County: Clare Site name: KNOCKANEAN (Site AR54)
Sites and Monuments Record No.: CL034-051---- Licence number: 03E0848
Author: Elizabeth Connolly, for Irish Archaeological Consultancy Ltd.
Site type: Ringfort - cashel
Period/Dating: Early Medieval (AD 400-AD 1099)
ITM: E 536484m, N 679056m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.858668, -8.943167
Testing was carried out at site AR54 from 18 to 25 June 2003 as part of a programme of site-specific testing along the route of the proposed Ennis Bypass. Site AR54, a stone enclosure/cashel within a heavily wooded area, is in Knockanean townland in a field south of the Ennis–Tulla road. Bedrock was exposed at ground level.
Two trenches were mechanically opened outside the enclosure and five within. Some post-medieval and modern pottery was recovered from the thin layer of topsoil within the enclosure. In all the trenches the topsoil overlay bedrock. One of the trenches tested both inside and outside the rampart, for which some of the collapse was removed by hand. From the excavation of this trench it appears as though the wall was built directly onto bedrock with a slight revetment at its southern face.
8 Dungar Terrace, Dún Laoghaire, Co. Dublin
