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Clare
‘Thady’s Fort’ (Ballycally td.), Co. Clare
Early Medieval Settlement Enclosure
Grid Ref: R36546164 (136546/161642)
SMR No: CL061-005
Excavation Licence: N/A
Excavation Duration/year: Spring 1959
Site Director: E. Rynne (National Museum of Ireland)
Thady’s Fort is a double banked enclosure with evidence for an internal wooden palisade, a
rectangular building, areas of paving as well as fire-pits and postholes. The site was situated
near the summit of Thady’s Hill, and was excavated by staff from the National Museum over
the course of eight days in the spring of 1959 in advance of the construction of a new runway
and landing strip at Shannon airport.
The site contained two encircling banks with a wide ditch between them and a south facing
entrance (Fig. 56). The enclosures were 57m by 61m externally (and approximately 30m
internally). The southern entrance was splayed, and measured about 2m on the inside and
3m on the outside.
The inner face of the inner bank was strengthened with a stone revetment wall generally two
courses high for most of the perimeter. Where this stone revetment was missing along the
northern side, a trench (3.7m long, 0.6m wide and 0.3m deep) containing a linear spread of
charcoal was uncovered. This was interpreted as a timber revetment or palisade,
subsequently destroyed by fire.
A shallow fire-pit (0.2m deep) was the only feature of interest in the limited excavations in
the site’s eastern half. It abutted the revetment wall along the eastern perimeter of the
enclosure. Two further fire-pits and a possible posthole were excavated near the centre of
the site. One fire-pit and the possible posthole cut into the ‘old ground level’ though underlay
a stony deposit.
A rectangular stone-house (13.4m by 6.2m externally) was evident prior to excavation in the
south-west quadrant. The walls survived to a height of 0.6m high and were 0.75m thick.
They were built of large generally rectangular dressed stones on the outer faces, with an
inner core of small irregular stones. A continuous band of mortar was found on the interior
walls suggests that it had been plastered. A shallow fire-pit full of burnt material and the
remains of a possible chimney were excavated inside the structure. Two possible postholes
were excavated inside the house with a further one identified outside; and an area of paving
was also discovered outside the entrance.
The foundation-walls of the house had much in common with that of medieval houses
excavated at Caherguillamore, Co. Limerick. This, along with the recovery of a number of late
medieval finds and pottery sherds suggest a late medieval date for the house. This dating is
supported by the recovery of a number of stratified clay pipe bowls underneath the paving
outside the entrance and among the fallen wall-stones.
It cannot be established if this house post-dates, or is contemporary with, the enclosures.
The excavator suggested that both the house and enclosure bank may have been
contemporary for two reasons; the slip from the inner bank was against the outer face of the
south-western wall of the house and not underneath it and because the western corner of
the house was built upon the lowest levels of bank and not on top of slip from the wall. A
number of finds from the enclosure, however, are associated with the early medieval period,
e.g. a piece of sheet-bronze, four quern stone fragments, a whetstone and an iron knife with
bone handle. A number of later finds (e.g. seven sherds of medieval pottery), some iron
objects (e.g. a jaw’s harp) and three clay pipe-bowls, were also intermixed with these
artefacts in contexts associated with the house and enclosure and suggest later disturbance
on the site of an early medieval enclosure.
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