County: Tipperary Site name: FETHARD: Barrack Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 70:40 Licence number: 95E0118
Author: Jo Moran
Site type: Historic town
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 620889m, N 635149m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.467384, -7.692573
Between May and July groundworks associated with council housing were monitored between Burke Street and Barrack Street. The site is outside the Fethard town wall, and had produced medieval and post-medieval boundary ditches and cultivation furrows when assessed in 1995 (Excavations 1995, No. 258).
Monitoring in 2001 found further cultivation features, mostly boundary and drainage ditches. No medieval or earlier building remains were found, but the alignment of ditches is of some interest.
Today the alignment of Burke Street changes as it passes through the line of the town wall, and the alignment of the property boundaries on the north side of the street follows suit. However, at least some of the medieval ditches identified during testing in 1995 and monitoring in 2001 appear to follow the town alignment rather than the suburban one, although they are well outside the walled town.
This suggests that an early Burke Street may have continued more directly towards the Augustinian friary, brushing against the north side of the church on its way east. This in turn suggests the possibility of suburban medieval settlement well back from the present roadside on the south side of Burke Street as it approaches the friary.
Knockrower Road, Stradbally, Co. Waterford
