County: Limerick Site name: GORTBOY, Newcastle West
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 36:75 Licence number: 01E0613
Author: Ken Wiggins
Site type: Enclosure
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 528018m, N 633969m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.452436, -9.059015
Planning permission was sought for a housing development at a six-acre site on the southern side of Bishop Street in Newcastle West. An impact assessment was prepared by the writer in March 2001, which established that a large enclosure existed at the northern end of the site up to the OS edition of 1924 but was subsequently levelled. The submitted site layout map took no account of the former location of the monument, and it was recommended that the layout be revised to include an area of exclusion where no ground disturbance was permitted, respecting the now-destroyed outline of the enclosure, with the addition of a 20m-wide buffer around its known limits, taking account of the surviving archaeology relating to the fosse.
The developer was not opposed to leaving completely untouched the area formerly occupied by the enclosure, but the additional concession of a buffer greater than 10m in width threatened to render the whole development unfeasible. It was therefore decided that testing would be carried out on the site to investigate the 10–20m margin of the proposed buffer zone, as well as four lines of radiating linear hollows which appeared to fan out from the former location of the south-eastern and south-western quadrants of the enclosure.
The trenching took place in July 2001 and comprised thirteen mechanically excavated cuttings. Seven of these were placed within the 10–20m zone of the buffer; these failed to uncover any archaeological features, deposits or artefacts underneath the topsoil. The remaining six cuttings were placed across the radial hollows outside the limits of the buffer, and the findings were negative in all cases. The results appeared to point to the conclusion that at some time the topsoil was stripped across most of the northern half of the site, if not the entire field. This was done in association with the levelling of the enclosure, and the evidence suggests that the enigmatic linear hollows were generated in some way by the destructive bulldozing of the monument.
On the basis of these findings, it was recommended that the buffer zone to be imposed around the known limits of the enclosure could be reduced from 20m to 10m in extent without risk to any surviving archaeology on the site. All ground disturbance relating to construction work on the site is to be monitored.
17 Vartry Close, Raheen, Co. Limerick
