Pit, Bessmount, Co. Wexford

Co. Wexford |

Settlement Sites

Pit, Bessmount, Co. Wexford

On a gently sloping field at Bessmount in County Wexford, a single pit sits undisturbed in the ground, measuring roughly 1.75 metres east to west and 1.2 metres north to south.

It is, by any ordinary measure, an unassuming thing. Yet it is precisely its isolation that gives it a quiet interest: when archaeologists opened up a substantial area of land around it, searching across a stretch roughly 250 metres long and up to 130 metres wide, this pit was the only feature they found.

The pit came to light during archaeological testing carried out by T. Coughlin ahead of construction work on the M11 Enniscorthy bypass, a road project that required careful examination of the ground before earthworks could proceed. Inside the pit, excavators found a single layer of charcoal-rich soil mixed with some stones, and the base of the pit showed signs of oxidisation, meaning the soil had been exposed to heat or burning at some point. Samples were taken for further analysis. Because the pit fell outside the direct footprint of the road construction, it was recommended for preservation in situ, left in place beneath the surface rather than fully excavated and removed.

What the pit represents remains an open question. Isolated pits with charcoal deposits are not unusual finds in Irish archaeology; they can relate to cooking, burning, ritual deposition, or simple waste disposal, and without further dating or environmental analysis it is difficult to say more. For now it remains where it was found, on a northwest-facing slope in County Wexford, its contents and origins quietly unresolved.

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