County: Limerick Site name: CROMWELL'S FORT, Singland
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 5:28 Licence number: 96E0200
Author: Rose M Cleary, Dept. of Archaeology, University College Cork
Site type: Bastioned fort
Period/Dating: Post Medieval (AD 1600-AD 1750)
ITM: E 559533m, N 656725m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.660197, -8.598176
The site has been designated 'Cromwell's Fort', and the cartographic evidence suggests that a major fortification existed at the location up to the time of the construction of a reservoir in 1825. The designation 'Cromwell's Fort' may be incorrect, as the main fortifications during the Cromwellian period on the west side of Limerick city appear to have been Ireton's in 1651 rather than Cromwell's of 1650. Most of the maps suggest that the fortification was star-shaped, but these may have been more pictorial than an accurate representation of the site. The site was almost totally destroyed by the water reservoir construction. The south-east bastion, which apparently survived up to recently, may have been removed during the levelling of a nearby soccer pitch or the construction of houses to the south-east of the reservoir.
The road which was recorded on the north side of the excavation appears to have been on the same line as a road recorded by some of the seventeenth-century maps. It consisted of a cobbled surface bore evidence of repair.
