Enclosure

The National Monuments Service's description

Bronze Age habitation site excavated in 1981-2 (Doody 1987, 22-35; Doody 1991, 218-227), having been revealed during the course of archaeological monitoring prior to the laying of the Cork-Dublin gas pipeline. The habitation site consisted of a roughly rectangular area (dims. 25m x 47m) enclosed by a substantial V-shaped fosse (Wth 2.4m surface, 0.5m base; D 1.2m), with an entrance on the E side (Doody 1991, 218,221). The interior of the site was found to be badly disturbed when the topsoil was removed (ibid. 221). Finds from the fosse included two stone chisels, two spindle whorls, a flint flake, fragment of a lignite bracelet, chert object, three bone points, coarse domestic pottery common on Neolithic and Bronze Age sites and a large quantity of butchered animal bones, mainly cattle and pig and grains of barley and some evidence of wheat (ibid. 224). A number of later features, two trenches, a stone-filled hollow and a stonebuilt drain were also uncovered and interpreted as probably post-1700 A.D. drainage features (Doody 1987, 24-5). A small pit (dims. 045m N-S; 0.5m E-W; D 0.2m) was uncovered 5m S of the enclosure. The upper fill was a concentrated layer of charcoal which overlay a brown charcoal-enriched soil (ibid. 25).

Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

Date of upload: 26 August 2011

References

Doody, M. 1997 Bronze Age settlements in Co. Tipperary: fifteen years of research. Tipperary Historical Journal, 96-106.

Doody, M. 1991 A Bronze Age ditched enclosure at Ballyveelish, Co. Tipperary. Tipperary Historical Journal, 218-27.

Doody, M.G. 1987 Late Bronze Age settlement, Ballyveelish 2, Co. Tipperary. In Cleary, R.M., Hurley, M.F. and Twohig, E.A. (eds.) Archaeological excavations on the Cork-Dublin gas pipeline (1981-82), 22-35. Dept. of Archaeology, UCC, Cork.