County: Kerry Site name: CAHERWEESHEEN, Tralee
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 02E1053
Author: Marion Dowd, Eachtra Archaeological Projects
Site type: Enclosure
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 484475m, N 612453m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.251660, -9.691991
Two phases of monitored topsoil-stripping took place in June and July 2002 relating to the construction of 145 houses, associated services and access roads at Caherweesheen, Tralee. The area was stripped using a track machine with a flat bucket. Two principal strata were encountered: silty clay, 0.2–0.6m deep, overlying a sterile, sandy clay subsoil. Parts of the development site were waterlogged.
Several relatively recent drainage ditches, oriented in different directions, cut through the subsoil. A number of cultivation furrows, aligned north–south, were also encountered. A polished greenstone axehead was discovered ex situ in the fill of one of these cultivation furrows. Greenstone is a locally available raw material. The axehead is comparable to a greenstone axe discovered as part of a votive deposition in a pit at Cloghers, immediately west of Caherweesheen, by Jacinta Kiely in 2000 (Excavations 2000, No. 446, 00E0065).
A curvilinear ditch was exposed in the southern area of the development site. It measured at least 70m, but both ends extended under the baulk, beyond the area of development. It was aligned east–west and had been truncated along its length by cultivation furrows. Three test-trenches, each 2m by 2m, were excavated by hand at the centre of the ditch and at both extremities. The ditch cut in Trenches 1 and 3 contained three fills: redeposited natural, c. 0.14m deep, overlying a wet clay loam, c. 0.12m deep, overlying a wet, gravelly sand with occasional stones, c. 0.12m deep. In Trench 2 the ditch contained a single fill, a dry, compact, gritty sand. The trenches established that the ditch cut varied from 0.53m to 0.08m deep and from 0.8m to 0.46m wide at the top.
The ditch is enigmatic, particularly because of its lack of uniformity. No artefacts were encountered in any of the trenches that might to help establish a date or a function. Its interpretation as a historical drainage ditch can be discounted based on the curvilinear shape, the shallowness in parts and the absence of a layer of stones on the base. Similarly, the ditch does not correspond to boundaries marked on the first-edition OS map. It is, however, comparable to ditches excavated by Laurence Dunne in the neighbouring townlands of Mounthawk (Excavations 1997, No. 251, 96E0390) and by Jacinta Kiely at Cloghers (op. cit.) Neither of these ditches provided evidence by which to date them or establish their function.
3 Canal Place, Tralee, Co. Kerry
