County: Cork Site name: CORK: 13–14 Travers Street/12 Cove Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 74:122 Licence number: 99E0648
Author: Rose M. Cleary, Department of Archaeology, University College Cork
Site type: Graveyard
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 566957m, N 571762m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 51.897034, -8.480114
The development site is within the area that may be part of the Hiberno-Norse settlement in Cork. Topographical information from early charters has suggested¹ that the south bank of the south channel may have been part of the Hiberno-Norse settlement. The church of St Nicholas is on the site of an earlier church known as the church of St Sepulchre², which is associated with the Hiberno-Norse settlement in Cork.
Archaeological excavations on Cove Street³ have established a medieval date for the use of the graveyard associated with St Sepulchre's/St Nicholas's church. Recent excavations by Sheila Lane on the north end of Barrack Street (see No. 87 Excavations 1999) have established medieval settlement on the south bank of the river. The probability is that the south bank was part of the Hiberno-Norse settlement, but it was definitely in use in the Anglo-Norman phase of the development of Cork City.
The development site is c. 40m north of the present St Nicholas's church, and the associated graveyard is almost adjacent to the west boundary of the site. Three test-trenches were excavated, two on the Travers Street end and one on the Cove Street end of the development site.
The excavation uncovered human bones that were concentrated in the north end of the test-trench in Cove Street and the west end of the trench in Travers Street. The Cove Street remains were c. 0.3m below the modern surface, and those in the Travers Street end were at a depth of 1.4m. They were disarticulated and may be the remains of disturbed burials. It is possible that further undisturbed burials lie below the present surface.
Notes
1 H.A. Jefferies, 'The history and topography of Viking Cork', Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society 90 (1985), 14–25. Jefferies places the settlement on the south bank of the river. J. Bradley and A. Halpin, 'The topographical development of Scandinavian and Anglo-Norman Cork', in P. O'Flanaghan and C.G. Buttimer (eds), Cork: history and society (Dublin 1993), 15–44. Bradley and Halpin suggest that the settlement was on the south island with a satellite settlement on the south bank of the river.
2 Ibid., 21.
3 R.M. Cleary, 'Medieval graveyard and boundary wall at Cove Street, Cork', Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society 101 (1996), 94–111. .
