Description
The Town Wall in Fethard survives as an almost complete circuit of the Town. Tipperary County Council has recently completed the development of a new public park lands (East Gate Park) that adjoin the eastern part of the Town Wall at Burke Street, Fethard. This park is intended to highlight and interpret a significant section of the wall that has been hitherto concealed from public view. This new park extends along the (east) external face of the town wall and has been laid out as a landscaped amenity area with a combination of paving, gravel and raised beds.
Fethard Town Walls can be dated to c. 1292 and are widely recognized as the best preserved medieval town walls in Ireland. The wall is a Recorded National Monument and is protected under the National Monuments Acts (1930-2004). The Fethard Town Walls Conservation and Management Plan (CMP) (Oxford Archaeology , 2008) describes this section of walls as an 'important survival of a substantial and continuous part of the eastern Town Wall'. The approach followed, in line with all works to Fethard Town Walls over the past ten years, was to conserve the wall as a ruin by adopting a sound technical approach to the repair of the historic fabric based on best practice conservational principles as established by the Venice and Burra Charters. The work was carried out using traditional repair techniques where possible and using traditional materials.
The works comprised the consolidation and repair of the east face of Fethard Town Wall, within the newly-developed Burke St. Park. Prior to the commencement of the work the town wall section (45 metres long) that adjoins the park was unstable with loose stones in its upper section that are at risk of falling.
Works were completed, using traditional repair techniques where possible and using traditional materials, to high standard under the direction of Michael O'Boyle, Grade 1 Conservationist Architect of Bluett & O'Donoghue.
