2021:641 - Gallowshill, Dungarvan, Waterford

A transect had been cut across Gallows Hill, Dungarvan, in 2017, 2018, and 2019, revealing indications that the mound was used as a place of execution around the 16th/17th century. Several apparently concentric ditches were found around the mound, and evidence of remains below or within the mound going back at least to the 5th/6th century AD. In 2021 two new trenches were cut at the foot of the mound, to clarify and date the construction history of the mound and ditches.

The 2021 excavations revealed at least two clear construction stages, of which the latest involved expanding a pre-existing circular platform or stepped mound, building into the earlier shallow flat-bottomed ditch, and probably raising the mound to more than the present height (c.7m above subsoil), with material quarried from a deeper concentric ditch. A third ditch may be associated with either of the others. The finished mound may have risen in several tall steps or terraces, built in horizontal layers and laced with woodwork.

Charred timbers on the east side of the mound, tying in the late structure, produced consistent felling dates in the late 6th to mid-7th century (596-646AD, 602-663AD, 553-641AD, 591-656AD, 2σ ranges), and willow charcoal from the latest construction level had a similar range (604-660AD, 2σ), but charcoal from a timber lacing the west side produced a substantially earlier date (128-315AD, 2σ).
The characteristic flat-bottomed ditch, and the size of the monument in plan is reminiscent of stepped barrows, but the height of Gallows Hill makes it unusual. It is not clear if the mound was ever adapted for use as a motte.

The investigations were carried out by the Dungarvan Adopt a Monument Group, with the support of the Royal Irish Academy, over two weeks in the summer of 2021.

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