County: Limerick Site name: HERMITAGE
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 1:1 Licence number: 01E0319
Author: Sarah McCutcheon, Limerick County Council
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 565166m, N 661036m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.699341, -8.515370
An advance test excavation was carried out at Hermitage townland, where the way-leave corridor on the Castleconnell Sewerage Scheme was contained within the zone of archaeological potential around RMP 1:1. The corridor extends roughly parallel to, but inland from, the riverbank. There is a steep drop to the river and the site is located at river level.
Apart from one anomaly consisting of a small uneven area, there were no surface indications of archaeological features in the 330m area within the RMP zone. Therefore it was decided that the archaeological testing should consist of an advance topsoil-strip over the entire area to be used within the corridor. Anomalies were noted and flagged. On completion of the strip, all the potential areas were cleaned, photographed and recorded.
An initial interpretation indicated that there were possibly nine burial pits, fourteen carbonised deposits, three cremation pyres, three fulachta fiadh, one ditch, one ditch/bank/ditch and one ditch and bank, 23 linear features, six miscellaneous and five probably modern features.
While many of the features were small in area and dispersed along the length of the way-leave, their positioning precluded the possibility of avoiding them with the pipeline. Following discussions with Dúchas, it was decided that a full archaeological excavation should ensue. The licence was upgraded and transferred to Tracey Collins (see No. 763, Excavations 2001).
PO Box 53, County Buildings, 79/84 O’Connell Street, Limerick
