Urn burial, Cush, Co. Limerick

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Burial Sites

Urn burial, Cush, Co. Limerick

A farmer digging potatoes at Cush in County Limerick in 1967 did not expect to unearth Bronze Age cremated remains, but that is precisely what happened when his spade broke through a cinerary urn, a ceramic vessel used to contain the burned bones of the dead, that had been sitting undisturbed in the boulder clay for several thousand years.

The base of the urn was sheared off before anyone realised what had been found, which is the kind of ordinary, irreversible damage that tends to happen when archaeology surfaces without warning in the middle of agricultural work. A second urn burial was subsequently identified just 1.45 metres to the north-east, suggesting the find was not an isolated incident but part of a wider funerary landscape.

Excavations were carried out by Rynne and O'Sullivan on behalf of the National Museum of Ireland, and their account of what they found is precise and worth dwelling on. The urn had been placed inverted over the cremated bones, a common Bronze Age practice, in a pit cut into the boulder clay. Mixed in among the bones were fragments of charcoal, identified as hazel, and near the base of the pit lay a badly corroded fragment of a bronze blade. A flint artefact was found resting against the outside wall of the vessel, roughly 9.5 centimetres above the rim. The pit itself could be traced around almost half its circumference to a remaining depth of about 10 centimetres, with the mouth of the urn sitting at the bottom of the pit. This burial sits within a much larger and older context. The site lies to the west of an archaeological complex on Slievereagh, known in Irish as Sliabh Riabhach, on what antiquarians recorded as the supposed site of Temaír Erann, the ancient cemetery of the Ernai tribe. T. J. Westropp noted this association in several publications between 1917 and 1919, placing the burial ground within an area of considerable prehistoric significance.

The urn burial sits at the rear of a modern dwelling, within a large field system, so this is not a site with a visitor car park or an interpretive panel. The wider landscape of Slievereagh in south County Limerick rewards careful exploration, and the broader archaeological complex nearby, covering multiple recorded monument numbers, gives a sense of the density of prehistoric activity across this hillside. Anyone with a serious interest in the area would do well to consult the National Monuments Service records and Westropp's published work before visiting, as much of what is significant here is not immediately visible at ground level.

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