1989:025 - CON COLBERT ROAD, Inchicore North, Dublin

The works at Con Colbert Road between Nov. 1988 and Oct. 1989 comprised the removal of the old surface and the relaying of a new road to a greater width, the re-alignment of surface drains and manholes and the excavation of deep foundations at Memorial Park and Islandbridge. The old road foundation was retained except in areas where it failed to pass the engineer's tests, in which cases it was removed down to solid ground.

Archaeological remains were found only in the vicinity of the War Memorial Park where 8 pits or trenches were exposed. Four of these were under the old road foundation and 4 were in open ground between the road and the Memorial Park.

These pits are numbered 1,2,3, 4A, 5A, 6A, 7A and 8A and in all cases except one (No. 3) the fill consisted of animal bones and seashells, mainly mussels. This suggests the probability that they are all contemporaneous.

Among the objects found were: Pit No. 2 - a decorated bronze strap tag (8th-century), a small bronze strip, a bone needle, 3 worked flints and 2 chert flakes. Pit No. 4A -worked flint and an iron nail. Pit No. 5A - a bone pin. Pit No. 6A -2 flint arrowhead fragments, a flint scraper, a chert scraper, iron fragments and a bone bead. Pit No. 7A -section of sawn antler, iron nails with square washers and iron furnace bottoms.

A number of 19th-century finds of delft, glass and pottery were also found, but the nature of the objects listed above is consistent with a date about the Viking Period (9th-12th century) and it is here suggested that the later objects are intrusions, introduced when this area was under allotments.

Also exposed was a pond lined with small cobble stones bedded in mortar. It was 10m wide and 0.8m deep. There was the base of a masonry wall on the south-west side and the stump of a wooden post 0.24m in diameter, It was fed by a spring. In the black sludge which covered the cobbles were sherds of delft and glass.

21 Newgrove Avenue, Sandymount, Dublin 4