County: Waterford Site name: Gallowshill, Dungarvan
Sites and Monuments Record No.: WA031-067 Licence number: 17E0245
Author: Dave Pollock
Site type: Motte
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 625090m, N 593240m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.090509, -7.633867
Over 8 days in early June 2017 an exploratory trench was cut at the foot of Gallows Hill, a likely motte on the outskirts of Dungarvan, Co. Waterford. The trench was excavated by the Dungarvan Adopt a Monument Group, who had carried out geophysical surveys of the site with Kevin Barton in recent years.
The 22m long trench exposed a shallow quarry ditch around the mound, and a pair of concentric deep ditches cut through the infilled early ditch, and into the slumped foot of the mound. The mound may have been a counter-castle, blockading the landward approaches to medieval Dungarvan, and reused as a town defensive work and/or a seigework in the 16th or 17th century.
No indication of a bawn or bailey was found on this (west) side of the mound, but the ditch of a potentially medieval enclosure removed from the mound was intercepted at the west end of the trench.
It is hoped that further investigations can be carried out next year.
Stradbally
