County: Dublin Site name: RAHENY: Cahill Motors Ltd
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 96E0183
Author: Judith Carroll
Site type: Ecclesiastical enclosure
Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)
ITM: E 721424m, N 738325m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.381131, -6.174868
The trial excavation was carried out in June 1996 for Cahill Motors, Raheny village, prior to application for planning permission for redevelopment of the site.
The site being investigated is directly opposite the ruins of a medieval church, which is located at the centre of the intersection of two roads. The site is only about 20m north of the pear-shaped enclosure of the medieval church, which would probably have been the nucleus of a medieval ecclesiastical centre. How early this site might have been is not known for certain, though tradition associates the original foundation with St Assam, a disciple of St Patrick. The original name of the town, Rath Eanna, is mentioned several times in historical records, e.g. in a grant of lands to John de Courcy by Strongbow.
Initial testing, consisting of two trenches, took place in areas to be disturbed by the development. In Trench 1 was found a section of a V-shaped feature which may possibly be a truncated ditch. It was approx. 1.15m below ground level at the base. Though the nature of this feature is not known, it is significant in that it links up with, and is fairly similar in shape to, a ditch found by Leo Swan during roadworks in 1970. This ditch was interpreted by Swan as being the outer enclosure ditch of the medieval ecclesiastical site of Raheny. However, the area in which the ditch was found was important historically throughout the medieval period, and there are other boundary and defence features of which such a ditch could form a part. Both medieval and post-medieval pottery were found in disturbed layers adjacent to the feature.
It was recommended that this feature should be further investigated.
30 Ramleh Park, Milltown, Dublin 6
