County: Clare Site name: Rylane
Sites and Monuments Record No.: CL026-112 Licence number: 16E0014
Author: Peter Casby (licence holder Elizabeth FitzPatrick)
Site type: Ringfort
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 543566m, N 682012m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.886021, -8.838530
This licence was sought to retrieve sample material from the ditch-fill of rath CL026-112 in the townland of Rylane, Co. Clare. This was carried out in order to analyse the pollen content thus providing a profile of vegetation over time. Material from the sample can be sieved to retrieve carbon-dateable matter at depths along the core that are identified by notable changes or events in the pollen profile.
Using a 30mm diameter single gouge auger with an operational length of 1m, a vertical core sample was retrieved from the middle of the northern water-logged ditch. Location of core sample is ITM 543545, 682011. No other context was disturbed. The ditch was quite wet at this site and so a gouge corer was used to retrieve a soil sample of 0.53m depth for pollen analysis. This sample was taken from the west quadrant of the ditch. The soil was quite wet and light brown to sand brown at the bottom and more chocolate brown at the centre. The top 0.1m appeared quite churned up by browsing cattle. The core sample was transferred to a sample tube, secured and sealed for transport to the Palaeoenvironmental Research Unit (PRU) at NUI Galway for the purpose of pollen analysis, which is being carried out at the time of writing.
School of Geography and Archaeology, National University of Ireland, Galway
