1996:355 - CASHEL: Friar Street, Tipperary

An archaeological assessment was carried out on a large site off Friar Street, Cashel, in November 1996. The site is located on the east side of the town, immediately north of the site of the Franciscan friary (founded in 1265), one of the four ecclesiastical complexes in the town. The entire site lies within the zone of archaeological potential as defined by the Urban Archaeological Survey of the Office of Public Works.

Phase 1 of the assessment involved an examination of the above-ground remains of the town wall, which forms the western boundary of the site. The Phase 2 assessment involved an evaluation of the below-ground archaeological potential on the site based on the excavation of fifteen test-trenches, opened in four areas across the site.

Area 1 fronts onto Friar Street. Two trenches were opened to examine the nature of the archaeological remains from medieval housing or domestic settlement, if any, on Friar Street. The trenches revealed significant archaeological deposits which appear to survive in situ. The presence of medieval pottery in association with organic deposits, possibly clay floors and burning, is suggestive of medieval domestic activity (habitation) fronting onto Friar Street, although the nature of the deposits remains unclear. Further hand-excavation in the area would establish the exact nature and extent of the archaeology in this location.

Area 2 consists of a portion of the site to the rear of Area 1, back from the street but inside the town wall. Five trenches were opened. The area was substantially disturbed by the presence of a water tank, sewage tank and piping. However, medieval garden soil recorded in Trenches 12 and 13 and a well (thought to date from the seventeenth century) suggest activity, albeit of a limited nature, extending from Area 1.

Area 3 was the 4.5m-wide band outside and around the town wall in the suggested vicinity of the defensive moat or ditch revealed in Trenches 4 and 10. A ditch (defensive moat) was located in Trench 4, 1.2m below rubble fill in the trench. It was 4m wide and in deep and was filled with limestone masonry blocks (c. 0.75m x 0.45m) mixed with loose clay and red brick rubble. A thin deposit of organic material which included one sherd of medieval pottery lined the base of the ditch. It is possible that the organic fill is primary and that the ditch was recut in the post-medieval period and later filled with demolition rubble, so that most of the fill consists of eighteenth- or nineteenth-century rubble. Basal batter was evident on the town wall in the trench, where it sloped out for 0.5m. The ditch was further located to the south-east in Trench 10, where it was 3.6m wide; although its edge was not well defined, it appeared to slope inwards from 0.6m deep at the edge to 0.9m deep at the limit of the excavated area. The base of the ditch was filled with a sterile brown clay.

Area 4 comprises a large L-shaped portion of the site located outside the town wall and town ditch/moat. Six trenches were excavated in this part of the site, but no archaeological soils, features or deposits were recorded.The nature of any further archaeological work will depend on the plans for the redevelopment of the site.

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