2015:611 - N80 Ballinacarrig Roundabout, Carlow

Testing was carried out by Graham Hull in July 2015 in advance of a roundabout development. The licence was subsequently transferred for excavation of the site in August-October of the same year.
Excavation revealed an Iron Age ring-ditch with cremated bone, 28 glass and 98 crinoid (fossil) beads, a bone bead, and a copper alloy dress fastener, part of a 8th–10th-century enclosure and two associated cereal-drying kilns, a medieval kiln, medieval ditches and pits and post-medieval agricultural features.
The ring-ditch survived as a small annular ditch (4.8m external diameter, 1m width, 0.31m maximum depth) filled with charcoal-rich material containing cremated bone and grave goods. A date of 49 cal. BC to cal. AD 79 (UBA-36219; 1981 BP ± 32) was obtained from a sloe stone from the ring-ditch fill. Assuming that the sloe was attached to blackthorn wood used in the funeral pyre, this determination places the funerary activity in the Developed to Late Iron Age.

A small portion of a large curved ditch was revealed this and appears to correspond to a sub-circular feature visible in aerial photographs in an adjacent field. The aerial photograph indicates a monument with an external diameter of approximately 50m. The ditch was between 3.5m and 4.4m wide and up to 1.6m deep. A piece of cattle bone from the ditch was radiocarbon dated to cal. AD 770-950 (UBA-35097; 1176 ± 27). Although very little of the monument lay within the excavated area it does appear that this ditch is part of an early medieval defended settlement enclosure such as a ringfort or rath that would have had a large ditch and accompanying earthen bank.
Two early medieval cereal-drying kilns were excavated and radiocarbon dated to cal. AD 775-965 (UBA-35092; 1159 ± 26, charred wheat grain) and cal. AD 778-998 (UBA-35093; 1130 ± 27, charred oat grain).
Significant settlement activity dating to the late 12th to 13th century was also excavated. The many features included a stone-lined kiln, several pits, a curvilinear gully and a number of ditches. Pottery from these features was a mixture of Leinster Cooking Ware (late 12th – mid 14th century), Kilkenny-type coarseware (late 12th – early 13th century) and Kilkenny-type ware (13th century); whilst the kiln was radiocarbon dated to cal. AD 1168-1263 (UBA-35094; 819 ± 28, charred oat grain), with the greatest likelihood that it was used in the first half of the 13th century and several centuries after the enclosure described above was occupied.
Seemingly following a peak in the 13th century, settlement on the site decreased. No obviously later medieval artefacts were recovered, even from topsoil. A single pit, radiocarbon dated to cal. AD 1452-1634 (UBA-35095, 359±31, charred oat grain), is the only feature definitively assigned to this later part of the medieval period, or the start of the post-medieval period.
Post-medieval ploughing truncated many of the features.

Ahish, Ballinruan, Crusheen, Co. Clare