2016:764 - Ennis Watermain Rehabilitation Project (Clonroad More, Clonroad Beg, Lifford, Cloghleagh, Dulick, Ballycorey), Clare

Monitoring of ground disturbance associated with pipe-laying in Ennis town and its suburbs revealed disarticulated human bone in two locations in the town centre. Whilst most of the bone is likely to date to the post-medieval period and relate to a demolished graveyard, one piece of bone was radiocarbon dated to the period between the early 14th and mid-15th century AD.
Human bone was found in the water pipe trench in Old Barrack Street. The bone was disarticulated, representing partial remains, and had likely been disturbed by earlier development or moved from elsewhere. This bone was almost exclusively from adults and a radiocarbon determination obtained from a tooth showed that the person died between the early 14th and mid-15th century. It is likely that a previously unknown graveyard was present at the south side of Ennis in the medieval period. The precise location of this burial site is confounded by the disturbed nature of the burials and the ad hoc and unreported finds of other bone in the immediate vicinity.
A small graveyard known as Garraunakilla, shown on the 1840 Ordnance Survey map, was likely to have been located near what is now the junction of Kilrush Road and Carmody Street and was in use from perhaps the 17th century until the earlier 19th century as a burial ground for the poor and for infants. The archaeological material discovered in the waterpipe trenches at this crossroads is dominated by infants’ and children’s bones, many of which exhibit poor nourishment. The documentary and osteological evidence indicate that this was a poor person’s graveyard (if not a cillín or children’s burial ground) and the single sherds of pottery and glass as well as larch from a coffin support the dating to the 17th to 19th centuries. The construction of Carmody Street in the later 19th century and associated housing extensively disturbed the graveyard. Other finds of human bone have been reported (to the authors but not to the statutory authorities) in the immediate vicinity.
The site is published in 'The Other Clare' 2019.