2004:1580 - CASHEL: St Dominic's Abbey, Maryville, Tipperary

Testing was undertaken of a site at Maryville, Cashel, Co. Tipperary, in response to a planning application to construct five two-storey terraced houses with associated works and car parking facilities at the site of Maryville B&B, Bank Place, Cashel. The proposed development was located within the zone of archaeological potential for the medieval town of Cashel and lies c. 30m east of St Dominic's Abbey. The line of the medieval town wall ran through the north-west corner of the site.

Three test-trenches were opened. Trench 1 was orientated north-east/south-west and located along the line of the town wall in the area for the proposed carpark. Trenches 2 and 3 were located along the approximate line of the proposed housing development and orientated north-west/south-east and north-east/south-west respectively. Modern domestic rubbish and household appliances covered most of the site. Beneath this a layer of later post-medieval building debris, which was made up of shattered red brick and mortar deposits, extended to a depth of 0.8m.

Archaeological deposits were revealed in all trenches. Evidence for post-medieval building debris was most apparent at the north-eastern end of Trenches 2 and 3, where two walls running perpendicular to each other were uncovered directly underneath the modern rubble layers. Both comprised one course of roughly dressed limestone blocks and red brick, bonded with grey mortar. It is possible that these may have been buttresses or the foundations to a later boundary wall that has since collapsed. The remnants of the wall in Trench 1 were at a lower level than those in Trenches 2 and 3. Here the wall was made up of large limestone blocks, void of any brick material, loosely set into a silty brown clay. This was probably the foundation of the medieval town wall, since it is on the same northeast/south-west alignment as the existing town wall.

The earliest deposits encountered in Trenches 2 and 3 were medieval. These consisted of charcoal-rich spreads containing oyster shell and animal-bone fragments, interpreted as medieval rubbish deposits. Contexts 009 and 013 were both grey/brown stony clay deposits with a faint scatter of animal bone, charcoal and oyster shell. It is likely that these deposits represented trample surfaces that incorporated nearby medieval domestic debris.

Two post-holes were noted within Trench 3 c. 0.3m south-east of Context 009. They may be associated with a medieval boundary or a subdivision of a domestic dwelling, although the exact function of these features was difficult to ascertain.

Context 014 contained high concentrations of charcoal, burnt bone and carbonised cereal grains resting on a possible burnt clay surface. It is likely that this feature represented a hearth used in the cooking of food.

The results from this investigation suggest that the area dated to the medieval period, with the deposits recorded representing domestic activity carried out at the site. It was proposed that a raft foundation be used in the construction of the development.

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