County: Cork Site name: Barnahely, Ringaskiddy
Sites and Monuments Record No.: None Licence number: 17E0071
Author: Margaret McCarthy, ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONSULTANT
Site type: Pits
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 576386m, N 564510m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 51.832324, -8.342620
In advance of a planning permission submission by Janssen Biologics (Ireland) for the undertaking of landscape works at their site in Barnahely, Ringaskiddy a test excavation was requested to be undertaken by Cork County Council. The proposed development site is in Barnahely townland 1.5km west of Ringaskiddy village in Cork`s Lower Harbour. A number of shell middens are listed as being present in Cork Harbour coastal area to the south-east of the proposed development. There are several fulachta fiadh and ringforts within the wider area of the subject lands and traces of a burnt mound were discovered while monitoring was being carried out during the construction of the existing Janssen Biologics facility in 2005.
Thirteen trenches were mechanically investigated and two possible cremation pits of unknown date were exposed in Test Trench 6 in the central area of the development lands. Both pits became clear following the removal of topsoil as two localised spreads of dark brown sediment containing occasional stone and charcoal flecking. Pit (F3)was circular in plan and excavation revealed a shallow fracture with steeply sloping sides and a broad relatively flat base. On the surface, it measured 0.7m north-south x 0.73m and reached a maximum depth of 0.15m. The southern side of the pit broke sharply with the surface and it was steep and straight to the base; all other sides sloped very gradually to the base. The pit contained a single fill (F5) of dark brown silt sediment with inclusions of charcoal flecks, small and medium stones and a few very minute fragments of calcined bone suggesting that the pit may have held cremated remains at some stage or that it was used to contain the remnants of a cremation pyre, with the skeletal remains being buried elsewhere. Pit (F4) was located 1.9m north of possible cremation pit(F3). It measured 0.56m north-south X 0.44m and reached a maximum depth of 0.21m. The sides were steep and straight with a rounded stony base. The fill (F6) was similar to that recovered from pit (F3) and the quantity of charcoal and bone present in both pits was insufficient for radiocarbon analysis.
A programme of monitoring was initiated following the test excavation and no further features of archaeological significance were found.
Rostellan, Midleton, Co. Cork
