Introduction
In 1998, Edmond O’Donovan conducted an archaeological excavation on a development site in Friar Street, Cashel, Co. Tipperary. The excavation revealed a succession of activity dating back to AD 1200 and the particular occupation sequence presented by the excavation illustrates the changes and trials experienced by the townfolk of Cashel at one location over a period of eight hundred years.

Two main phases of archaeological activity were identified, the first dating to the medieval period (AD 1200–1500) and the second dating to the early post-medieval period (AD 1550–1700). The former was primarily represented by the remains of an early timber house, the latter by the remains of a stone building.

The excavation report, including contributions from specialists and a specially commissioned local history, has now been written up, and the main findings are summarised below.

Local History
Historical evidence for urban settlement at Cashel prior to the establishment of the chartered town in 1216 is slim. Indeed, there is little reflection in the record of ecclesiastical activity at Cashel prior to 1101, when, on the occasion of the synod convened at that location, Muirchertach Ua Briain, Dál Cais king of Munster, made his magnanimous and much-discussed grant of the Rock to the Church.

The existence of a pre-thirteenth-century settlement adjacent to the Rock, however, is implied in exchanges between the archbishops of Cashel and Henry III between 1218 and 1230. While details are lacking, it seems likely that this was a small cluster-settlement located immediately to the east of the Rock, where the Dublin Road meets Ladyswell Street and Moor Lane.

The medieval town of Cashel, on the other hand, was a planned urban settlement very much in keeping with the other towns founded in east and central Munster in connection with the Anglo-Norman colonisation of the region. Although, political control of east and central Munster had effectively passed to the Anglo-Normans by the opening of the thirteenth century, the archbishops of Cashel continued to represent Dál Cais interests. The archbishops worked within the English political system when this was required or when it was expedient to do so, but they consistently obstructed efforts of the English administration to control the see or appoint clergy to benefices. The principal recommendation for Cashel as a potential town site, it appears, was its ecclesiastical importance. The location of the archbishop’s formal residence in the town, not to mention his court, doubtless also contributed to the town’s status.

 The walling of Cashel has been attributed to the English archbishop Walter fitzJohn, who held the see from 1317 to 1326. There are indications that initial construction took place in the early to mid-fourteenth century. When completed, the walls reached a perimeter length of 1,550 metres and enclosed an area of 15.5 hectares (some 30 acres).

Historical evidence for economic activity within the town is fragmentary, but it does augment the picture obtainable from archaeology. It is clear that a range of activities, including tillage, stockraising and gardening, were practised on a considerable scale. Houses within the town had land attached to them (charters of 1425 and 1435 mention messuages in High Street, St John Street and Friar Street), and there are references to gardens outside the walls (presumably for the production of vegetables).

Sheep farming was major activity among both Gaelic Irish and English colonists and was particularly practised by Cistercian monks. Both the English and Irish communities raised sheep for wool, the main outlet for which was export to Flanders, which presupposes a range of activities, including weighing, baling and carting to support this trade.

Flour was milled in Cashel at an earlier date, and bread was baked; the 1230 charter of Archbishop Mairin Ua Briain refers to a bakehouse. Brewing was another historically attested activity within the town.

The principal economic activity in the town was almost certainly the sale of agricultural produce such as corn and livestock, but it seems reasonable that other raw materials and at least some manufactured goods were traded too. Trade in wool and sheepskins could well have been significant.

The late medieval and early modern period saw little further growth in the extent of urban settlement at Cashel, and the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries brought their share of change to Cashel, with the dissolution of the monasteries in 1540, the Desmond uprising in 1581 and the confederate wars of 1647, when the pro-Parliament forces of Lord Inchiquin ruthlessly sacked the town, leaving it extensively damaged by fire. Presumably, extensive reconstruction was carried out in the second half of the seventeenth century, and demolition and renewal continued through the eighteenth century. By the mid-nineteenth century, most of the ecclesiastical ruins in the town, apart from those on the Rock, had vanished.

Excavation of a medieval house and street
 Street
Metalled surfaces were uncovered parallel to and just back from the modern line of Friar Street. The metalling consisted of a compact concentration of stones bedded directly on the boulder clay. This streetscape was clearly delineated from the remains of a wooden house built adjacent to the street front. The insect remains from organic deposits built up on the street outside the property indicate a damp, puddle-ridden medieval street littered with domestic organic refuse and animal dung. Pits located within the property plots appeared to be utilised for a range of functions, such as a source of clay and as rubbish and cess pits. The majority of pottery and other finds recovered from the pits was broadly datable to the thirteenth century.

