County: Dublin Site name: SEAPOINT TERRACE, Irishtown Road, Ringsend
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 96E0269
Author: Claire Walsh, Archaeological Projects Ltd.
Site type: Midden
Period/Dating: Post Medieval (AD 1600-AD 1750)
ITM: E 719235m, N 733626m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.339421, -6.209532
Archaeological assessment of the development site at the rear of Seapoint Terrace, Irishtown Road, Dublin 4, was carried out on 6 September 1996. Five long trenches were dug on the site by mechanical excavator.
The site had been cleared of all standing buildings, and part of a partition wall, originally the rear boundary wall of the gardens to the rear of Seapoint Terrace, was standing on the site.
The area of Ringsend was composed of tidal mudflats and sand-banks both in the medieval period and later. While several dwellings are listed in the Sandymount/Ringsend area in the Down Survey, the area was not extensively settled and reclaimed until the 18th century.
Between 0.5m and 0.8m of garden soil containing 19th-century and later material overlay the sand and gravel subsoil on the site. Towards the centre of the site a localised grey soil and small oyster shell midden, c. 0.2m thick, yielded fragments of late 17th-century pottery. No structural features were associated with the 17th-century soil.
Razor shell and limpet throughout the upper levels of the sand subsoil indicate that the area was open sand-banks until the widespread deposition of the recent garden soil.
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
