County: Louth Site name: TERMONFECKIN: Strand Road
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 22:24, 25 Licence number: 98E0406
Author: Donald Murphy, Archaeological Consultancy Services Ltd.
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 714066m, N 780456m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.761212, -6.270031
Archaeological assessment was carried out at Strand Road, Termonfeckin, Co. