Pound

The National Monuments Service's description

Immediately S of the town wall, fronting onto the Clashawley river valley. The pound consists of an enclosed area (ext. dims. 19.1m x 6.6m) defined by the S wall of Edmond’s Castle (TS070-040002-)/town wall (TS070-040032-) to the N, by the E wall of an almshouse (TS070-040011-) to the W, by the W gable of a building to the E and by a roughly coursed limestone rubble wall (T 0.48m) to the S, at the E of which an 18th/19th-century segmental-headed entrance has been inserted. The minutes of Fethard corporation's D'Oyer Hundred jury court which survive from 1707 record the annual income received from the pound in that year (O'Donnell 1988, 25). Between 1708 and 1718 the pound was in need of repair, requiring paving and a new door or gate (ibid.). The pound must have been in existence for some time in the 16th century to warrant such attention. A limited excavation in 1991 revealed that the W wall of the pound was originally the E wall of an earlier builiding (TS070-040011-) (Scally 1992, 43).

Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

Date of revised upload: 6 March 2015

References

O'Donnell, M. 1988 Life in Fethard in the 1700's. Tipperary Historical Journal, 22-38.

Scally, G. 1992 Fethard: town walls. In I. Bennett (ed.), Excavations 1991: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 43. Bray. Wordwell.