County: Waterford Site name: Lismore, Lismore Castle
Sites and Monuments Record No.: WA021-019001 Licence number: 16E0087
Author: Dave Pollock
Site type: Castle and garden
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 604630m, N 598660m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.139778, -7.932361
A 70m length of a 17th-century garden wall at Lismore Castle, Co. Waterford, collapsed towards the end of 2015. In early 2016 groundworks ahead of reconstruction were monitored. Evidence of quarrying and extensive ironworking was found on the hillside predating the garden. A charred holly twig in the industrial waste produced a radiocarbon date of cal. AD 683-878 (2 sigma) (UBA-33817). The ironworking waste is from primary and secondary smithing, and perhaps from smelting, and suggests an industrial area in the vicinity of the monastic town of Lismore, which has a traditional foundation date in the 7th century.
The ironworking may have been carried out over a long period; Paul Rondelez suspects the two slag samples inspected are not contemporary (though both are early medieval). The industrial area appears to be quite large, with features producing slag along more than 60m of the 70m scar behind the collapsed garden wall.
The industrial area would have been on the upper hillside, and may have extended a good deal further south and west. Although no slag was recovered or observed in the test trenching south of the walled garden in 2007, a number of features (unexcavated) included a good deal of charcoal in their upper fills (07E003). The early medieval industrial suburb of Lismore may have sprawled another 100m to the south-west.
Stradbally
