County: Tipperary Site name: FETHARD
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 94E0054
Author: Jo Moran
Site type: Town defences
Period/Dating: Late Medieval (AD 1100-AD 1599)
ITM: E 622045m, N 635048m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.466428, -7.675559
The town wall of Fethard is dated to the 15th century and is in a remarkable state of preservation. Two test trenches were excavated on the line of it, in the property immediately to the south of the site of the east gatehouse on Barracks St. (No 1, The Square). The wall is demolished to below ground level on this site. It stands to almost full height in the property to the south and across the road to the north. The trenches were excavated with a view to further excavation ahead of rebuilding this section of wall.
Excavation
The ground level over the whole site was truncated during recent building to c. 0.1m below the level of Barracks St. Two trenches were opened, one 1m x 12m and the other 1m x 4m. Remains of the town wall foundations survived in both trenches immediately (c. 0.05m) below present ground level, but the foundations were badly disturbed during recent landscaping. The position of the wall in the trenches shows that the wall ran in a straight line from the property to the south and must have joined the gatehouse at its south-east corner. In Trench 2 a layer to the west of the wall, believed to be associated with construction, produced three sherds of pottery dated to the late 13th/early 14th century. A mixed layer of clay and soil to the west of the wall in Trench 1 also produced a sherd of pottery of this date. Pre-wall features, including rows of stakeholes, were exposed in both trenches; they were not excavated. Excavation stopped at a depth of c. 0.5m. No further work was carried out on the site.
Sonas, Rathduff, Fethard, Co. Tipperary
