of the five test trenches in the area of the proposed single house site in Clashavanna, Kilbrittain.