1996:263 - CARLINGFORD: Carlingford Arms, Newry Street/Market Square, Louth

NMI Burial Excavation Records

County: Louth Site name: CARLINGFORD: Carlingford Arms, Newry Street/Market Square

Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 96E0322

Author: Deirdre Murphy, Archaeological Consultancy Services Ltd.

Site type: House - indeterminate date

Period/Dating: Undetermined

ITM: E 718725m, N 811609m

Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.039979, -6.187331

Archaeological testing of a proposed extension at the Carlingford Arms, Carlingford, was carried out in November 1996. The site lies on the south-west end of Newry Street, on the corner of Market Square. The market-place must have been one of the earliest features of the town street-plan to be laid out by the Anglo-Normans in the early years of the thirteenth century.

Two test-trenches were excavated to a depth of 0.7m as disturbance was not taking place below this depth. A stone wall was uncovered extending north-south through one of the trenches. It was exposed at a depth of 0.5m below the surface. It was roughly coursed and measured at least 1m in width. However, it may have consisted of two walls. It was not very substantial and measured barely 0.3m in height. The wall rested directly on a layer of black earth which contained quite an amount of shell and the odd fleck of red brick. This wall is likely to be an old foundation of a house. It may be the gable end wall of a post-medieval house, as a section of wall stretching east-west is still standing above ground level to the north of this trench.

It would appear that elsewhere the site is disturbed and medieval deposits do not exist to a level of 0.7m.

The only find to be recovered from this site was a single rim sherd of post-medieval earthenware.

30 Laurence St., Drogheda, Co. Louth