2003:2011 - CASTLEPALISER, Wexford

NMI Burial Excavation Records

County: Wexford Site name: CASTLEPALISER

Sites and Monuments Record No.: WX053-023---- Licence number: 03E1247

Author: Emmet Stafford, Stafford McLoughlin Archaeology

Site type: Castle - unclassified

Period/Dating: Post Medieval (AD 1600-AD 1750)

ITM: E 711527m, N 606421m

Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.198288, -6.368521

Four trenches were excavated within the footprint of two proposed agricultural sheds in August 2003 at Castlepaliser, Carne. The development site is on or near the site of Castle Paliser, SMR 53.23, of which there are no visible remains.

The excavation uncovered a series of features within Trenches 1 and 2, which largely appear to date to the post-medieval (possibly 18th-century) demolition of a stone and mortar building which may be the structure of Castle Paliser. One feature appeared to be the remains of a stone wall, which may be associated with the castle.

An architectural fragment recovered from a linear feature immediately to the north of a steel-built shed may be a window lintel from a 15th- or 16th-century tower-house. The fragment, an elongated piece of granite, had maximum dimensions of 0.79m in length, 0.21m in width and 0.21m in depth. Three facets, which appeared to identify the fragment as a window lintel, were cut into the 0.21m-wide face. A 25mm-deep subrectangular socket was cut into the central facet, possibly to receive one end of a metal window bar. The external cut facets both sloped at an angle of c. 45ยบ from the central facet.

Unit 4, Enniscorthy Enterprise Centre, Milehouse Road, Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford