1990:029 - CROSS CHURCH OF MOREEN, Balally, Dublin

As an area 25m south of the site is to be disturbed by the construction of the Southern Cross Motorway, Dublin County Council requested that the area of the motorway adjacent to the church site be investigated archaeologically. This investigation was carried out in the week of 24-28 September 1990. An area 118m by 42m was investigated, limited to the area of the road on the northern and southern sides.

The church survives as rectangular foundation walls constructed of undressed mortared granite 12.4m by 7.2m externally, oriented east-west and situated in the centre of a slight mound. Aerial photographs from the Fairey Survey of Ireland (BKS 21776139/40) reveal that the church was surrounded by an oval earthen bank 148m in diameter. This appears to have been enclosed by a second exterior bank which partially survived on the southern edge of the site.

Nine features were noted during the investigation. Three (F 1, 6 & 7) were pits containing large quantities of charcoal, and in one case (F 6) bronze metalwork and animal bone. The others were ditches containing relatively modern fills or features ranging from a box-drain (F 8), to granite rubble (F 2) or modern debris, i.e. tree branches, concrete posts and insulated cables (F 4). F 5 and F 9 contained primarily soil fills.

Feature 6 (Cutting 13) was a pit 1.06m by 1.18m in diameter and 0.34m in depth, cut through the dark brown sandy clay. Its upper part contained two fragments of a bronze strap-tag or belt buckle (see below) lying on their sides, a large quantity of animal bone representing parts of three cattle, two sheep/goat, a single pig and a possible red deer, and a quantity of charcoal.

The two bronze fragments together form the upper and lower plates of a strap-tag, with the loop and tongue missing, measuring 48mm in length, 21mm in width and 0.4mm in thickness and 29mm in length and 14mm in width respectively. On the upper face a band of simple two-band plait design interlacing has been incised onto the surface. Through this design three holes have been cut and one is filled with the remains of an iron rivet. This object may be dated to the period stretching from the 7th to the 10th century.

Other finds included seven large sherds of a coarse handmade pottery from the top of the subsoil below the ploughsoil in Cutting 11 which in situ formed a single sherd of Leinster Cooking Ware, four small pottery sherds similar to those above, from the ploughsoil of Cutting 1 and five sherds of pottery including a base sherd from a flatbottomed vessel, of the same type as above, from the plough-soil of Cutting 10.

Although the investigation took place within the enclosure of what appears to be a pre-Norman ecclesiastical site, both features and finds were meagre. Medieval activity on the site is confirmed by the presence of a number of sherds of Leinster Cooking Wares which date broadly to the 13th and 14th centuries.

85 Belgard Heights, Tallaght, Dublin 24