EMAP_Progress_Reports_2009_2.pdf - The Heritage Council

Limerick
Cush, Co. Limerick
Early Medieval Enclosure Complex.
Grid Ref: R69802580 (169800/125800)
SMR No: LI048-034---
Excavation Licence: E000010
Excavation Duration/year: August-October 1934; July-September 1935
Site Director: S.P. Ó Ríordáin (University College Cork)
A significant early medieval landscape containing a large number of settlement enclosures,
with internal occupation evidence, structures and souterrains, together with a complex
pattern of rectangular field systems was excavated at Cush. The research excavations were
undertaken between August-October 1934 and July-September 1935 and were financed
under a state scheme for the relief of employment. The site (210-240m OD) was situated on
the border of good agricultural land along the foothills of a northward extension of the
Ballyhoura Hills (Slieve Reagh), commanding considerable views across the Limerick plain to
the north. The site consisted of a southern group of enclosures, a northern group of
enclosures, the western field, the related field systems and three prehistoric tumuli.
The greater part of the interior of the enclosures was excavated as well as various sections
through their ramparts and entrances. Also excavated were the three tumuli, various portions
of the rectangular ‘enclosure’, a small area of the ‘western field’ and trial-trenches along the
field boundaries. The enclosures generally produced relatively thin occupation deposits and
this lack of stratigraphy hindered any detailed reconstruction of the sequence of and
relationship between the various different internal features and structures- buildings and
souterrains.
Considerable evidence for Bronze Age burial activity was uncovered and comprised five
cremation urn burials within the northwest sector of Cush 5 in the southern group, Tumulus I
(to the south of Cush 7), and a small cist burial with two food vessels, just inside a section of
the modern field fence dividing the ‘western field’ from that containing the tumuli. Ó Riordáin
claimed that the burials inside Enclosure 5 were later than the occupation of the enclosure
though the stratigraphic evidence to substantiate such a claim is neither completely clear nor
detailed. Most recent commentators (e.g. Edwards 1996, 17) now believe that the enclosure
is early medieval and was simply built in an area of prehistoric burial activity. Tumulus I
revealed a primary long cist burial (1.9m by 0.6m internally) with a food vessel type pot
beneath its original ground level. A kerbed mound (0.9m high and 11m in maximum
diameter) was erected over this burial. Following this, an encrusted urn was placed near the
centre of the mound and a ditch dug around the site. The mound was covered with a paving
of small stones after the ditches had silted up, on which at least one cremated burial was
placed.
Iron Age burial activity was uncovered at the sites of Tumulus II and possibly Tumulus III.
These bowl barrows each measured about 1.8m high and 13.7m and 16.46m respectively in
diameter with enclosing ditch. Spreads of charcoal mixed with fragments of cremated bone
were uncovered on the old ground surface of tumulus II and was interpreted by the
excavator as the site of a cremation fire. A small pit was found in one of the spreads filled
with cremated bone and charcoal and contained near its top a small bone plaque with early
Iron Age La Tène decoration (O’Kelly, 1989, 329-330). Tumulus II revealed a scatter of
cremated bone on the old ground surface where a possible cremation pyre had been lit and
over which the mound had been built.
The early medieval activity comprised ten excavated ‘ringfort’ type enclosures, an adjoining
rectangular ‘enclosure’ and a system of field boundaries. The southern group of enclosures
cover three acres and consist of a six conjoined enclosures (1-6) associated with a subrectangular
area ‘the enclosure’ delimited by a ditch and bank to the west (Fig. 191). The
excavations revealed that Cush 2, 3 and 4 were roughly contemporary but were preceded by
Cush 1, while Cush 5 was built at a later stage, followed finally by Cush 6. The site known as
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