What is recorded here

Beneath the future homes on Lord Edward Street, Kilmallock, rough parallel trenches waited for shoes that stopped walking long before cars invented roads. Medieval and post-medial pottery lay scattered inside them like crumbs dropped during ordinary work, while new foundations crossed the older marks without knowing their age. The courtyard gave up its secrets only because service trenches cut through it; houses six and seven merely stepped around what they did not understand.

Monitoring of groundworks associated with the construction of eleven dwelling houses at Lord Edward Street, Kilmallock was undertaken by Miriam Carroll under licence No. 05E0636 in 2005 and 2006, the results of which were summarised as follows. ‘Monitoring of the foundations for house Nos. 6 and 7 revealed the presence of a number of linear features, but raft foundations were also utilised in this area and the features remained undisturbed. Monitoring of the remaining house foundations and service trenches did not reveal the presence of any further archaeological features’ (Carroll 2009, 327-8). Monitoring of groundworks in the courtyard area of the development, however, uncovered a number of features of archaeological potential, which were excavated under an extension to licence No. 05E0636 by Miriam Carroll in 2006, the result of which were summarised as follows; ‘Service trenches in this area had the potential to directly impact on the features, so archaeological excavation was undertaken. This revealed that the features represented the remains of roughly parallel linear trenches, which are likely to have been associated with agricultural activity. Sherds of medieval and post-medieval pottery were recovered from the excavated features’ (Carroll 2009, 328). Compiled by: Martin Fitzpatrick Date of upload: 30 August 2021

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