County: Tipperary Site name: CARRICK-ON-SUIR
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 85:4 Licence number: 98E0259
Author: Florence M. Hurley, 8 Marina Park, Victoria Road, Cork.
Site type: Burial
Period/Dating: Modern (AD 1750-AD 2000)
ITM: E 640294m, N 621876m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.346997, -7.408599
The Carrick-on-Suir Main Drainage Scheme, Phase I, started in August 1998 and is currently ongoing. The scheme will see the laying of new storm and foul sewers in much of the town, including parts of the medieval town, and in its suburb of Carrickbeg on the south bank of the river. Pre-construction testing and monitoring of pipeline excavations are taking place. Initial work has been centred on the north-east of the town, in the area where the largest of the detention tanks is being built. Just west of this lies the Ormond Castle and Manor House. Archaeological work to date has revealed modern dump deposits in the immediate vicinity of the Castle and 18th/19th-century dump deposits in the area just east of Castle Lane.
During the course of the monitoring a mass burial comprising four human skeletons was found in Castle Park. They were buried in what would have originally been parkland, c. 200m in front of the castle. The remains were aligned north-south. Only one of the skeletons was neatly laid out, the remainder being roughly placed on top of each other. Three of the skeletons lay with their heads to the south, the other had its head to the north. Part of the latest burial had been removed by a later disturbance. These remains are tentatively dated to the early 19th century and may be associated with one of the outbreaks of cholera that affected Carrick-on-Suir in the 1830s. The original Fever Hospital is nearby.
Work on the project is continuing, with areas of the medieval town yet to be examined.
