2004:1587 - CLONMEL: Burgagery Lands East, Tipperary

Testing was undertaken at Burgagery Lands East, Clonmel. This site is located on the eastern outskirts of Clonmel town and may be developed for housing. An enclosure is recorded as being in the eastern part of the site.

Thirteen trenches were opened on the site, with the majority radiating from the projected centre of the possible enclosure. Five trenches proved negative. In the other trenches large linear ditches were revealed and it appeared that the cutting of such features would have resulted in the expenditure of a lot of labour and time. Initially it was suspected that these ditches were part of an outer defensive ditch of a hillfort, with the actual fort situated at the top of the hill with the ditches recorded as part of an inner defensive ring. Although dimensionally they equate with the width and depth of Iron Age hillfort ditches, the presence of a step at the base of the ditches would appear to have no recognisable function. It is a fact that a number of defensive ditches relating to this period did have narrow, vertical cuts at the base of ditches, but these were incorporated with straight, steeply angled sides and acted as ankle breakers, sometimes lined with spikes. Unfortunately the physical presence of the step detracts from this theory. There was no silt build-up in the ditches or ceramics found on the site. It is therefore necessary to try to determine another function for these features.

This site is located in an area that was used by the nearby army barracks for military training activity for infantry, artillery and cavalry. It is therefore possible that the features discovered relate to military activity dating especially to the period around World War I. Clonmel barracks was the main depot for the RIR and a major recruiting station, requiring extensive lands for training the new recruits. As a form of inducting the recruits into military life, as well as attaining the required fitness, the digging of practice trenches would have been an important activity. As recruiting was an ongoing activity during the war, it is reasonable to propose that the trenches were backfilled by each series of recruits as they passed through. This would account for the lack of silting within these features. Due to military practices, these features would have been kept pristine clean whilst open, with any deposition of litter/rubbish being removed frequently.

The evidence would suggest that the features originally identified in an aerial photograph are part of a dedicated practice ground for digging military training trenches by the British Army. Examples of such activity occur in Britain.

17 Staunton Row, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary