County: Offaly Site name: MONEYGALL: Cloughjordan Road
Sites and Monuments Record No.: OF046-017002 Licence number: 04E1359
Author: Brian Halpin, National Archaeological Services
Site type: Fulacht fia
Period/Dating: Prehistoric (12700 BC-AD 400)
ITM: E 602737m, N 680998m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.879866, -7.959332
Testing was carried out on a greenfield site on 27 September 2004. The proposed development is on the site of an earthwork. Four trenches, 58m in length by 1m in width by 0.3m in depth, were opened using a tracked machine with a 1m-wide flat toothless bucket. Seven features of archaeological potential were exposed.
Nothing of archaeological significance was encountered in Trench 1. Trench 2 contained three features. F1 was a modern cut 8.6m wide. F2 was a linear ditch aligned east-west across the trench. It had a width of 3.1m and a depth of 0.55m. A test section was excavated through it revealing two fills. The upper fill was a dark-brown silty clay with an occasional charcoal flecking. The basal fill was a dark-brown silty clay with occasional large stones and one large animal bone protruding from the section at the base. F3 was a small subcircular feature protruding from the cut of the trench and had a length of 1.5m, width of 0.15m and depth of 0.07m. A test section revealed the fill to be an ashy grey sandy clay with moderate amounts of charcoal and burnt sandstone. This fill is indicative of in situ burning, possibly of a fulacht fiadh.
Trench 3 contained three features. F4 was a linear ditch aligned east-west across the trench. It had a width of 2m and a depth of 0.5m. A test section showed the fill to be a dark-brown silty clay with very occasional charcoal flecking and six small fragments of burnt animal bone. F5 was a linear ditch aligned east-west across the trench. It had a width of 2.1m. The fill was a light-brown silty clay with modern pottery and glass. This feature had no archaeological significance. F6 was a small irregular-shaped cut with a maximum width of 1.8m, protruding from the trench. The fill was a brown silty clay with modern refuse. This feature had no archaeological significance.
Trench 4 contained F7, a linear ditch aligned east-west across the trench. It had a width of 5.8m and a depth of 0.6m. A test section showed the fill to be a light-brown sandy silty clay with occasional charcoal flecks, small and medium stones and fragments of animal bone, such as teeth and one boar's tooth.
Ard Solas, Lacken, Co. Wicklow
