County: Tipperary Site name: 4 Morton Street, Clonmel
Sites and Monuments Record No.: TS083–019 Licence number: 07E0850
Author: Jacinta Kiely, Eachtra Archaeological Projects, The Forge, Innishannon, Co. Cork.
Site type: Urban
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 620215m, N 622620m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.354799, -7.703236
The site is located within the zone of archaeological potential for Clonmel town. It has been suggested (Farrelly and Fitzpatrick 1993, Map 11a) that a length of the town wall ran roughly east-north-east to west-south-west between North Gate and Mary’s Gate. This wall possibly runs through the site, less than 10m south of, and parallel to, the southern edge of Morton Street. Two phases of work, an assessment and testing, were undertaken by John Tierney at the site in 2007 (Excavations 2007, No. 1638). The town wall was not recorded in any of the test-trenches. It may have been destroyed during previous phases of works associated with the construction of an orphanage.
Monitoring was undertaken of all ground-disturbance works associated with construction of the extension of the day centre. The topsoil or overburden was removed from the entire footprint of the new building. It was up to 2.5m in depth. Occasional fragments of 19th-century pottery, clay-pipe stems, lumps of concrete and modern material were included in the deposit. A number of walls were uncovered during monitoring of siteworks. These walls were part of the Morton Street Convent and associated buildings built c. 1845. All of the walls either had rough gravel concrete bases or concrete bonding and inclusions of red brick. Some of these walls were not built on subsoil but on the overburden, the uniform dark-grey/brown clay silt. No trace of the possible town wall, suggested from historical and cartographic sources, was uncovered. There was a strip of deeper overburden running from east to west from c. 3m to 7m south of the edge of Morton Street. This deeper part was completely excavated by machine at the east end of the site; it was found to be c. 2.4m deep. It is possible that the town wall was located along this strip and removed during the construction of the convent in the mid-19th century.
No archaeological stratigraphy, features or artefacts were recorded during monitoring of on-site works.
Reference
Farrelly, J. and Fitzpatrick, E. 1993 Urban archaeological survey: County Tipperary South Riding, vols. 1 & 2. Archaeological Survey of Ireland. Dublin.
