County: Limerick Site name: Clondrinagh and Clonconane
Sites and Monuments Record No.: None Licence number: 17E0392
Author: Margaret McCarthy, ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONSULTANT
Site type: Possible prehistoric pits
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 553995m, N 657067m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.662830, -8.680080
Monitoring was requested by Limerick City and County Council during the advance works stage of the construction of the new northern distributor road in Limerick city. A full archaeological presence was maintained during the initial phase of the peat and topsoil removal on a section of the road scheme extending from the Coonagh roundabout on the Ennis road terminating at the Cratloe road, in Clonconane townland. The route travels through part of the River Shannon flood plain and the Crampaun River lies to the west of the road scheme. Pre-development testing of the entire route was undertaken by TVAS (Ireland) over 2012-2013 and several archaeological sites were identified and excavated. The nearest archaeological monument is a burial cairn (L1005-005)located 190m to the west of the road scheme.
Groundworks were mostly undertaken in wet low-lying marshy ground where the peat deposits had an average depth of 2m and reached a maximum depth of 3.5m in the central portion of the wayleave. Monitoring was also undertaken on higher ground close to the Cratloe Road. The topsoil here varied from 0.35-0.42m in depth and two pits were exposed and excavated close to where this section of the road scheme terminated at the Cratloe road. They appeared on the surface as localised spreads of dark sediment containing occasional charcoal.
Pit(C2)measured 0.45m north-south by 0.49m and was 0.2m deep. The sides of the pit were steep and straight, and the base was flat and uneven. It was filled with dark brown/black moderately compacted silt with frequent charcoal flecks and clay inclusions. The entire contents of the pit were sieved but no further finds or organic matter were recovered.
Pit (C5) was located 0.5m north of the previously described pit. It was oval in plan measuring 0.84m north-south by 0.7m with a maximum depth of 0.37m. The pit contained two fills: a lower fill of black charcoal-enriched silt with some clay (C4) measuring 0.18m in depth and an upper layer of clay (C3), measuring 0.1m in depth which sealed the lower fill. A single cow tooth was recovered from the base of the pit. This was submitted to Queen`s University Radiocarbon laboratory in Belfast but there was insufficient collagen in the tooth to enable a date to be obtained.
No further features or finds of archaeological significance were uncovered.
Rostellan, Midleton, Co. Cork
