1993:156 - DROGHEDA: Duleek Gate, Priest's Lane, Louth

Monitoring of house foundations and a trench was carried out for Frank Taffe of Highdale Construction Ltd., Plattin, Co. Meath, with the intention of ascertaining whether the eastern portion of the development on the exterior side of the city wall at the Duleek Gate, Priest's Lane, Drogheda, affected any archaeological material. This site is situated just to the west of the Duleek Gate, in the south-western part of the town, one block west of the Beymore Rd. in Lagavooreen Townland. It consists of an area measuring a maximum of 54m north-south by 52m east-west at 33.1m OD. The eastern part of the site is within the area of archaeological potential as outlined by the Urban Archaeology Survey, County Louth, and in the medieval period would have been outside the city's curtain wall. The site was used as a sales yard for cattle and the western part was covered with a floor of concrete with wooden upright timbers for animal pens. This was removed prior to the monitoring.

The monitoring took place on 18th March and 19th April. The stratigraphy observed in these cuttings consisted of a layer of topsoil or A horizon, from 0.2m-0.5m in depth and consisting of a dark-brown rich organic soil. The natural sub-soil or B horizon was light-brown to orange in colour with small angular stones, 0.01m-0.02m and a number of larger stones up to 0.10m. In the south-western part of the site a length of narrow drainage ditch was encountered with a basal layer of steel-grey waterlogged clay and some animal bone, otherwise the monitoring revealed only archaeologically sterile material.

The eastern portion of the site does not appear to have been built on. It is clear of buildings on the Ordnance Survey First Edition map and would appear to have been under agricultural use until this century.

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