Structure, Cashel, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Utility Structures
Beneath the footpath on Friar Street in Cashel, about forty metres from the town's Main Street, a fragment of medieval stonework lies largely forgotten underfoot.
It was uncovered in 2001 during limited excavations, and what emerged was the foundation level of a structure that nobody had been looking for in particular: a wall running parallel to the existing street frontage, protruding just 0.4 metres from it, and surviving to a length of 2.2 metres. Small dimensions, but enough to confirm that something was here long before the modern streetscape took shape.
The wall was built from dressed limestone bonded with lime mortar, a construction method consistent with medieval building practice, where stone was shaped and finished before being set in a mortar made from burned and slaked limestone. Two courses survived. The north-western portion had been disturbed by earlier groundworks at some unspecified point, so what was found in 2001 represents only a partial picture of a structure whose full extent and original purpose remain uncertain. The location on Friar Street is suggestive, given the street's name and the broader history of mendicant religious houses in medieval Irish towns, but no firm identification has been made.