County: Cork Site name: St Finbarr's Place, Cork
Sites and Monuments Record No.: CO074-034001- Licence number: 22E0332
Author: David Murphy
Site type: Urban - within ZON of medieval city
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 567055m, N 571470m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 51.894414, -8.478665
Archaeological testing at the site of a proposed residential development site at 30 St Finbarr’s Place, Cork was undertaken in order to comply with a request for further information from Cork City Council. The site is located beside the south-western walls of Elizabeth Fort. Four test trenches, measuring c. 1.5m in width and totalling 46m in length, were excavated across areas which will be impacted should the proposed development proceed.
While a number of features and items of interest were revealed within the excavated trenches, including disarticulated human bone, no evidence of any medieval archaeology was uncovered. The features of interest included a subsurface wall foundation (T.1; F.1) uncovered at the eastern end of Trench 1 and a backfilled vertically sided cut (T.3; F.1) revealed underlying the garden soil at the northern end of Trench 3. The disarticulated human bone was revealed in the central and southern portions of Trench 4.
The entirety of the tested portion of the site appears to have been built up with layers of introduced infill material. Some of this material likely originated from the demolition of the structures which are depicted in the western portion of the site on the historic maps. The cultural inclusions within the introduced soil deposits indicates that infilling activity was undertaken on the site from the 17th century onwards. Much of these soils were likely sourced from sites located in the wider area surrounding the proposed development site. This is an area which contained a significant number of both official and unofficial historic burial grounds. It is quite possible that the transfer of soil from such a site at some point from the 17th century onwards resulted in the likely accidental transfer of some human bone fragments.
Due to the significant depths of introduced soils (2m plus at many locations), natural subsoil was only sporadically revealed within the excavated trenches. As such, the potential for the survival of archaeological artefacts, features, deposits or remains within or below the lowest portions of infilling material cannot be discounted.
3a Westpoint Trade Centre, Link Road, Ballincollig, Cork
