2008:152 - Agharinagh, Cork

Cork County Council sought testing as part of a further information request for a proposed housing development at Agharinagh, Dripsey. One monument (CO072–151) lies at the south-western corner of the site; this is a listed as ‘redundant record’ on the www.archaeology.ie website; in the Archaeological Inventory of County Cork the following description is given: ‘Miscellaneous, in tillage. Spread of dark-coloured soil. Material not consistent with that of fulacht fiadh.’ A second monument lies to the east of the proposed development (CO072–024), although in the adjoining field. The demarcation circle does enter the north-eastern area of the proposed development site. No surface trace of this monument survives today. This monument is not listed in the Archaeological Inventory of County Cork, but is described on the www.archaeology.ie site as being a ‘possible enclosure’.
Six north–south trenches and six east–west trenches were excavated to give a comprehensive coverage of the site. A combination of continuous and discontinuous trenches were excavated, depending on the consistency of the soil profile revealed. Generally there was a consistent soil profile throughout the site, with c. 0.5–0.6m of friable topsoil over a gritty or clay subsoil. Two areas of charcoal were recorded; one in Trench 3 was a shallow isolated patch that was not apparently related to any associated feature. The potential archaeological significance of this charcoal is considered to be low, as it may relate to a burning of relatively recent date when a field fence was removed from this area in the past twenty years. The second area of charcoal is also of indeterminate date and there were no associated finds or features. The presence of a few heat-shattered stones may indicate part of fulacht fiadh or associated feature. The find lies in proximity to CO072–024 in the adjoining field to the east.