County: Limerick Site name: Brittas Castle, Brittas
Sites and Monuments Record No.: LI 014-058 Licence number: 12E0251, 12R091
Author: Niall Brady
Site type: Bawn
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 572143m, N 650670m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.606571, -8.411266
A rescue excavation was carried out within the interior of Brittas Castle, Co. Limerick, where work had begun to install a slatted pit as an emergency measure to prevent a pollution event in the adjacent Mulkear River. Before an archaeological presence arrived on site, a pit had been machine-excavated within a cutting measuring 12.5m long, 5.7m wide, and 1.95m deep, and the pit had been partially back-filled.
The slatted pit is located within the bawn of the castle site, against the north side, which overlooks the Mulkear River. The present-day farmyard surface is covered in concrete slab. Once the back-filled spoil was removed, record was made of the stratigraphy observed in the sides of the pit. A defined sequence of strata extends to the excavated depth of 1.95m from the surface. Two cultural layers were observed within the stratigraphy. A thick deposit of 17th-18th-century material fills the upper level below the concrete slab. This overlies an infill horizon, which in turn overlies a dark grey/black-coloured rich organic clay, measuring c. 0.4m in thickness, with charcoal, animal bone and wood/withy inclusions. No distinctive artefacts were observed in this lower level. A natural gley lies beneath, starting at c. 1.8m below the present-day surface. It may be concluded that excavation of the pit has removed substantive archaeological deposits within the bawn area of the castle site. Archaeological levels survive to some depth and represent at least two distinct chronological periods.
The Archaeological Dviing Company Ltd, Kilkenny Road, Castlecomer, Co. Kilkenny
