2009:106 - ST MOCHULLA’S CHURCH, TULLA, Clare

The site lies within the enclosure of the major foundation attributed to St Mochulla, whose roofless church dominates the skyline. It flanks the medieval Fair Green, which itself might date to this early period and addresses the town on the slope below.
This assessment was undertaken on foot of a planning application submitted by the parish for an extension of the modern graveyard, within the early enclosure. The area had already been subjected to a detailed geophysical survey undertaken by Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd in January 2009 (08R0327). Resistivity and gradiometer surveys succeeded in only tentatively establishing the presence of walls identified on 19th-century mapping, where strong magnetic disturbance throughout the site possibly derived from dense scatters of ferrous material within the topsoil, the site forming the back garden of Con ^the Nailer’ O’Neill in the 1940s. Due to the inconclusive nature of the results, an application was made for ministerial consent to further investigate the area by excavating a series of test-trenches.
Three trenches were opened mechanically by a 3tonne mini-excavator with a toothless grading bucket. Due to the high potential of recovering archaeological deposits, the trenches were opened in 100mm spits once the disturbed topsoil had been removed. The bright-yellow subsoil (dóib bhuí) horizon was initially exposed at a depth of 0.35m at the highest point of the investigation in Trench 1 and further excavated mechanically to a depth of 1.6m to establish its geological provenance.
No features of archaeological significance were recorded in the soil or over the trowelled surface of the dóib bhuí, in Trenches 1 or 2. A sharp rise in the level of the subsoil at the eastern end of Trench 3 was suggestive of ground reduction to form an internal platform or inner enclosure for the medieval church. Three pieces of undiagnostic modern pottery were recovered from the topsoil along with several fragments of modern iron nails and fencing wire, mostly recovered from the spoil using a detecting device.