County: Limerick Site name: ATTYFLIN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 21:25 Licence number: 96E0380
Author: James Eogan, Archaeological Development Services Ltd.
Site type: Enclosure
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 551060m, N 647845m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.579699, -8.722084
A complex of earthworks on the summit of a low hill (37m OD) was identified in the EIS for the proposed N20/N21 road improvement scheme in Attyflin townland. The earthworks are very low; the main feature is a subrectangular enclosure defined by a low rounded bank c. 80m long (north–south) and 48m wide; there is an entrance in the south-east corner. The north-west quarter of the enclosure is occupied by a slightly raised, level, rectangular platform, c. 23.5m long (north–south) by 19.5m wide. The remains of a field system, including a possible trackway, have been identified east of the enclosure.
The realignment of the Limerick–Cork (N20) road will directly affect the western part of the enclosure. Four test-trenches were initially excavated in March 1997 and three further trenches were excavated under the direction of Paul Logue in December 1997 (see Excavations 1997, No. 330). The brief was to assess the antiquity of the upstanding earthworks and to establish whether any ancient activity occurred along the line of the proposed road to the north and south of the visible features.
Trenches 1, 3 and 4 were 8m long by 1m wide; they were located along the line of the road, north and south of the enclosure. Nothing of archaeological significance was uncovered.
Trench 2 was 15m long; it was laid out across the western bank of the enclosure and extended onto the raised platform. The truncated remains of the bank were up to 0.2m thick; two sherds of glazed 13th/14th-century pottery and a number of animal bones were found in this feature. A ditch with an irregular V-shaped profile was found immediately west of the bank; it was 1.3m wide and 0.43m deep, and nothing was found in the fills. A gully was found 1.15m west of the ditch; it had a flat-bottomed U-shaped profile and was 0.75m wide and 0.25m deep, and its fill was also sterile. Three sherds of abraded medieval pottery were found in the ploughsoil above the ditch and gully.
A discontinuous gravelled surface which had been partially disturbed by ploughing was found just below the sod on the platform; two sherds of glazed pottery came from this context. A U-shaped ditch was found 1.17m east of the bank; three sherds of abraded medieval pottery were found in the upper fill. The stratigraphic relationship between the bank, the gravelled surface and the ditch was not satisfactorily established. A shallow pit, 0.75m in diameter, was found below the gravelled surface.
Open-plan hand-excavation in the western portion of the enclosure is due to take place in 1999 in advance of construction of the road.
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