County: Tipperary Site name: Cashel, Rock of Cashel
Sites and Monuments Record No.: TI061-025 Licence number: E004656
Author: Dave Pollock
Site type: Early medieval royal and church site
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 607430m, N 640920m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.519600, -7.890522
In May 2016 seven test trenches were cut through the road climbing the Rock of Cashel, and into the south-west corner of the hilltop enclosure, to assess the proposed route for new service ducting. All trenches encountered soil and rubble, but there was no clear indication of an early metalled road on the present approach, which has been the main approach since at least the 1840s.
Test trenching in the south-west corner of the hilltop enclosure found a substantial depth of rubble and soil overlying archaeological levels (a thin skim over bedrock). In Trench 3 clean bedrock at the foot of the medieval wall was overlain by 0.6m of late rubble, and fragmentary floor remains nearby were lower, under more than 0.8m of soil and rubble.
Similar late rubble and soil against the east and north side of the corner tower extended to at least 0.5m below ground level in the hollow.
No human burials were found during the testing. A few disarticulated and broken pieces of possible arm or leg bone were observed in Trenches 2 and 3, amongst rubble. No articulated pieces and no teeth or skull fragments were found.
Cutting the ducting trench up the approach road was monitored from the evening of 30 May. Most of the works were undertaken between 5.30 pm and dusk, to minimise the nuisance for visitors and staff at the Rock.
Trench 9, on the hilltop, cut into a deep rubbly soil, mostly spoil from the later 20th century, but some perhaps associated with 19th-century conservation works. Prior to this the ground was probably outcropping rock with a thin and patchy covering of topsoil.
There was no indication of graves cut into the rock in this area, and very little of the late medieval building between the corner tower and the surviving hall of the Vicars Choral is likely to have survived.
Under the present approach road bedrock is close to ground level on the uphill side, but in places below the depth (0.7m) of the new service trench on the downhill side. A deep layer of rubble and soil under the present road probably represents earlier paths, over pockets of old soil and occasional patches of clay subsoil. Material of archaeological interest has survived on a terrace in the vicinity of Trench 10, and may be quite extensive, below the depth of Trench 8. Elsewhere survival is probably poor, on formerly exposed rock.
Stradbally
