County: Limerick Site name: ST SAVIOUR'S DOMINCAN PRIORY, Limerick
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 94E0001
Author: Josephine Moran
Site type: Religious house - Dominican friars
Period/Dating: Late Medieval (AD 1100-AD 1599)
ITM: E 557959m, N 657843m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.670131, -8.621576
A six-week excavation was carried out on the site of St Saviour's Dominican Priory during January and February 1994, ahead of redevelopment. The site lies to the north of the priory church (only the north wall survives) and it is bounded on the east and north by the remains of the town wall. Two trenches were excavated, one in the area of the west cloistral range (7m x 14m) and one against the town wall (4m x 4m). E. Twohig (UCC) uncovered skeletons and a wall in the area of Trench 1 in 1975 when the site was threatened by major road works.
Trench 1
The excavation located the north-west corner of the cloister and part of the west range of the priory. Some damage had been caused by 18th-century tanning pits but where the walls survive they stand to a height of c. 1m. A large deposit of painted medieval window glass was discovered within the west range.
Four graves were found within the cloister walk, one in a coffin. It was not possible to relate them to the priory as contemporary ground level did not survive.
Several priory features were uncovered. The earliest were a group of postholes and slots of an unknown date, cut by a ditch, and a group of cess pits. The ditch produced a stick pin of the mid-13th century, the date of the priory foundation.
Trench 2
The town wall today stands to a height of 2m on the inside and 4.2m on the outside and at a width of 0.5m. The wall is too narrow to support a wall walk. The soil which accumulated immediately after construction produced finds dating to the late 13th / early 14th century suggesting that the wall was built contemporary with the priory.
Sonas, Rathduff, Fethard, Co. Tipperary
