Road - road/trackway

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated on the N side of Fairview Crescent and continuing to E and W, in the Singland/Garryowen area of Limerick city. Potentially following the N side of Fairview Crescent, which is adjacent to the site of the Garryowen Reservoir (Limerick Waterworks), which in turn is understood to be on the site of a star-shaped fort (LI005-028----). Identified by Rose Cleary as a road which was uncovered to N of the old waterworks during excavations (License No. 96E0200) carried out in advance of a housing development (Cleary 1996, 3). According to Cleary (ibid), the road was recorded on the N side of the excavation area (in Test Trenches 2 and 3) and appears to have been on the same line as a road recorded on some of the seventeenth-century maps of Limerick city. The cobbled road (Wth 4.3m) consisted of a central metalled surface comprising of small rounded limestone pebbles of varying size (10mm-50mm) (ibid, 8). The central portion (Wth 2m) was very compact and had two ruts (Wth c. 0.3m) which were 0.9-1m apart (ibid). There was evidence of repair and filling of the rutted surfaces, where stones had been set in a matrix of boulder clay (ibid, 11). The finds from the surface of the road were 19th century pottery and glass fragments of corroded iron (ibid).

See attached plan extract from excavation report (Cleary 1996).

Compiled by: Alison McQueen and Vera Rahilly

Date of upload: 29 June 2020

References

Cleary, R.M. 1997 'Cromwell's Fort', Singland. In I. Bennet (ed.) Excavations 1996: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 72, No. 254. Wordwell, Bray.