County: Limerick Site name: BALLYDUFF
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: R.M. Cleary and V. Hurley, University College, Cork
Site type: Earthwork
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 578612m, N 621473m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.344438, -8.313896
The site, threatened by road improvements, is an enclosure with bank and external ditch and slight traces of a second bank outside the ditch. The ditch is unusually deep and the form of the earthwork suggested it may be of early medieval date. Excavation took place over 7 weeks. A trench was cut through the bank and ditch on the southern side of the earthwork, to ascertain the original profile and to establish the existence of another bank. This bank was found as was a second external ditch which had silted up completely.
The enclosure was partly excavated (about a third of the interior) on the eastern side as this was the area nearest the road. This revealed traces of the foundation trenches of some type of structure, perhaps a wooden building. They have not yet been investigated fully. A hearth site lay at the centre of the ‘building’ and was surrounded by numerous stake- and postholes. A roughly paved area to the north of the foundation trenches may have been a habitation floor. No dating evidence was recovered.
Despite application to Limerick County Council and the Royal Irish Academy, no funding has been provided to complete the excavation. The project has, therefore, been abandoned.
