County: Limerick Site name: LIMERICK: Island Road
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 5:17 Licence number: 98E0026
Author: Celie O Rahilly, Limerick Corporation
Site type: Town defences
Period/Dating: Late Medieval (AD 1100-AD 1599)
ITM: E 557759m, N 658043m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.671912, -8.624558
This site lies at the northern end of the Englishtown to the east of the Island Gate, between Island Road to the north-east, Old Dominick Street to the south-west and the new Northern Relief Road to the south-east. It was partly within the walled area of the medieval town, in an area known as the Orchard, which was part of the grounds of St Mary's Convent before being separated from it by the construction of the Northern Relief Road. Testing was carried out to ascertain the location of the town wall, which, according to cartographic evidence, crossed the site.
In 1989–90 B.J. Hodkinson carried out excavations on the line of the proposed road to the south-east of the site and traced the line of the wall across it (Excavations 1990, 42, E471). All that remained of the wall, apart from a small tower to the south-east, was a shallow cut with traces of rubble and mortar, crossing the site. Also uncovered was an external ditch.
The 1840s OS shows two angled stretches of wall marked 'Town Wall'. William Eyers's map, dated to 1752, shows a similar arrangement of angled wall area, with the notation: 'That Part of the Wall between N, O, is extremely bad, and very narrow in many places between Island Gate and Thomond Bridge'. There is also a section showing a profile of the town wall with the ditch some distance outside it. The Civil Survey describes three large plots and a few buildings in this area, to the north of St Domninic's Abbey.
Five cuts were made. They were positioned in such a way as to pick up the line of the wall based on the information from both of the maps and from the work on the adjacent site. There was no evidence of any masonry, or even of the base of the wall trench, as was identified on the adjacent site in 1995 (Excavations 1995, 54, 95E0064). The western side or internal face of the ditch was, however, identified. The distance between this edge and the line of the town wall as represented on the 1840 OS plan decreased at the northern end, near the Island Gate.
City Hall, Limerick
