County: Cork Site name: RATHCORMACK
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 00E0250
Author: Eamonn Cotter
Site type: Enclosure
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 580676m, N 591699m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.076896, -8.281901
Test-trenching was carried out on this site in fulfilment of a condition attached to a grant of planning permission for the construction of five dwelling-houses. The site lies immediately south of Rathcormack graveyard, which contains an abandoned Church of Ireland church, which may be built on the site of the medieval parish church of Rathcormack.
Two trenches were opened extending south-west across the site from the graveyard boundary wall, and a third extending south-west/north-east across the southern half of the site. Depth of topsoil in all three trenches averaged 0.4m and lay directly on the orange, natural clay. In two of the trenches a band of light brown, silty soil was noted, which, when further investigated, was found to be a ditch measuring 1.9m wide at the top and 0.67m wide at its base. The ditch was 1.25m deep from the surface, and its fill consisted of a brown, silty loam with occasional flecks of charcoal. The only find was a bovine animal tooth from the ditch fill in Trench B.
The occurrence of a ditch in two of the trenches indicated that it was a circular enclosure ditch, and, indeed, on the surface a low, barely perceptible ridge can be traced enclosing a circular area c. 30m in diameter, which is slightly higher than the surrounding ground level, particularly around the north-west, north and north-east sides. This ridge is probably the remains of an enclosing earthen bank inside the ditch.
The development is currently on hold pending the agreement of a revised site layout designed to mitigate the impact on the archaeology.
Ballynanelagh, Rathcormac, Co. Cork
