2009:AD17 - NRA SERVICE AREA; PARK (TN), ROSHEDRID AND CLYNOE (OF), Tipperary

Testing of a proposed development site for the NRA Nenagh service area was undertaken in March 2009, with the assistance of Stephan Bueck, across 23.9ha of greenfields lying predominantly in Park townland (Tipperary), but also extending east into Roshedrid and Clynoe townlands (Offaly). The site lies immediately north of the M7 Castletown to Nenagh road scheme, under construction at the time of testing. Almost 0.6ha of test-trenches were opened, on the basis of geophysical survey (Harrison 2009, 09R40), accessibility and landscape analysis. Archaeology was identified in several places on the development site; it has been grouped into fifteen locations on the basis of testing, geophysical and landscape data to facilitate more succinct description and understanding of the findings. These locations do not necessarily indicate discrete ^sites’; a number of them are similar and likely to be related; several of them also appear to be multi-period and may represent a palimpsest indicative of reuse, or the 'curation’, of an earlier archaeological landscape.

A subrectangular area c. 45m by 45m and enclosed within a large ditch some 4.6–4.7m wide was identified in the low-lying lands in the north-east of the development. The interior of the enclosure contained a fen peat layer overlying an organic layer with decayed horizontal (mostly roundwood) timbers on the same axes as the enclosure ditch, with other interspersed deposits and possible post-holes. The organic layer stopped short of the perimeter ditch, by some 7–7.3m; this, along with the presence of two post-holes along the inside of the south-south-west part of the ditch, may suggest the former presence of an earthen bank and palisade around the interior perimeter of the ditch. The timbers in the organic layer may represent the remains of buildings, or possibly a former raised interior that has since been levelled (the enclosure ditch appears to have been systematically backfilled). The distinction between archaeological and non-archaeological timber (i.e. preserved carr woodland) was not always readily evident, however. The morphology of the enclosure, as well as its location adjacent to a canalised stream forming the Leinster/Munster border, suggest that it may be a medieval moated site settlement, ostensibly dating to the 13th–14th centuries AD, or a related type of enclosure. The site is located such that it is readily visible from a distance only to the north-west, where a raised moated site (TN022–001) lies c. 800m away and also next to the provincial border, and from the prominent hilltop to the south-east, on the south slope of which lies a ringwork castle (Corliss Fort, TN022–004) some 850m away overlooking the provincial border.

Four burnt-mound/fulacht fiadh sites were identified along the boundary between low-lying boggy and higher-elevation drained lands. All appear smaller than the Park 2 fulacht fiadh excavated as part of the M7 scheme (N. Roycroft, pers. comm., citing directors J. Tierney and G. Mullins; see also Excavations 2007, No. 1710, E3659). A fifth probable site was also identified in an untested area of tulip cultivation, on the basis of the high concentration of scattered fragmented stones observed in the topsoil there.

A prehistoric activity/settlement site, provisionally dated by a pottery rim sherd recovered there, and a similar undated activity/settlement site were identified on small hillocks adjacent to the higher-elevation/low-lying boggy ground boundary. Both consisted of clusters of round, oval and arc-shaped pits containing charcoal-rich soils.

The probable northern extension of the M7 Scheme Park 1 West cluster of prehistoric cremation burial-pits was also identified during testing, and included a possible small stone cist, intermixed with narrow cross-hatched ploughmarks of indeterminate age and possibly overlain with scattered early medieval/medieval archaeology (as with the Park 1 West excavation, ibid.)

A shallow ring-ditch, 12m in diameter and of possible prehistoric to early medieval date, with scattered pits nearby, was identified in the higher elevation lands, but within a shallow bowl-shaped hollow in the natural gradient near the gentle western slope down off those lands.

A large area on the higher elevation lands, some 125m by 75m, contained low-density, scattered curvilinear ditches and agricultural ploughmarks of indeterminate date that may be of archaeological interest. Considering their landscape context, the former may be early medieval to medieval in origin and appear to bound a former field. The latter may represent remnant medieval or early post-medieval field systems; they appear to relate to each other.

A second large area, also on higher-elevation lands and measuring some 160m by 75m, contained low-density, scattered pits interspersed with less frequent possible post-holes and occasional narrow linear features. The features are of indeterminate date, but typically contained charcoal-rich fills. Like features excavated in the M7 Scheme Park 1 site and elsewhere along that road scheme, they may represent truncated grain storage pits and/or corn-drying kilns, perhaps interspersed with, or overlying, other scattered activity/settlement remains.

The probable north extension of early medieval to medieval settlement/activity excavated in the M7 Park 1 East site was also identified during testing. Within the higher elevation lands, it lies on a low plateau and appears to be bound by an enclosing ditch at the edge of the plateau on its east side (a possible continuation of Park 1 East ditch, C543). North-east/south-west and perpendicular northwest/south-east slot-trenches contained spaced post holes suggesting the surviving remains of a subrectangular building, cut through by later plough-marks.

A final location of archaeology, in the higher elevation lands, contained the probably northern circuit of a large sub-oval enclosure ditch, perhaps 70m by over 55m, around an activity/settlement site identified in the Park 1 excavations (ditches C157 and C2112). A single fragment of iron slag was observed in the fill of the ditch; coupled with the Park 1 excavation data, this may suggest an early medieval to medieval date.