County: Clare Site name: Ennis Road, Kilrush
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 07E0764
Author: Maurice F. Hurley, 6 Clarence Court, St Luke’s Cork.
Site type: No archaeological significance
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 499845m, N 655530m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.641730, -9.479874
Testing was required as a condition of planning. The site lies on the outskirts of the currently developed urban area of Kilrush. The site was previously three fields and was later developed as a pitch and putt course. Subsequently the land was again in pasture as one field. The site slopes gently to the north. Site inspection revealed no surface anomalies of potential archaeological significance and there are no recorded finds in the immediate vicinity; a stone-built corbelled vault construction and a ‘Zulu hut’ in a lake are of mid/late 20th-century construction.
Five parallel trenches, each c. 50m in length, were excavated with a c. 2m-wide toothless ditching bucket. The trenches were excavated at 20m intervals from north to south. All the trenches were parallel and continuous.
No finds or features of potential archaeological significance were uncovered in the course of the testing. Numerous pits relate to features of the golf-course, especially a number that were identified as holes filled with sandy soil for tree planting. Numerous sherds of modern tableware, most with a pink or blue floral pattern, were found throughout the site. Much of the ware was crazed; this is often due to heat damage or deterioration of a poor-quality glaze, especially in acidic soils. There were no finds of any antiquity and all the objects recorded were less than 100 years old.
