County: Kerry Site name: TRALEE: Mary St.
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 94E0016
Author: Isabel Bennett
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 482975m, N 613553m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.261224, -9.714326
A watching brief was carried out while foundations were being dug for a new cinema conplex on the site of a former hotel. The site was close to the area where the Dominican Priory of the medieval town had been situated.
Two areas were opened up, to correspond with the sloping arrangement of the seating in the proposed cinemas. The maximum depth reached in the north-east corner of the site, Area 1, after the site had been cleared of its more recent buildings, was 0.9m, and 'garden soil' was just being reached at this level, although no definite features or artefacts were recovered.
In Area 2, the north-west corner, the maximum depth reached was 1m. This area was much wetter than Area 1, and appeared to have been dumped into in the relatively recent past. At a depth of 0.6m to 0.8m a black, oily silt was found, and below this was the undisturbed, greenish-yellow silt. Nothing of archaeological significance was noted.
Glen Fahan, Ventry, Tralee, Co. Kerry
