County: Offaly Site name: BIRR: 23 Main Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 35:12 Licence number: 02E0322
Author: Daniel Noonan, for Eachtra Archaeological Projects.
Site type: Historic town
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 605913m, N 704878m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.094458, -7.911711
An assessment was carried out at 23 Main Street, Birr, Co. Offaly. Three trenches were excavated: Trench 1 in the ground floor of the shop, and Trenches 2 and 3 in the yard to the rear.
Trench 1 was excavated by hand in the middle of the shop floor. It measured 1m by 1m and was dug to a maximum depth of 0.5m. The floor of pine square-cut planks, laid on pine joists, was on top of a grey/brown clayey silt that contained small and medium-sized stones. Animal bone and a single sherd of a yellow, thin-glazed ceramic of probable 18th–19th-century date were recovered from this deposit. Beneath was a firm orange clay floor surface, which contained fragments of coarse earthenware ceramic. This floor appeared to have been truncated to the east by a stone-built cellar that was found to occupy the eastern part of the shop space. The confinement of the cellar within the bounds of the 19th-century building suggests that they are contemporaneous.
Trench 2 was mechanically excavated in the yard, 1m north of the standing buildings. It measured 5m east–west by 1.5m and was dug to a maximum depth of 1.4m. When the overburden of rubble and topsoil had been removed, the original yard surface of rubble hardcore was uncovered. The hardcore sat on top of a natural, compact, beige/grey, silty sand. Two pits cut the natural and were stratigraphically beneath the hardcore. Pit A, in the eastern end of the trench, was 0.7m wide and 0.4m deep. The fill was mid-brown silty clay with frequent charcoal inclusions, occasional brick fragments of probable 18th- or 19th-century date and animal bone. Pit B, at the west of the trench, was 2.9m wide and 0.45m deep. Its fill was similar to that of Pit A and is probably of similar date. They appeared to be rubbish pits.
Trench 3 was mechanically excavated to the east of Trench 2, close to the eastern boundary wall. It measured 5m east–west by 1.5m and was dug to a maximum depth of 1.2m. The sequence of sediments in this trench was similar to that in Trench 2. The hardcore yard surface lay on top of a large pit, 2.4m wide and 1.1m deep. It was filled with a soft, mid-brown, silty clay that contained frequent medium-sized stones and root activity. This pit was probably a rubbish pit, pre-dating the 19th-century residential block.
47 North Main Street, Youghal, Co. Cork
