1987:31 - LIMERICK: Broad St., Custom House, Limerick

This site is one of approx. 14 sites within the Designated Area. This is part of the 'Limerick: Inner City Project', which is being run under the supervision of Cecile O'Rahilly (appointed City Archaeologist by Limerick Corporation in October 1986).

The excavation at Broad St. (Site No. 4 of the Designated Area) was carried out between June and September 1987 and was funded by Limerick Corporation. Post-excavation work is in progress and is expected to be completed by April 1988. The conclusions reached below are therefore only tentative and will have to await further research.

The site, located in the Irishtown, fronts on to the west side of Broad Street. This is the main street forming the base of a Y-shaped plan and is also the street connecting the two medieval sections of the city: the Englishtown and the Irishtown. Behind the site, to the west, is the area excavated by Dr Ann Lynch in 1981.

The site is subdivided by a series of laneways running at right angles to Broad Street. The relationship of these laneways to the main street, and of the properties to both lanes and street, can be traced to the earliest settlement on the site when the laneways formed property boundaries and were represented by alignments of post/stakeholes dating from the late 13th century. The individual plots appear to be defined by narrow trenches c. 4m apart and this was confirmed by the excavated deposits which respected these limits.

The basements of the 18th- and 19th-century buildings destroyed the stratigraphy of approx. half of the total area of the site (c. 1000 sq.m) and also segmented the areas where the deposits survived intact. When excavated, these latter provided evidence of settlement from the late 13th century through to the 17th century.

There was evidence for both wooden and stone-built structures dating to the late medieval period. A series of stakeholes cut through the earlier deposits may represent a portion of a house plan. Sherds of pottery datable approx. to the 14th/15th centuries were found associated with a substantial stone wall located towards the northern limits of the site.

The lower courses of two superimposed stone-built kilns were located close to one of the laneways and date to the same period, based on the evidence of the pottery recovered. Charred grain deposits found associated with the upper kiln suggest that they were used as graindrying kilns.

Located in two areas at the west side of the site were a total of 14 pits, each measuring c. 2m in diameter and up to 1.7m deep. These were partly cut into the natural clays and were similar to those recorded on Dr Lynch's excavation. From the evidence it would appear that these areas were open yards/gardens for the structures which fronted on to Broad Street. One of the pits was a cess pit, but it is not yet clear what function the others served. Analysis of the samples may help to define this. The pottery recovered from the pit fill suggests a late medieval date.

Seventeenth-century activity was confined to a deposit c. 0.4m thick which sealed one of the pit areas.

Imported and native pottery was recovered from stratified deposits; these sherds offer a date range from the late medieval period through to the 17th century. Also recovered was a hoard of 8 badly encrusted coins, possibly of silver. Extensive evidence for comb-making was provided in the l4th-/15th-century levels by localised pockets of antler waste and offcuts as well as unfinished plates of bone and antler. Much of the evidence for this activity had been truncated by the later basements.