Pre-excavation test trenches revealed deposits of ‘garden soil’ at the rear of the property plots. Plant remains painted a picture of cultivated burgage plots, covering an area of fifteen acres, stretching back from the street to the nearby town wall.

House
A portion of the truncated floor of a medieval house (radiocarbon dated to AD 1280–1408) running 5.8 m along the street front and 4.6 m back from the street was uncovered (the original dimensions were estimated to be 10 m by 4.6 m). The southwestern (street-front) wall was identified from fourteen post holes, the northwestern gable wall from four post holes and the northeastern (rear) wall from an alignment of six post holes. There was no remaining evidence of wall fabric, and there was no sign of the timber base plates found in the medieval houses of other Irish towns.

A paved central aisle ran from the street-front entrance through the building to the rear. The hearth was located in the centre of the southeastern end of the building. The roof of the house was present as a layer of charcoal, evidently the result of a catastrophic fire. The charcoal was dominated by hazel, ash and oak, and the size and age of the ash and hazel rods suggested that the timber was obtained from managed woodland.

The structure of the house is somewhat unusual. The street orientation (long axis and entrance front and back facing onto the street) finds easier comparison with the vernacular Irish house than with other contemporary medieval houses.

Medieval diet and economy
The macrofossil and animal bones analyses provide a rare view of the diet and economy of a fourteenth-century rural Irish town. The charcoal deposit left after the house burnt down contained cereals, legumes and nuts, presenting an image of gathered foodstuffs hanging inside the house from a low thatched roof. Bantam hen bones were found in the faunal assemblage, together with cattle, sheep/goat and pig bones. The burgage plots running at the back of the properties on Friar Street probably functioned as cultivated gardens with small livestock pens, protected within the town walls. Larger animals would have been reared on farms beyond the walls. The relatively old age slaughter pattern of the sheep retrieved from the site indicate a concentration on wool, rather than meat, production. Such a practice is consistent with the farming economy of medieval monasteries.

After the catastrophic fire, the medieval site appears to have been abandoned for a time and possibly used as a dumping ground. The property boundaries were realigned in tandem with the accumulation of organic debris, and the site may have been used as a garden. The new boundaries extended across the medieval street, narrowing it. The northwestern (gable) property boundary shows a remarkable continuity from the medieval house right through the convent built on the site in 1929.

Excavation of a post-medieval house
After the abandonment of the medieval house, the site may have been used as a garden for a while. However, a new house was eventually raised, this time of stone and this time with the narrower, gable end facing the street. The house’s external dimensions were 14 m by 7.4 m. Changes in the floor surface indicated the existence of two rooms, front and back, which would presumably have been separated by an internal wooden partition; however, all traces of the partition have been lost.

The floor was constructed from clay and cobbles, and three phases of repair and remodelling were revealed by the excavation. The northwestern wall had a fireplace, which was used throughout the life of the building. The 1 m wide foundations suggested the existence of more than one storey, and there was a stair support by the southeastern wall, opposite the fireplace. However, the stair support seems to have gone out of use after the first phase of repair and remodelling.

The floor plan, wall thickness and gable-front street orientation layout of the Friar Street building compare well with other similarly sized early post-medieval urban buildings. Such buildings were not as elaborate as the more sophisticated and larger Tudor merchant houses. However, architectural comparisons between the larger, dated merchant houses and the smaller group of Tudor buildings to which the Friar Street building belongs suggest a construction date for the Friar Street property in the mid-sixteenth to early seventeenth century.

This construction date is supported by pottery sherds associated with the floor levels. The three phases of occupation evident from the succession of floor surfaces and the range of datable finds indicated occupation up to the end of the nineteenth century. The house was probably demolished to make way for the convent built in 1929.

Specialists involved with the Friar Street excavation
Dr Ailbhe MacShamhráin: History
Catherine Johnson and Clare McCutcheon: Pottery
Catherine Johnson: Small finds
Andrea Cremin: Animal bone
Penny Johnson: Plant remains
Eileen Reilly: Insect remains
Dr Ingelise Stuijts: Charcoal and wood remains
Gerry McCormac and Dr Ingelise Stuijts: Radiocarbon dating