1974:060 - AUGHINISH ISLAND SITE 5, Limerick

The site had been shown as an antiquity on the first edition of the Ordnance Survey map of 1840. At the time of excavation its large, broad-oval interior was partly enclosed by the original stone bank covered in grass and partly by a modern dry-stone fence. The entrance was through a narrow gap in the modern fence and there were no surface indications of an original entrance. It was sited above the 50ft contour on the exposed NW slope of a long ridge overlooking the river Shannon.
Much of the interior was excavated revealing, beneath a thin layer of top-soil, either limestone bedrock or a mixture of stones and boulders set in a yellow subsoil. The original dry-stone bank contained some large limestone boulders but was essentially flimsy and had collapsed mainly outwards. No signs of a fosse was found nor postholes or trenches denoting a palisade.
Four separate activities could be traced on the site. The first- some iron smelting- occurred before the building of the enclosure (iron slag was found underneath the enclosure bank). The enclosure appears to have been built not for human occupation since no evidence for this was found, but probably to contain animals. A thorough study of the animal bones by Edelgard Harbison-Soergel provided evidence which suggested that it was built as a sheep-fold rather than a cattle enclosure, and that its use as such was likely to have been between 1666 and c.1750. The enclosure was used for a period as a burial ground (a row of 8 shallow graves aligned E-W was found towards the SW edge of the interior). After it had fallen into disrepair, an insubstantial hut or shelter was erected beside it, partly overlying its collapsed wall.
The only stratified finds were animal bones and iron slag from under the bank. The other finds span the period 16^th-19th century- objects of iron include nails, a horseshoe, a hinge pivot and a knife of C16th type. Five fragments of clay pipes were found, a whetstone, a teapot-lid and a fragment of unglazed pottery. This sherd appears to be a handle from a stoneware costrel whose fabric would suggest a late 16^th–early 17th context, deriving from N. France or Belgium.