2009:542 - GORTBOY, NEWCASTLE WEST, Limerick

Six trenches were excavated in sloping, overgrown waste ground known locally as ^Cullen’s Field’ in advance of the construction of a two-storey retail and office structure with associated site works. The area is located in roughly the centre of Newcastle West, to the south-east of Garvey’s SuperValu and carpark on Market Place and to the north of properties fronting on to Maiden Street. Prior to the testing the landowner mentioned that the area had been levelled out some 30 years previously. Steep high ground to the north-east was bulldozed in order to raise up the considerably lower levels of the site at the west and south. These steep slopes were formed during sand-pit activity, which had taken place previously on the site.
The archaeological trenches were between 0.8m and 3m deep, with the stratigraphy consisting mainly of infill layers (redeposited clay, gravel chip and modern debris) overlying the natural subsoil, a lightgreyish-brown silty sand with frequent limestone chip inclusions. The use of the area as a sand pit was borne out in the trenching, where very steep slopes of natural subsoil appeared as artificial edges in the trench sections. A series of infill layers in the trenches on higher ground to the east could suggest that ground was pushed down the hill during various periods of adjacent development; i.e. the construction of Assumpta Park to the north-east of the site and levelling works carried out by the landowner in the 1970s. Nothing of archaeological significance was noted during the testing.