Ring-ditch

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated on the route of the Croom Bypass, 100m W of the River Maigue and which also marks a townland boundary with Tooreen. Not depicted on OSi historic maps. Levelled monument identified by Celie O’Rahilly, Limerick County Archaeologist in advance of construction of the Croom bypass and described as: ‘a circular platform of raised ground, measuring 24m diameter’.
Archaeological testing in 1997 under licence No. 97E0399 was subsequently carried out by Thaddeus Breen and the results of the testing were summarised as following: ‘A circular, ditched enclosure with possible associated features outside the ditch (Breen 1998, 113).
The ring-ditch was fully excavated (Licence No. 97E0399 ext.) and monitoring of topsoil to N and S was carried out by Fiona Rooney in 1999 and the results of the excavation were summarised as following: ‘The remains of a ring-ditch consisting of a subcircular central area measuring 33.3m north-south by 31.4m, raised c. 0.4m above the surrounding ground. This was enclosed by a ditch that had been reused in more recent times for land reclamation purposes.
Removal of the sod and topsoil revealed the upper fills of a ditch and drain feature and an area of archaeological activity in the central raised area. During excavations it was found that the ditch had been greatly disturbed by a series of drains that followed the line of the ring-ditch. Here the stratigraphy consisted of a layer of orange/grey, silty clay overlying the stone drains. The original cut of the ditch had been altered by this disturbance. The basal fill of the ditch survived below the drains and contained inclusions of animal bone. In the east of the site (along the road boundary) an area 20m long had not been disturbed by land reclamation, and here the ditch and entranceway survived. The original ditch cut was 2.8m wide and c. 1m in maximum depth. Removal of the orange/grey, silty clay layer revealed the basal layer of the ditch and a deposit of stones in the north and south terminals. The deposit of stones contained inclusions of animal bone, charcoal flecks and a fragment of a lignite bracelet. The ditch was U-shaped in section.
In the eastern half of the central raised area the remains of a possible structure were revealed. It was defined by two linear slot-trenches, both of which ran in an east-west direction. The fill of the trenches was a stony, grey/brown, silty clay with coarse components of animal bone and animal teeth. Within the area defined by the slot-trenches a number of shallow pits and post-holes were revealed. A scatter of cremated bone was also revealed below the topsoil within the dark, blackish-brown, silty clay deposit.
Finds from the site included modern pottery, glass and clay pipe fragments, which came from the ditch, the drains and the topsoil. Coarse components from the structure consisted primarily of animal bone, some cremated bone and the occasional fragment of slag. A small pin was found in the disturbed area of the ditch, and a fragment of a lignite bracelet was discovered in the undisturbed context in the south terminal.
Monitoring of the mechanical excavation of the topsoil revealed a number of drains, some of which were the same as those found during the manual excavation of the ring-ditch. Some of the drains appeared to run below the level of the road, therefore pre-dating its construction. Altogether, eleven drains were revealed: five ran in a north-south direction and were machine cut, two ran in an east-west direction, and the others ran along the line of the ring-ditch; all were manually cut. Modern glazed pottery fragments were the only coarse components revealed during the excavation of the drains’ (Rooney 2000, 164). Levelled monument has been completely excavated and is not visible on Google Earth orthoimage taken 28/06/2018.

See attached Google Earth orthoimage

Compiled by: Alison McQueen and Vera Rahilly

Date of upload: 23 October 2020

References

Breen, T. C. 1998 Croom, Site 6; Circular Enclosure. In I. Bennett (ed.) Excavations 1997: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 113, No. 335. Bray, Wordwell.

Rooney, F. 2000 Croom, Ring-ditch. In I. Bennett (ed.), Excavations 1999: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 164, No. 498. Bray. Wordwell.