County: Tipperary Site name: INCHIROURKE (Site AR41)
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: E002383
Author: Mick Ó Droma, for Valerie J. Keeley Ltd.
Site type: Cremation pit and Field boundary
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 626132m, N 662525m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.713208, -7.613241
An excavation was carried out in July and August 2006 in advance of the construction of the M8/N8 Cullahill to Cashel road improvement scheme. Prior assessment and centreline test-trenching was carried out in 2005 (Excavations 2005, No. 1388, A027/013). Five cremation pits were revealed in excavation, situated on level ground in an area measuring 40m east–west by 30m. The pits were oval in plan with one circular example; profiles varied from U-shaped to concave and measured 0.15–0.62m in length, 0.15–0.45m in width and 0.1–0.45m in depth. The pits contained between one and three fills. A single example and the only definite cremation burial had been excavated into a tree-bole and had vertical sides and a flat base. All five pits contained charcoal, but the remainder may represent ‘blind burials’, as they were similar in morphology.
A post-medieval field boundary system represented by two large enclosure/boundary ditches was also investigated. An English penny dated 1853 was retrieved from the basal fill of one ditch.
Brehon House, Kilkenny Road, Castlecomer, Co. Kilkenny
