County: Limerick Site name: LIMERICK CITY
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: P. D. Sweetman, National Parks and Monuments Branch, Office of Public Works
Site type: Castle - Anglo-Norman masonry castle
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 558160m, N 657644m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.668353, -8.618587
Archaeological excavations were undertaken here for a period of four weeks in the autumn of 1976. The area investigated was in the NW quadrant immediately to the S and E of the NW corner tower. The work was undertaken prior to landscaping of the area by the Limerick Corporation.
The remains of two walls running on an E-W axis which had been used as part of an 18th-century barracks were discovered to have 13th-century foundations. Late 13th-century Saintonge and Ham Green pottery were found stratified underneath a comparatively modern wall running S from the NW corner tower close to the bank of the river Shannon.
The bulk of the finds were located under the remains of an 18th-century barracks and consisted of late 17th-century pottery including an almost complete gravel-tempered bowl, a Bellarmine jug and large sherds of sgraffito plates. A small amount of late 13th-century French, Ham Green and Irish pottery was also found.
