1994:166 - CARLINGFORD: Newry St., Louth

Archaeological testing by trial-trenching was carried out on the site of a proposed residential development at Newry St., Carlingford, on December 7, 1994. The site lies within an area of archaeological potential as outlined in the Urban Archaeology Survey of Co. Louth (John Bradley, OPW 1984) and lies along the west side of Newry St. just inside the north wall of the town.

The site was cleared of buildings before the testing took place and with it 1m of material was removed from the northern end of the site. The material removed consisted of an early post-medieval layer containing shell fragments, bone and pottery sherds of 16th/17th-century date. Underlying this was 0.5m of garden soil and, towards the western portion of the site, a bank containing post-medieval layers, garden soil and up to 0.5m of the natural gravel. Only a small portion of the early post-medieval layer lay undisturbed in the north-east corner of the site. Two trenches were excavated in order to assess the remaining stratigraphy which basically was confined to the north-east corner as elsewhere the site had already been excavated to the natural gravels.

Quite a substantial layer of garden soil covered the entire site and it was sealed by a layer of 15th–17th-century date in the north-east corner of the site. It must therefore be of late medieval or early post-medieval date. It is very similar to the medieval garden soils found in many urban centres in Ireland but in previous excavations in nearby Tholsel St. (Excavations 1994, No. 167) this layer was not present. This garden soil seals a peaty layer which is present alongside Newry St. and may represent a medieval occupation layer. In the first test trench excavated along the northern boundary of the site this layer was defined by a stone setting at its western extent. The layer was 0.3m thick and contained quite an amount of branches and fragments of what could be wattles lying flat within the layer. A few bone fragments were also recovered but no dating evidence was retrieved. The second trench was opened perpendicular to the first trench and along the east side of the site. Here the natural gravels were exposed in the southern end of the trench at a depth of 0.5m. Further north the same peaty layer as was evident in Trench 1 was exposed but not removed. It could be seen however from the southern end of the trench to be sitting directly on natural.

It is intended that more excavation will be carried out on this site to further evaluate the significance of this peaty layer which may contain traces of possible wooden houses that must have once stood along Newry St.

30 Laurence St., Drogheda, Co. Louth