What is recorded here

King John's Castle still stands in Kilmallock, but the ground beside it hid a deeper boundary. Workers scraping topsoil for a carpark revealed ditches cut during the early medieval period, later widened during post-medieval times. The older trench held black clay that smelled of forgotten rot, while the younger one crossed it like a knife through scar tissue. They recorded what they could, then buried the rest beneath gravel.

A small-scale excavation by Cia McConway under licence No. 99E0363 was carried out on subsoil-cut features discovered during the monitoring of topsoil-stripping of a carpark area during the ongoing drainage scheme at Kilmallock, Co. Limerick. The site lies just beyond King John's Castle and is enclosed by the town wall. The excavation was carried out in tandem with the drainage scheme, monitored by J. O'Connor. As the area was to be used as a carpark, it was agreed with the relevant authorities in Dúchas that the exposed features would be recorded in plan and a small sample investigated; the remaining features were sealed with terram and gravel. Investigations suggested that these features dated to the 13th/14th centuries and had subsequently been cut through by post-medieval cultivation furrows. A large, post-medieval ditch was excavated running north-south through the middle of the site. Excavations showed that this ditch had followed the line of an earlier ditch, which, though narrower, was much deeper than the post-medieval one. The earlier ditch was filled with a noxious-smelling, black/grey clay and has been dated by the associated finds to the early medieval period. It is likely, given the location and dimensions of this ditch, that it was part of the original town defences' (www.excavations.ie).

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