2024:402 - Mullaghduff, Ballyconnell, Cavan

The site is located in the townland of Mullaghduff, some 800m southeast of the town of Ballyconnell, Co. Cavan. Permission has been granted to resume and complete site works to a previously approved development existing as partly completed service road and services and to construct 7 detached dwellings comprising 6 dormer style and 1 two-storey dwellings, site boundaries, landscaping, connection to existing services and associated site development works. The 2021 approval was subject to an archaeological condition to undertake pre-development archaeological testing of the proposed development area. It was proposed to test the subject site via a series of 2 machine-dug archaeological test trenches spaced at roughly 10m intervals across the footprint of the development, access roads and service lines. Testing took place on 8 July 2024.

Two linear features were recorded, one at the north end of the development area and one at the south. The superimposition of the information recorded on the OS map of 1837 shows that both these features coincide with the lines of field boundaries. A third linear feature, running east-west in the centre of the area, while not recorded on the OS maps, the form, fills and the recovery of a shard of green bottle glass, suggests a late date and also the probability that it is agricultural in origin.

Nothing of archaeological significance was uncovered, apart from relatively late features of agricultural origin, two of which were recorded on the OS map of 1837.