County: Cork Site name: CLASHANIMUD
Sites and Monuments Record No.: CO096-034 Licence number: 04E1038
Author: William O’Brien, Department of Archaeology, University College Cork
Site type: Hillfort
Period/Dating: Bronze Age (2200 BC-801 BC)
ITM: E 552139m, N 561390m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 51.802732, -8.693969
A third season of excavation was conducted at the large hilltop enclosure known as Cashel hillfort, located in Clashanimud townland, Brinny, Co. Cork. A total of fourteen weeks’ excavation, followed by a week of site conservation work, was carried out in the period May to August 2006. A programme of systematic test-pitting that commenced in 2005 was extended to the south-west quadrant of the inner enclosure, as well as to selected areas of the outer enclosure. A total of fifteen test-trenches were excavated in 2006, the majority of which were 4m2 cuttings. A further objective of the 2006 excavation was to identify the original entrances to this bivallate hilltop enclosure.
The 2006 season added further information on the hillfort defences at Cashel fort, which supports the results of the previous two excavation seasons. A stone-faced earthen and stone bank, topped by a massive timber palisade, with an adjacent external rock-cut ditch, protected the inner enclosure. The size and strong construction of this palisaded bank and ditch points to a strong defensive element rather than a symbolic feature or animal enclosure. The wooden palisade of this inner enclosure was subsequently burned down, in what appears to have been a single deliberate act of warfare.
Test-pit excavation of the inner hillfort enclosure did not reveal evidence of human occupation from any period. The extent of this testing over three seasons, combined with the absence of early finds, indicates that there was no significant residential occupation of the inner hillfort enclosure in prehistory or in later periods. The same is probably true of the outer hillfort enclosure, though considerably less excavation has been carried out in that area.
The 2006 excavation did identify the original entrance to the inner hillfort enclosure, located on the western side of the site. A causeway across the enclosing ditch at this location led to an opening in the inner bank, which was originally protected by a wooden gate in the defensive palisade.
