County: Tipperary Site name: CAHIR: Cahir Abbey Lower
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 75:48 Licence number: 98E0246
Author: Mary Henry
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Modern (AD 1750-AD 2000)
ITM: E 604810m, N 624926m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.375874, -7.929353
Testing was carried out in advance of the proposed construction of an oil distribution depot on a site on the opposite side of a narrow by-road to Cahir Abbey, now in ruins. A substantial, L-shaped, 19th-century mill formerly occupied the site.
Three test-trenches were opened on the site. They extended to a depth of 0.9m and had average dimensions of 3.9m x 1.4m. The trenches were excavated on the site of the proposed concrete base that will be laid to support the two storage tanks. The required depth for the base was 0.45m.
The findings from the trenches consisted of accumulated rubble fill intermixed with a mid-brown, coarse-grained, loose sand. The rubble fill had a very high stone content and contained timber planks, modern scraps of metal, lumps of concrete and mortar. This rubble fill was the residue from the demolition of the mill that formerly stood on the site. Towards the base of Trenches 1 and 2, at a depth of c. 0.6m, was a pocket of burnt material dumped with the building debris. It contained fragmented red brick, partly burnt wood, slate, ash, charcoal, coal and cinders.
Testing works ceased at a depth of 0.9m below modern ground level and did not extend into subsoils or archaeological remains that may have survived beneath the modern accumulated rubble fill.
1 Jervis Place, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary
