County: Clare Site name: BALLYMACONNA (BGE 3/11/2)
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 02E1155
Author: Graham Hull, Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd.
Site type: Pit
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 537478m, N 682458m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.889360, -8.929061
This site was examined as part of Bord Gáis Éireann’s Pipeline to the West. It was on a hilltop with 360? views. A fulacht fiadh was excavated by Emer Dennehy c. 150m to the south-east (No. 96, Excavations 2002, 02E1392), and a pit was found 20m to the north (No. 94, Excavations 2002, 02E1154).
A circular pit, 0.75m in diameter and 0.16m deep, was excavated. The pit sides were nearly vertical, and the base was flattish. The pit fill was a fine, dark grey/brown silt with abundant natural gravel inclusions. Very occasional charcoal flecking was observed.
It is difficult to provide meaningful discussion for this discrete feature. A smaller but equally isolated pit was, however, excavated on a neighbouring hilltop c. 400m to the north (see No. 198, Excavations 2002, 02E1153). The pit there was clearly for cremation deposition, and the two pits were intervisible on prominent ground. Perhaps the pit was a ‘blind burial’. There is no evidence that it had been truncated and its burial deposits destroyed, and further research may be useful.
2 Killiney View, Albert Road Lower, Glenageary, Co. Dublin
