1998:596 - CASHEL: County Hospital, Tipperary

Test-trenches were excavated in advance of a proposed extension to the north of Our Lady's Hospital, Cashel, Co. Tipperary, by The South-Eastern Health Board. Thirteen test-pits excavated to examine the subsurface deposits in advance of building construction within the area enclosed by the medieval walled town were also monitored. The existing hospital lies to the south of the medieval walled town of Cashel.

The medieval town
The town was given its first charter defining it as a borough by Archbishop Donat O'Lonargan in 1212 (Finn, 1930) and probably developed into a medieval town in the period 1250–1350 (Thomas 1992, Vol. 1, 153). The enclosing town wall in Cashel appears to be a later development than the town itself in that the wall construction was begun in 1303 with the assistance of a murage grant (Thomas 1992, Vol. 2, 47). The whole town appears to have been enclosed by a wall by 1320 (Gleeson 1927, 234), and this wall would have been repaired up to the 18th century.

The wall enclosed an area of 14ha and was originally 1550m long. The wall circuit was punctuated by five gates, and these controlled access into the town. The site of archaeological investigation was on the southern section of the walled town, and the wall here is aligned roughly south-west/north-east. The wall is constructed from roughly coursed limestone blocks with a rubble core and has an average height of c. 3m. It is in relatively good condition, but sections of the inner (north) face have collapsed and are unstable. A sally-port was recorded along this stretch of wall by Wyse Jackson (1949, 24), although its precise location is unclear. The wall has been breached within the area under investigation and was recently filled in with modern concrete blocks. This breach is almost opposite the narrow William Street, which is at a right angle to the main street and turns again at a right angle towards the east, to link into John's Street. William Street may be an original medieval laneway, and its southernmost side is c. 50m from the inner face of the town wall.

Extracts from the Corporation Books (Thomas, 1992) indicate that the area of proposed development was a garden area and may never have been built upon. According to the Corporation Books, trees were planted in 1702 "in the most convenient part of the Green, adjacent to the town wall", and this was presumably in the field within the town wall where the new hospital extension is to be built. In 1704 permission was granted to Alderman Thomas Chardwick "to make a door through the town wall" into the garden, and this new entrance into the medieval town may lie where the wall has recently been rebuilt as there is no other apparent break along the wall in the area of the Green. The door was supposedly 8ft (c. 2.4m) wide (O'Keeffe 1995, 164). The creation of a new 'door' through the wall also suggests that the walls were redundant in terms of defence. The area between the walls and the ends of the burgage plots appears not to have been developed until recent times.

The excavation
Archaeological input into the proposed development consisted of two main elements: monitoring of engineering test-pits, excavated to determine the suitability of the subsurface layers in order to access the site for building purposes, and excavation of test-trenches to determine whether archaeological horizons exist.

Thirteen test-pits were monitored within the walled town area of the proposed development. All but one were mainly sterile. The upper levels showed that there was a substantial overburden up to 1.2m thick in places and thicker on the eastern end of the site. This overburden lay on top of the sterile boulder clay levels. This soil was of a rich, organic composition and probably derived from the use of the site as a garden area over a considerable period of time.

A north/south-aligned section of a wall footing was exposed in one test-pit. This footing is c. 2.5m north of the medieval town wall and c. 6m east of the blocked-up breach in the town wall. The soil over the footing included red brick fragments, a wig curler, 19th-century clay pipe fragments and pottery. These may indicate an 18th/19th-century period for the accumulation/deposition of this soil. The wall was mortar-bonded and did not appear to be substantial.

Fourteen test-trenches were excavated on the south side of the town wall in the grounds of the hospital. Nothing of archaeological significance was recorded in them.

Four test-trenches were excavated to the north of the medieval town wall in the proposed development area. Three were excavated in areas where new buildings were proposed, but no archaeological features or stratigraphy were recorded in them. A fourth trench was excavated to examine the wall footing where a modern blocking of the medieval town wall was visible, to establish whether an ancient gateway existed at this location. The footing was exposed in the trench and appeared continuous across the area of excavation. The wall was constructed of roughly coursed, unmortared limestone flags. Five large limestone stones appeared to be displaced. This displacement may have occurred when a gateway was constructed at this location either in the 18th century (Alderman Chardwick's gateway of 1704?) or more recently, when the opening was created by wall collapse. The stones beneath those displaced were smaller than those in the eastern section of the wall exposed in the trench but were on the same line and may be part of the original wall construction.

The excavation did not uncover any real evidence of a sally-port at this location, such as original door jambs, road surface or any architectural feature dating to the medieval period. It appears from the excavated section that the medieval town wall remained virtually intact on the eastern side of the trench until the wall collapsed in the recent past.

References
Finn, A. 1930 Cashel and its ancient corporation. Dublin.
Gleeson, J. 1927 Cashel of the kings. Dublin.
Wyse Jackson, Rev. 1949 The walls of Cashel. North Munster Antiquarian Journal 6, 24–5.
O'Keeffe, T. 1995 Cashel. In A. Simms and J.H. Andrews (eds), More Irish country towns, 157–167. Dublin.
Thomas, A. 1992 The walled towns of Ireland. 2 vols. Dublin.