County: Tipperary Site name: Magherareagh
Sites and Monuments Record No.: TN034-090 Licence number: 19E0257
Author: Mary Henry
Site type: Testing
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 605179m, N 663775m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.725047, -7.923332
As part of granted planning permission, an archaeological assessment was undertaken on the site of a proposed dwelling house, garage and driveway at Magherareagh, Inch. The site is located c. 80m to the north of a deserted medieval settlement comprising a ruined church, graveyard, castle (motte) and an unclassified castle. Located c. 4km south-east of Borrisoleigh town, the site is within the demesne of Inch House, an early eighteenth-century property which comprised 5000 acres. A highly developed demesne, it had a large lake, fish ponds, parkland, ornate gardens and very extensive tree plantations.
The assessment entailed a programme of testing. Five test trenches were opened on the areas of greatest disturbance. Within test trench No. 1, two anomalies were revealed. The first, a large semi-circular feature contained a single fill of topsoil and offers all the characteristics of a tree bowl pertaining to a mature deciduous tree. Located 4.2m from the northern terminus of the trench was a second feature. It measured 2.7m (north-south) and comprised a V-shaped cut with straight sides and flat base with three fills. A piece of fragmented red brick was retrieved from the middle fill. Interpretation of this feature suggested it was the result of nineteenth/twentieth-century agriculture activity.
No features were identified pertaining to any period prior to the nineteenth century, nor cut from beneath the topsoil. Cartographic information indicated that the site is in an area prone to systematic flooding over the ages, with extensive reclamation works undertaken over the last 200 years with such works denoted on the 1841 First Edition OS map. Even though the site is in close proximity to the archaeological monument TN034-090001 - 090005, it is likely it would have been under water, or at best, on a flood plain, during the medieval period and not conducive for human habitation/activity. An examination of the 1841 OS map revealed extensive tree plantation associated with Inch demesne dominating almost all of the field where the site is, and encroaching into much of the site itself. By the early twentieth century (1902 OS map), however, the extent of forest had receded slightly southwards within the field with an overall very substantial diminishing of forestry within Inch Demesne over the following 100 years.
17 Staunton Row, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary
