County: Clare Site name: BALLINPHUNTA WEDGE TOMB, Ballinphunta
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: Brian Hodkinson
Site type: Megalithic tomb- wedge tomb
Period/Dating: Prehistoric (12700 BC-AD 400)
ITM: E 531076m, N 692977m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.983099, -9.026413
A small excavation was carried out in December, with funding from the OPW, to establish the extent of the monument in order to prevent the encroachment of the adjacent graveyard onto the monument.
Three main trenches were opened against the north, west and south of the tomb with two smaller subsidiary trenches to the north-west and south-west. In all three trenches there were shallow cuts for the insertion of the orthostats and it was possible to demonstrate that the cuts had been backfilled before the front slab was erected. There was no unequivocal evidence for a cairn around the tomb and the spread of stone around the mound appeared to be largely field stone. There was a single possible posthole in the south trench.
There were no finds which can be used to date the monument. A collection of modern pottery from layers abutting the orthostats shows that much of the mound around the monument is of quite recent date and also served to suggest that two large stones immediately west of the front slab are also of relatively recent date, presumably from field clearance.
It is planned that the report will appear in The Other Clare. The site documentation and the finds will be lodged in Limerick Museum.
Upper Gouig, Castleconnell, Co. Limerick
