2025:049 - Fuller's Folly, Newcastle West, Limerick
County: Limerick
Site name: Fuller's Folly, Newcastle West
Sites and Monuments Record No.: LI036-067002- (Desmond Castle)
Licence number: Ministerial Consent No. C001205; Excavations No. E005559
Author: Frank Coyne
Site type: Medieval and post medieval
Period/Dating: Post Medieval (AD 1600-AD 1750)
ITM: E 527906m, N 633690m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.449910, -9.060609
Archaeological monitoring was carried of the excavation of trial holes at four locations on Fuller’s Folly. The location of the trial holes corresponded with the moat area of the adjacent Desmond Castle (LI036-067002-). The party wall of the courtyard area of Fuller’s Folly is also the bawn wall of the Castle. The results of the monitoring of the trial holes suggest that the moat of the Desmond Castle consisted of the river, which was wider at the time of the construction of the bawn wall. The layer of riverine clay encountered in TP04 would support this hypothesis. Organic material was encountered in TP01. This may be the result of the area against the castle wall becoming silted up as the need for the moat decreased.
A slit trench across the entrance way revealed a substantial mortared wall. This corresponds to a wall depicted on the Ordnance Survey 1st Edition map, and also the later 25 inch map, surveyed in 1895.