1998:131 - CASTLE STREET, Dalkey, Dublin

An archaeological assessment was requested by the developer before a planning application to develop the site, which lay to the south of the church park off Castle Street, Dalkey. Six trenches were mechanically excavated within the footprint of the proposed development on 9–10 March 1998.

Trench 1 ran along the western boundary of the site and revealed a small spread of white mortar that appeared to have been in situ. Trench 3, to the north-east of the site, ran north-south. It contained the remains of a compact mortar surface 7.1m long (0.9m from present ground level) and a small east-west-orientated granite field drain, 0.5m wide. Trench 4 lay to the south of Trench 3 and ran east-west. This contained a granite drain identical to that in Trench 3, associated with 18th/19th-century pottery, which cut the natural boulder clay.

Inspection of the stratigraphic profiles of all the excavated trenches indicates widespread modern disturbance across the whole site. The entire ground level of the site had been raised by modern deposition, with an average depth of c. 1.15m, increasing to the north. This dumping possibly occurred as a result of the construction of the carpark and the houses to the north.

All the soils immediately above the natural boulder clay appear to date, at the earliest, to the later post-medieval period. A light yellow/brown clay that occurred across the site appeared similar to some form of ploughsoil but contains later inclusions such as white ware and plastic.

With the exception of the mortar spread in Trench 1, only Trench 3 yielded any feature of archaeological interest, in the form of a compact mortar surface that may possibly have been associated with some form of structure. In the absence of any dating material first impressions suggest that it is probably post-medieval in date.

2 Killiney View, Albert Road Lower, Glenageary, Co. Dublin