1998:626 - TIPPERARY: Bohercrow Road, Murgasty, Tipperary

An excavation was carried out in a green-field site (80m east-west x 35m), adjacent to a 19th-century church (St Mary's Church of Ireland), in advance of construction of a government office building. St Mary's is marked on the OS map (1st edition) as the site of an earlier church. Five skeletons were excavated here during test-trenching by Brian Hodkinson in 1997 (Excavations 1997, 180).

In 1998 an area measuring 15m (east-west) by 30m was opened around the location of those skeletons, and the topsoil in the remainder of the field was removed by machine, under supervision. A kiln and a hut site were uncovered. Post-medieval cultivation had caused disturbance of the archaeological remains throughout the field.

Sixteen burials were recorded during the 1998 excavations, three of which were very partial skeletal remains. They were orientated in a west-east direction, heads to the west, but a number were aligned slightly along a south-west/north-east axis. All were in simple graves with no traces of any coffins or grave-markers. They appeared to represent eleven adults, one juvenile and one neonate. When the burials excavated in 1997 are included, the burials in the field represent eleven adults, five juveniles and two neonates. Associated pottery suggested a post-medieval date for the burials.

An east-west-orientated kiln structure was cut into the sand subsoil to the north of the burials. This consisted of a linear flue leading to an elliptical bowl at the east end. It was 8.5m long, 3.48m wide and 1.2m deep and was keyhole-shaped in plan. The sides were stone-lined, and a single lintel stone was found over the flue. The kiln was filled with collapsed sand from the sides of the structure. There was a basal, charcoal-rich deposit under the stone lining, which may contain evidence of charred cereal grains, indicative of a corn-drying function. There were also small fragments of oxidised limestone in some of the overlying fills, which may suggest a limekiln function.

A circular hut site, 4m in diameter, was excavated in the north-east corner of the field, and no enclosing bank or ditch was uncovered. The upper level of the hut had been disturbed by cultivation activity, and there was a high amount of hollows in the interior caused by root/burrowing activity. A sherd of post-medieval pottery was found in a context severely disturbed by root/burrowing activity. The hut was surrounded by a narrow gully, 0.2–0.5m wide and 0.2m deep, containing no evident post-holes or stake-holes. It may have functioned as a bedding trench. The entrance in the north was indicated by a backfill of moderately compacted sand within the gully, and a hearth lay close to the centre of the hut. The interior of the hut was occupied by overlapping sand layers containing a number of small post-holes and stake-holes. They did not indicate any identifiable structures, apart from a possible spit over the hearth. There were two shallow pits in the north-east corner, and one of these contained a fragment of a jet/lignite bracelet.