County: Louth Site name: CASTLETOWN, Dundalk
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 98E0573
Author: Rob Lynch, Irish Archaeological Consultancy Ltd, for Valerie J. Keeley Ltd.
Site type: Fulacht fia
Period/Dating: Bronze Age (2200 BC-801 BC)
ITM: E 702901m, N 808928m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.019292, -6.429736
A subrectangular pit filled with burnt clay and stone was revealed during monitoring of topsoil-stripping along Line 1 of the Dundalk Sewerage Scheme (see No. 446 Excavations 1998). Full excavation was carried out between 30 November and 4 December 1998.
The site was on low-lying ground (4.41m OD), roughly 300m west of the Castletown River, with the natural topography sloping gently from west to east. A local person said that c. 40 years ago the whole area to the south of the Castletown Road was boggy marginal land, before being stabilised during the construction of Marion Villas to the east.
The excavation revealed a subrectangular trough, cutting a heavy, yellow, alluvial clay. It was orientated north-south and measured 1.6m x 0.85m and 0.29m deep. The trough was filled by a burnt, black clay with frequent inclusions of heat-shattered sandstone, which contained one fragment of cremated bone.
A layer of burnt, black clay with burnt stone, 2.94m long, lay 0.85m north of the trough. It had been truncated by machine while the archaeologist was monitoring elsewhere on site. This layer sealed a small pit 0.28m wide and 0.23m deep.
Three small, irregular pits cutting the alluvial clay lay 2.75-3m south of the trough. These ranged in size from 1.4m x 0.41m to 0.63m x 0.6m and averaged 0.14m deep. All of these features had two identical fills: a primary fill of redeposited alluvial clay with occasional inclusions of charcoal flecks and fragments of burnt stone, and a secondary fill of dark grey, sticky clay with charcoal and burnt stone.
8 Dungar Terrace, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin
