County: Dublin Site name: BALROTHERY: Main Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 96E0325
Author: Claire Walsh, Archaeological Projects Ltd.
Site type: Cultivation ridges
Period/Dating: Post Medieval (AD 1600-AD 1750)
ITM: E 719925m, N 761520m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.589817, -6.188538
Archaeological assessment of a development site at Balrothery, Co. Dublin, was undertaken on 20 and 21 November 1996. The site consists of two adjoining properties, one of which fronts onto the main thoroughfare through the village of Balrothery. It is situated some distance from the only surviving medieval buildings of Balrothery, the tower-house and church tower.
The front wall and several of the internal walls of a clay- and rubble-walled dwelling, and associated outhouses, were extant on the northern property. Lazy-beds extended from the rear of the buildings over the entire plot.
The site represents an entire plot and part of an adjoining plot, which may lie within the medieval settlement area of Balrothery. Oblique aerial photography of Rosepark, immediately to the east of the development site, when under tillage, has shown a series of cropmarks (St Joseph/CUCAP, BDS 57, 1970). A 'holy well' is also sited within this large field.
Several of the cropmarks are easily interpreted as the remains of continuations of the long strip enclosures which form the present boundaries to the plots. Several linear features, field drains, are also apparent. One of these extends to the development site. There are several curved enclosures evident, however, indicative of a different system.
No features of any archaeological interest were detected in the test-trenches dug on the site. Two field drains and a field boundary were observed in the trenches, and the drains were evident on the aerial photograph of the adjacent field. Several sherds of crockery, dating from the 17th century, were present in the topsoil.
Editor's note: This excavation, though carried out in 1996, was not reported on in time for inclusion in the bulletin of that year.
25a Eaton Square, Terenure, Dublin 6W
