1996:363 - CLONMEL: Old St Mary's Church, Tipperary

NMI Burial Excavation Records

County: Tipperary Site name: CLONMEL: Old St Mary's Church

Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 83:19 Licence number: 96E0037

Author: Dave Pollock

Site type: Church

Period/Dating: Late Medieval (AD 1100-AD 1599)

ITM: E 619946m, N 622550m

Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.354180, -7.707203

Three small trenches were cut by hand at three points close to the tower at Old St Mary's Church. The tower is square towards the base but its upper portion was rebuilt octagonally and subsequently heightened, probably in 1805.

A thirteenth/fourteenth-century sarcophagus was found protruding from the base of the tower, apparently employed as a bench. The tower has no foundations; it rests on a construction ground level c. 0.8m below the present ground surface. The relationship of the tower fabric to the rest of the building suggests its construction against a pre-standing chancel some time before the aisle was added to the nave.

Rathduff, Fethard, Co. Tipperary