County: Louth Site name: LOUTH MONASTERY, Priorstate, Louth Village
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 11:38 Licence number: 94E0027
Author: Donald Murphy, Archaeological Consultancy Services
Site type: Ecclesiastical enclosure
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 695530m, N 801411m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.953189, -6.544524
Archaeological testing and a watching brief was carried out on a site at Louth Village in advance of the construction of 12 dwelling houses in March 1994. The site lies inside the outer enclosure of St Mochta's early monastic site and about 100m east of the medieval Augustinian abbey. Because of the size of the site, testing alone was not sufficient and so a watching brief was also maintained on all ground disturbance. Further monitoring will be required in 1995 when development continues.
Three trial trenches were opened on the site to ascertain the depth of any archaeological stratigraphy. In each case the natural boulder clay was encountered at a depth of 0.5m under a very dark organic topsoil. In the third trench a small cut into the subsoil was visible running north-west/south-east and measured about 1m in width and about 0.5m deep. This cut was filled with dark organic soil and no material was present which could help date the feature. A watching brief carried out on March 24, 1994 in the south-east corner of the site revealed no features apart from the foundations of an old cinema which stood here until it was demolished to make way for the proposed houses.
30 Laurence St., Drogheda, Co. Louth
