County: Cavan Site name: EIGHTER
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 43:11 Licence number: 05E1392
Author: Carmel Duffy, Umberstown Great, Summerhill, Co. Meath.
Site type: Fort?
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 683932m, N 756521m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.551901, -6.733364
An assessment, including testing, was carried out in advance of the construction of a single dwelling at Eighter, Virginia. The site was marked as ‘Fort’ on the 1836 OS map but is not marked on later editions.
Four trenches were opened. No archaeological material came to light in Trenches 1, 2 or 4. Trench 3 was the farthest to the south-east of the field and closest to the site of the monument. At the eastern end of Trench 3 there was an anomaly, at 0.4m below ground level and beneath a layer of yellow-brown material, which was apparently redeposited subsoil. The trench was extended by 1m by 4m and the anomaly was found to be linear. A stretch of it was exposed measuring 6.7m, running in a north-east/south-west direction, on the crest of the hill in this corner of the field. It measured 2.5m across at the top of the section and was 0.5m deep. The fill consisted of dark-brown silt, which had a lens of darker material at the bottom. It was probably part of the monument. A buffer zone of 5m was recommended for around the feature.
