1988:55 - SMITHSTOWN, Meath

Several excavations were carried out between May and October 1988, ahead of the construction of the North-eastern Pipeline, Phase 2, running from Abbotstown to Dundalk.

The site lies at the top of a south facing rise in ground extending north of the River Nanny just about a quarter of a mile to the west of Julianstown on the Duleek road. It was discovered when the soft humic fill of two souterrain galleries, along with spreads of charcoal flecked and oxidised soil, were revealed. In spite of local tradition that large trees had been cut and removed from the area, a decision was made to investigate these features archaeologically. Excavations revealed portions of four souterrains, one of which was only discovered after trenching. To the north of the souterrains a series of gullies and ditches was revealed, at least some of which may be contemporary with the souterrains. An interpretation of these features has not been reached. The remains occur over a 60m stretch of pipeline corridor. There was no evidence for a ringfort type enclosing element, though there was a curious, very wide, ditch-like escarpment at the south side of the site into the fill of which two of the souterrains had been built.

The Souterrains
These all occurred at the south of the area of archaeological activity. After topsoil removal, two well preserved souterrain galleries were located and fully revealed. Investigation of the fill of the ditch like escarpment to the south of these revealed a side wall of another gallery. The fourth structure was not discovered until trenching cut through it.

All the souterrains were built of rounded borders and roughly quarried, blocky slabs, between 0.3m 0.5m in size. None of the walls survived to a height of more than 0.6m 0.7m, indicating a severe truncation of the old ground level.

Souterrain 1. This consisted of the gently sloped, cobbled, 2.5m long entrance ramp leading to a neatly constructed souterrain gallery, a 6m length of which was exposed leading westwards under the topsoil spoilheap. It was max. 1.4m wide.
The exposed portion within the pipeline corridor was filled with two deposits. The upper deposit was a compact clay lying on a second, lower, homogenous, soft, humic, charcoal flecked earth containing a few fragments of animal bone but no artefacts.

Souterrain 2. This structure had no obvious entrance and may have been entered through a drop-hole creep or similar type entrance. It ran east-west for a distance of just over 7m and had a slightly expanded terminal at the west. It was 0.6m wide and survived up to 1.4m in depth. It was located at, and ran along, the upper edge of the escarpment described above and its southern wall appears to have been built into/abutting the material backfilled into the scarped feature. The nature of the stratigraphic relationship could not be determined as the soil was loose and friable and no construction-trench edge was located. Excavation of the interior of this structure revealed a number of post-hole-like pits, under the loose humic backfill, which may predate the structure. The fill of one pit at the end wall of the structure produced a decorated bone spindle whorl.

Souterrain 3. This structure was revealed at the eastern limit of the pipeline corridor, built into the loose fill of the escarpment. Only one side wall, its stones set characteristically with their long axes at right angles to the wall face, ran for a distance of 5.5m north south and since it was the western wall of the structure it was not possible to excavate the interior. No construction trench could be defined in the fill deposit into which it was built.

Souterrain 4. This structure was covered by graded soil when the site was excavated and the unfortunate placing of one of the excavation spoilheaps hid it until machine trenching for the gas pipe cut a section through it. The structure was revealed in the eastern section face of the pipeline trench only, and was not revealed on the opposing side, 2m from it. It would appear, therefore, that the structure may have had a drop-hole entrance as in Souterrain 2 and that it ran eastwards. The portion exposed in the section was 1.4m wide and 1m high. The side walls were noticeably corbelled inwards. It was backfilled with three layers of loose, humic, ash and charcoal flecked soil.

Other Features
The Escarpment. This feature ran east-west across the pipeline corridor and when first excavated was thought to represent the remains of a ditch line as it was simply scarped on the down-slope towards the river. At its northern edge it had a depth of 0.8m max., deepening to 1m and it was filled with two deposits. The upper deposit was a loose friable loamy soil, containing animal bone, shell, ashy lenses and charcoal. The lower deposit was a soft, silty clay which also contained some animal bone and shell. Excavation of a 5m long cutting revealed no counterscarp for this feature but examination of the spread of loose humic soil representing the upper fill of the feature and examination of the section face in the trench line, revealed that the escarpment was c. 18m wide. It was cut into an isolated beach/river gravel deposit which occurred in this exact position.

Since no opposing ditch was revealed at the north of this site the interpretation reached, after examination of the hand excavated cutting and the cross section displayed in the trench line, was that the area must have been quarried for gravel during the Early Christian period and had been backfilled at that time with material containing occupation debris, prior to the construction of the souterrains.

Features to the north of the site. 15m to the north of the souterrains a series of ditches, gullies and related features were revealed. The first of these to be excavated and which produced a sherd of E-ware in its fill (the only sherd of early Christian pottery retrieved from this site during the excavation), was an annular gully describing roughly one quarter of a circle 7m-8m in diameter, which extended into a wide, deep trench running north/west/south/east to the north. It was felt that this feature, which has a V-section to U-section profile up to 0.5m wide and 0.3m 0.35m deep, could represent the foundation trench of a structure, but there were no internal structural elements and no subsequent evidence to reinforce this interpretation.

Abutting the inner edge of this feature close to its southern and only terminal, was a curious keyhole plan pit, the circular portion of which measured 0.9m in diameter and up to 0.5m deep. The inner surfaces of this pit were oxidised to such an extent that it appears to have served as a kiln oven, though for what purpose was not discovered. Examination of the soil which filled the feature may help to solve this problem.

A second, curvilinear, V-section gully, an 11m length of which was traced from a shallow terminal, lay to the south-west of the above, extending west towards and under the topsoil spoilheap. It may also have served a structural function. It was nearly 0.7m deep at the limit of excavation. The fill of this feature contained a large percentage of stones in a loose humic fill close to the terminal, but where it extended beyond the limit of excavation it had three deposits of fill which were relatively stone-free humic clays.

Unfortunately the relationships between the fills of the large ditch which extended north west of the former curvilinear gully, and further ditch/gully features lying to the north of these, which were composed of remarkably uniform stoney clays with a very low humic content is unclear. It was impossible during excavation to discern the sequence in which these features were cut. Further work on the plans and details of the fills sampled, may, however, help lead towards an interpretation.

Animal bone was recovered from all archaeological features, though no artefacts were found in the fill of these features apart from the one sherd of F-ware described above.

5 St. Catherine's Road, Glenageary, Co. Dublin