2018:853 - Gallows Hill, Dungarvan, Waterford

The 2017 excavation at the foot of Gallows Hill, Dungarvan, suggested an original motte was reused in the 17th century as part of the Dungarvan town defences. In 2018 Dungarvan Adopt a Monument Group cut a trench on top of the mound, to assess the damage from bonfires and the survival of former ground levels. A second trench was cut 40m from the foot of the mound, to investigate a linear cropmark.
The trench on the mound found almost no damage from the recent bonfires, and found at least two burials and a fragment of skull with articulated jaw and upper vertebrae on the eroded top of the hill.
The top of the original motte is thought to be in good condition below the level of the graves, sealed under upcast associated with the reuse of the mound in the 16th or 17th century.
The trench 40m from the mound crossed a double-ditched field boundary and the likely socket for a standing stone. The socket is undated.

Knockrower Road, Stradbally, Co. Waterford.