County: Limerick Site name: KILMALLOCK: Sheares Street (Rear of)
Sites and Monuments Record No.: RMP 47:22 Licence number: 00E0305
Author: Meriel McClatchie, Archaeological Services Unit, Department of Archaeology, University College Cork
Site type: Historic town
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 560568m, N 627860m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.400844, -8.579441
Monitoring of groundworks associated with a housing development was undertaken at a site to the rear of Sheares Street, Kilmallock, on various dates from May to July 2000, in compliance with planning conditions. The site is located within the medieval walled town of Kilmallock, to the west of Sheares Street. Sheares Street represents an extension of the medieval town, probably dating to the 16th century.
The site was previously a greenfield site, rectangular in shape and measuring c. 110m east–west by c. 50m. It is bounded on the west side by the medieval town wall. An archaeological assessment of the site was had been undertaken by Kenneth Hanley. He concluded that, although the site is within the medieval town wall, no evidence existed for extant archaeological remains. Later test-trenching undertaken by Mr Hanley (Excavations 1999, 168, 99E0056) uncovered a substantial number of archaeological features, including field ditches, furrows and pits. Artefacts recovered included material ranging in date from the medieval period to modern times.
In the 2000 season, topsoil-stripping was monitored and revealed a substantial layer of garden soil beneath the topsoil. This was up to 0.5m deep. The layer contained a wide range of artefacts, including medieval, post-medieval and modern material. A number of archaeological features, similar to those encountered by Mr Hanley, were exposed beneath the garden soil layer. All of the features were cut into boulder clay, and many seemed to have been truncated. Features that were to be disturbed by development, including furrows and pits, were excavated. A field ditch, c. 2.8m wide, was also excavated in areas of development, and an adult human skeleton was recovered from a shallow grave cut into the field ditch. The excavated features contained medieval and post-medieval artefacts, such as pottery sherds and animal bone. It seems likely that most of the archaeological features uncovered at the site were related to agricultural activity. The licence has been extended so that further groundworks associated with the development can be completed.
