County: Offaly Site name: NEW GRAVEYARD, Clonmacnoise
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 5:58 Licence number: E000558
Author: Heather A. King, National Monuments and Historic Properties Service, Dúchas
Site type: Habitation site
Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)
ITM: E 600912m, N 730669m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.326281, -7.986300
The final season of excavation on this site took place in June and July, with funding from the NMHPS and Offaly County Council (see Excavations 1990, 49; 1991, 40–1; 1992, 53–4; 1993, 66–7; 1994, 74–5; 1995, 76–7; 1996, 93–4 and 1997, 149). Four small cuttings in the north-east end of Section 1 of the New Graveyard, i.e. 14-17, were excavated to natural.
Cuttings 14 and 15 were opened to determine the extent of the 'revetment' at the northern (Shannon) side of the site. This feature, consisting of a bank of marl faced on the settlement side by large boulders (see Excavations 1997), ran for c. 8m east-west across the north (Shannon) side of Cutting 13. Excavation in Cuttings 14 and 15 showed that the 'bank' of marl extended a further 4m to the north (the full extent of this feature has not been recovered as it extends northwards beyond the graveyard wall) and c. 2.5m to the east. It now appears to represent an introduced, impervious layer laid on the early (i.e. 8th–10th-century) deposits on the low-lying ground adjacent to the Shannon. It was faced on the settlement side with stones and on the east by a trench that may have held a wooden fence.
A burnt floor or collapsed roof, revetted on the east by a post-wattle-and-stone wall or fence and measuring 3m x 2m, was uncovered in Cutting 16 and may indicate an early post-and-wattle structure close to the Shannon. A second stone-lined well, very disturbed in the upper levels, was found in Cutting 17, with a number of medieval potsherds in an adjacent layer. The number of medieval potsherds found throughout the entire excavation has been extremely small; none were stratified, and they were only recovered through sieving the disturbed topsoil. The sherds found this season may indicate the construction of a well in the 13th century or, alternatively, the late use of an 11th/12th-century well. Evidence of settlement dating to the 8th–12th centuries in the form of pits, hearths and stake-holes was also uncovered.
A total of 153 artefacts were found this year. Material recovered from sieving the topsoil included half a Hiberno-Norse coin, bronze dress-pins, bronze toilet implements, worked bronze pieces, decorated bone comb fragments, crucible fragments, iron objects including a fish hook, a buckle and key, a small quantity of medieval and post-medieval pottery, a reused quernstone and other miscellaneous objects. Stratified material included medieval potsherds, some decorated scrap bronze, a stone ingot mould, a cross-slab fragment, bone points including a possible stylus, a range of iron objects, crucible fragments, mortar, slag and furnace bottoms.
51 St Stephens Green, Dublin 2
