County: Tipperary Site name: CHURCH STREET, CAHIR
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 05E1166
Author: Maurice Hurley, 6 Clarence Court, St Luke’s, Cork.
Site type: Urban
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 524755m, N 705175m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.091862, -9.123357
Testing was carried out on a site at old Church Street/Clonmel Road, Cahir, Co. Tipperary. The site was the premises of the Co-op stores; part of the site was occupied by retail premises and associated carpark while the remainder was used for storage or was a semi-greenfield area within the rapidly growing modern suburb of the town. Sixteen trenches were excavated. The greatest emphasis was placed on the area to the north of St Mary’s Church; i.e. the area that lies within the zone of archaeological potential of the town of Cahir, SMR 75:48. It was considered possible that medieval/post-medieval settlement once existed near the 15th-century parish church of St Mary’s.
Trenches near the graveyard wall produced evidence for two shallow bands of deep soil cut into the clay subsoil. These features extended roughly parallel to the graveyard wall. The fill was not excavated in accordance with the project design as set out in the method statement. It is likely that the bands of soil are shallow trenches or drains. Several fragments of human bone, including part of a skull, were apparent in the topsoil and in the bands of dark soil. There was no evidence for the date of these features, but it is possible that they are associated with the repair of the graveyard wall.
A 13.8m length of graveyard wall has been rebuilt in mass concrete (remainder being in stone) at some time in the mid- to late 20th century. Within the graveyard a significant depression occurs in the soil level corresponding to the area of rebuilding and, as the ground level in the graveyard is generally higher than the site of the proposed development, it seems likely that the collapse of a length of graveyard wall resulted in the slump of some graveyard material into the area where the trenches were excavated. This appears to be the most likely explanation for the occurrence of disarticulated human bone to the east of the graveyard wall. No other material of potential archaeological significance was found elsewhere on the site.
