County: Cork Site name: Kilshanny 2
Sites and Monuments Record No.: - Licence number: E002431
Author: James Lyttleton, for Eachtra Archaeological Projects, Ballycurreen Industrial Estate, Kinsale Road, Cork.
Site type: No archaeological significance.
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 583303m, N 612896m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.267508, -8.244612
At Kilshanny 2, a series of pits were found during pre-construction testing in advance of the N8 Fermoy–Mitchelstown road scheme (Cotter et al. 2006). The excavation, which commenced on 25 September 2006, lasted for one week.
Four pits were excavated in Field A and one was excavated in Field B. A large pit, C9, was located to the eastern side of Field A. It measured 5m by 4m but was only 0.75m deep. It truncated two earlier pits, C8 and C27. Pit C8 was 1.4m long by 1.2m and 1.3m deep. It was oval in shape with steep sides. A piece of white-glazed post-medieval pottery and a well-preserved piece of animal bone were recovered from the fills of this feature. Pit C27 was 1.15m long by 0.95m by 0.46m deep. It was irregular in shape with stepped sides. An abundance of charcoal was recovered from the fill. The post-medieval finds of these two pits indicate a recent backfilling and also a recent date of construction for pit C9, which truncated them both. Determining the function of these pits was difficult, because there were no indicators within the fills or in the forms of the pits to suggest what they were used for.
Another pit, C16, was located to the north of Field A. It was 1.3m long by 1.2m by 0.55m deep. It was circular in shape, with vertical and slightly undercutting sides. No archaeological material was recovered from the fill of this feature. The undercut sides of this pit tend to indicate a natural feature, possibly a hollow that has been filled in through subsidence.
A single feature, C26, was uncovered in Field B. It was 2.6m long by 1m by 0.6m in depth. It was irregular in shape with steep sides. No archaeological material was recovered from the fills of this feature. A lack of information made the function and date of this pit difficult to determine. The irregular shape may indicate a naturally occurring hollow.
Of the five features, three were post-medieval in date and the other two were of probable natural origin, therefore the site is of no archaeological significance.
Reference
Cotter, E., Buckley, K. and Drumm, M. 2006 N8 Fermoy Mitchelstown, Phase 1, Final Archaeological Testing Report, Licence Number 05E1150. Unpublished Eachtra Archaeological Projects report submitted to the NRA.
