Pit, Ballincurra, Co. Limerick

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Settlement Sites

Pit, Ballincurra, Co. Limerick

There is nothing to see at this particular patch of County Limerick pasture, and that is precisely what makes it worth knowing about.

No earthwork survives, no marker stands in the field, and the Ordnance Survey's historic mapping never recorded anything here at all. What existed beneath the surface remained entirely invisible until a gas pipeline changed everything.

In 2002, topsoil-stripping work along the Bord Gáis Éireann Pipeline to the West brought archaeologist Ken Wiggins to a field in Ballincurra, situated roughly 245 metres east of the townland boundary with Rathcannon and 90 metres north of a stream. Wiggins identified a cluster of pits and an associated metalled surface, a compacted layer of stones or gravel laid deliberately, possibly as a working floor. A full excavation followed under Brian Halpin (licence 02E0524), revealing a site spanning 8 metres east to west and 14.6 metres north to south. The metalled surface measured 3.6 by 4 metres and was only 7 centimetres deep at its thickest point. Around it, to the south-west, lay a series of pits, generally subcircular and U-shaped with flat bases, dug without any apparent arrangement. Most contained charcoal flecking, and two yielded charred hazelnut shells and animal bone, the kind of material that tends to accumulate in domestic refuse pits. Halpin interpreted the metalled surface as a possible production area, with the pits serving for storage, disposal, or both. The site was summarised in print by Halpin in 2004 and referenced again by Grogan in 2007, but it has generated little wider attention.

Because the monument was fully excavated during the pipeline project, nothing physical remains to visit. A Google Earth image from September 2019 shows no trace of the features whatsoever. The site sits in private farmland, and there is no public access or signage. Its value now lies entirely in the excavation record, a small but legible fragment of everyday ancient life, someone cracking hazelnuts and discarding bones in a field that would go unnoticed for centuries, until a pipeline happened to pass through.

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