2023:870 - Dublin Road, Rathangan Demesne, Rathangan, Kildare

A programme of Archaeological Testing was undertaken as part preparation of an Archaeological Impact Assessment of a proposed Residential Development at Kildare Road, Rathangan, Co. Kildare. The Assessment was requested by the Planning Authority as part of an Request for Further Information issued following submission of a Planning Application.

The site is located to the southeast of the urban centre of Rathangan, on the southern side of the Kildare (R401) Road and east of a section of the Grand Canal. There are no previously recorded monuments or features of archaeological interest located within the site and no surface features of potential were noted by cartographic and aerial photographic, research, LiDAR Survey or by surface reconnaissance surveys of the subject lands and immediate environs. Furthermore, the site is located outside the RMP Zone established for Rathangan; likewise, it is located outside the Rathangan SMR Zone of Notification and approximately 320m to the north of that associated with a Ringfort (KD017-061).

Historic research indicates that the site formed part of the demesne lands of Rathangan House; the house was constructed in the mid-seventeenth century and included landscaped gardens and outbuilding, particularly the north; some of these former garden areas and outbuilding locations were within the extent of the planning application boundary. Sections of the site boundary walls in the northern area of the site, together with the western boundary, relate to plot divisions of the former Rathangan House; in addition, part of an extant wall, of stone and concrete, in the southern area of the site was formerly a garden boundary wall with its return northwards also extant; the remains of an outbuilding complex is positioned in the eastern side of this wall. These features are not considered to be of archaeological significance and are not subject to any architectural heritage protections.

The results from the programme of Archaeological Testing, comprising the excavation of fourteen trenches in the southern area of the site, did not uncover any subsurface features of archaeological interest/potential and no artefacts of historical/archaeological interest were recovered. It was considered that some evidence for formal garden features indicated on the 1837 map might be encountered but, aside from the base-course of a possible path in T3, no subsurface evidence was uncovered.  Some evidence for historic outbuildings were uncovered in T8 and T9; the foundation/base-course remains of portions of probable path/road/yard was uncovered in T8 while in T9 the foundation remains of a wall was uncovered; the latter appears to relate to an outbuilding indicated on the historic Ordnance Survey maps. These features are likely to date the late-eighteenth or early-nineteenth centuries.