1992:043 - FORTOSTMAN, Crumlin, Dublin

In August 1992 the writer conducted an archaeological assessment on behalf of Dublin Corporation on a site at Fortostman, Crumlin, Dublin 12. The purpose of the assessment was to determine the nature and date of a large mound on the site. The mound originally measured c. 104m (north-south) by c. 42m (east-west) and is up to 6m above surrounding ground level, which is generally between 32m and 34m OD. The area has been intensively quarried in the 19th/early 20th centuries and the mound was most likely to be a spoilheap from such quarrying but it is shown on the O.S. 6" 1st edition of 1837. This, together with the fact that an early Bronze Age burial with a bowl food vessel is known to have been found somewhere on the site in 1912 (National Museum of Ireland Reg. no. 1912:65), prompted the assessment as a precautionary measure.

The method of assessment involved the cutting of 3 short trenches into the mound. This demonstrated that the mound is, as suspected, a spoil heap derived from quarrying or associated activity of l8th-/early 19th-century date. The original ground surface, which itself is between 0.5m and 1.4m below present surrounding ground level, was exposed and was found to be scattered with modern (18th/19th century) glazed pottery and earthenware. This provides a clear terminus post quem for the construction of the mound.

A further element of interest in relation to this site was the name Fort Ostman, derived from a house located c. 110m west-south-west of the mound. No evidence of any great antiquity for this name could be found, however; the earliest O.S. map on which the house is named, in 1911, gives the name as Fort Osmund. The name Fort Ostman may be related to Eastmans Ltd, a firm who bought the site in 1894 and eventually sold it to Dublin Corporation in 1935.

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