County: Cork Site name: Farnahoe, Innishannon
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 07E1148
Author: Margaret McCarthy, Archaeological Consultant, Rostellan, Midleton, Co. Cork.
Site type: No archaeological significance
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 555023m, N 557984m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 51.772354, -8.651708
An application to Cork County Council to extend the existing graveyard at the rear of St Mary’s Church in Innishannon led to a request for an archaeological impact assessment to be prepared. The proposed extension is located within the archaeological constraint zone for the church (CO097–053(02)) and is within the curtilage of the graveyard. The planning authority also required that a test excavation be carried out on the site as part of the archaeological assessment.
Innishannon is situated at the head of the estuary of the Bandon River and was an important fording point from medieval times. The street layout is probably on the same lines as in medieval times and the remains of some fine 18th-century houses still survive on Main Street. The church and graveyard are sited on elevated ground just off the main street and the proposed graveyard extension is situated in the north-east corner of the site to the rear of the parochial house.
In all, four test-trenches were opened and the placement of these was determined by the location of the proposed lines of grave plots. The test-trenches were all oriented east–west and they extended from the existing graves to the west eastwards towards the field boundary. The topsoil consisted of dark-brown podzolic sediment and varied in depth from 0.45m to almost 0.8m in places. The surface beneath the topsoil was made up friable light-orange/brown stony subsoil. The partial remains of two lines of cultivation furrows were noted, but no features or finds of archaeological importance were uncovered in the trench.
