County: Clare Site name: MOOGHAUN SOUTH
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 42:73 Licence number: 92E0093
Author: Eoin Grogan, The Discovery Programme
Site type: Hillfort
Period/Dating: Bronze Age (2200 BC-801 BC)
ITM: E 540763m, N 670640m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.783532, -8.878105
A total of eighteen weeks' excavation uncovering an area of 230m2 was carried out at Mooghaun in 1995. This concentrated along the middle enclosure on the south-east side of the site where a sequence of habitation horizons, structures and features were revealed. This area produced a large quantity of pottery and animal bone but little else in the way of artefactual evidence. Nevertheless, the character of the pottery and the comparison of the stratigraphic evidence with that of other cuttings, including the dated section of the rampart on the northern side of the site (see Discovery Programme Reports 2), suggest that all of this activity, including the construction of this portion of the rampart, should date to the early stages of the Late Bronze Age. Two principal activity horizons were excavated this year: the occupation horizon identified in the 1994 season and the rampart itself.
Excavation and test-cuttings in the area of the middle rampart showed that the occupation material extends for c. 38m along a south-east-facing terrace and covers a total area of c. 200m2. Three principal horizons of activity were identified within an apparently continuous habitation phase.
Two circular houses occurred on the inner (northern) portion of the level terrace, along the outer edge of which the rampart had been constructed. To the west a straight 7m stretch of wall constructed of 3–5 courses of limestone slabs occurred towards the western side of the 1995 excavation. It was associated with the final occupation phase. The wall may have delimited the southern edge of a structure, or possibly an enclosing feature. Further to the west was a shallow, partly rock-cut, trench which curved north and west away from the line of the later rampart. The function of this feature is uncertain although it may be associated with the wall. The wall itself was partly dismantled during the construction of the bank of redeposited material forming the inner portion of the middle rampart.
The rampart had been formed of linear compartments defined by large slabs and blocks that had been infilled with limestone rubble. It was constructed along the outer (southern) edge of a natural terrace in the hillslope. It averages 10m in width in this sector. The inner face of the stone portion of the rampart consisted of two closely set vertical walls formed by 3-5 irregular courses of large slabs and blocks built to a maximum height of 1.2m. A low bank forming a wedge of re-deposited occupation material had been piled against the inner side of this facing feature, giving the rampart a maximum width of 13m.
In addition to the area of the middle rampart, excavation was also carried out on a third house site near Enclosure 1; it is of similar structure to those excavated in 1994. Although no further dating evidence was revealed, samples from all three houses are being prepared for C14 dating. On the northern side of the site, outside the middle rampart, test-cuttings were extended across a newly discovered enclosure. Details of the structure were revealed, but there were no artefacts. Further dating strategies are now being considered.
13-15 Hatch St. Lower, Dublin 2
