County: Limerick Site name: BALLYGRENNAN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 40:7 Licence number: 02E1746
Author: Sarah McCutcheon, Limerick County Council
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 549144m, N 638173m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.492598, -8.748880
The site, c. 1.2km to the south of the town of Bruff, lies to the north of Ballygrennan Castle. Leask (1977, 122) described the castle as an extensive walled bawn and a high, centrally placed tower of 16th-century date, with two courtyards bordered by high-gabled and chimneyed houses of later date.
The works comprised laying a water main over a distance of c. 354m. The pipe was 8 inches (c. 20cm) in diameter and was laid in a trench on average 0.8m wide and 1.2m deep. The trench extended roughly parallel to the northern bawn wall. The stratigraphy consisted of sod and topsoil overlying loose, yellow/brown, stony clay, which extended to the base of the trench. Elsewhere the trench cut into the ditch component of the former field boundary. This element was still extant at the eastern end of the works.
No archaeological remains were disturbed during the works.
Reference
Leask, H.G. 1977 Irish castles and castellated houses. Dundalk.
PO Box 53, County Buildings, 79–84 O’Connell Street, Limerick
