1999:498 - CROOM, Limerick

This project involved the full excavation of a ring-ditch in the townland of Croom, c. 0.5 miles south of the town of Croom, Co. Limerick. It was associated with the Croom Bypass and was funded by Limerick County Council and the National Roads Authority. The site, first identified during fieldwork, was a circular platform of raised ground 24m in diameter.

Archaeological investigations of the monument were first carried out by Thaddeus Breen in 1997 (Excavations 1997, 113). The investigations concluded that the site represented a circular, ditched enclosure with possibly associated features outside the ditch.

The original licence was extended to allow full manual excavation of the monument and the monitoring of topsoil-stripping to its north and south.

Removal of the sod and topsoil revealed the upper fills of a ditch and drain feature and an area of archaeological activity in the central raised area. During excavations it was found that the ditch had been greatly disturbed by a series of drains that followed the line of the ring-ditch. Here the stratigraphy consisted of a layer of orange/grey, silty clay overlying the stone drains. The original cut of the ditch had been altered by this disturbance. The basal fill of the ditch survived below the drains and contained inclusions of animal bone. In the east of the site (along the road boundary) an area 20m long had not been disturbed by land reclamation, and here the ditch and entranceway survived. The original ditch cut was 2.8m wide and c. 1m in maximum depth. Removal of the orange/grey, silty clay layer revealed the basal layer of the ditch and a deposit of stones in the north and south terminals. The deposit of stones contained inclusions of animal bone, charcoal flecks and a fragment of a lignite bracelet. The ditch was U-shaped in section.

In the eastern half of the central raised area the remains of a possible structure were revealed. It was defined by two linear slot-trenches, both of which ran in an east-west direction. The fill of the trenches was a stony, grey/brown, silty clay with coarse components of animal bone and animal teeth. Within the area defined by the slot-trenches a number of shallow pits and post-holes were revealed. A scatter of cremated bone was also revealed below the topsoil within the dark, blackish-brown, silty clay deposit.

The excavations revealed the remains of a ring-ditch consisting of a subcircular central area measuring 33.3m north-south by 31.4m, raised c. 0.4m above the surrounding ground. This was enclosed by a ditch that had been reused in more recent times for land reclamation purposes.

Finds from the site included modern pottery, glass and clay pipe fragments, which came from the ditch, the drains and the topsoil. Coarse components from the structure consisted primarily of animal bone, some cremated bone and the occasional fragment of slag. A small pin was found in the disturbed area of the ditch, and a fragment of a lignite bracelet was discovered in the undisturbed context in the south terminal.

Monitoring of the mechanical excavation of the topsoil revealed a number of drains, some of which were the same as those found during the manual excavation of the ring-ditch. Some of the drains appeared to run below the level of the road, therefore pre-dating its construction. Altogether, eleven drains were revealed: five ran in a north-south direction and were machine cut, two ran in an east-west direction, and the others ran along the line of the ring-ditch; all were manually cut. Modern glazed pottery fragments were the only coarse components revealed during the excavation of the drains.

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