County: Cork Site name: Gorteanish
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 08E0623
Author: Margaret McCarthy, Rostellan, Midleton, Co. Cork.
Site type: No archaeological significance
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 486283m, N 539774m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 51.598987, -9.641517
The proposed construction of a single dwelling house outside the archaeological constraint zone of a boulder burial (CO130–043) and a stone circle (CO130–016) in Gorteanish townland near Ahakista, west Cork, led to a request for a test excavation to be carried out. Both monuments are located on high ground at a considerable distance from the dwelling house and are barely visible on the landscape due to being surrounded by a vast expanse of gorse undergrowth. The existence of the sites was reported to members of the Cork Archaeological Survey in 1985, but various attempts to survey the monuments at that time proved unsuccessful due to impenetrable gorse cover. In 1995, a group of local individuals cleared a pathway through the undergrowth during work on the Sheep’s Head Way and the stone circle and boulder burial are now accessible to the public.
Three test-trenches were placed within the footprint of the proposed dwelling house. These were excavated to a level on to the natural boulder clay and no features of archaeological significance were noted in the investigated areas.
