Cremation pit, Raheennamadra, Co. Limerick
Co. Limerick |
Burial Sites
In a patch of reclaimed pasture in County Limerick, just 130 metres north of the townland boundary with Mitchelstowndown East, the ground holds the remains of at least one adult who was cremated and buried in a shallow pit.
There is no enclosure, no monument, no marker of any kind visible above the surface. The site came to light not through any planned archaeological investigation but as a consequence of pipeline construction, the kind of discovery that happens when infrastructure cuts through landscape that has never been fully read.
The two pits, recorded as LI049-014001 and LI049-014002, were identified during excavations associated with a Bord Gáis Éireann gas pipeline in 1986. Archaeologist Claire Walsh led the work. The pits lay 8.7 metres apart, and both had been heavily truncated, meaning later agricultural activity had cut away much of their original depth. Topsoil in the area ran to around 50 centimetres, which accounts for much of the damage. The smaller of the two pits, Pit B, measured just 55 by 58 centimetres and survived to a depth of only 15 centimetres, yet even in that compressed fill there were abundant fragments of cremated bone, confirmed as human. The bone from Pit B could be attributed only to an adult; no further detail, sex or age, could be determined from what remained. The surrounding area was cleaned back by machine under supervision, but no other archaeological features were recorded nearby. The findings were published in a 1988 volume edited by Margaret Gowen, which drew together results from the pipeline corridor, and in a separate report by Walsh from 1987.
Because the site sits in working farmland with no surface expression, there is nothing for a visitor to observe directly. Its significance is documentary rather than visual; the pits are known from excavation records and their coordinates are held within the Sites and Monuments Record for County Limerick. Anyone with a specific interest in the pipeline archaeology of the region would do best to consult Gowen's 1988 publication, which includes a location map, or to check the National Monuments Service database. The site is a reminder that cremation burial, the practice of burning the dead and interring the bone fragments in a pit without surrounding earthwork or enclosure, was carried out in Ireland across a long span of prehistory, and that many such burials survive only because a cable trench or pipeline happened to cross the right field at the right moment.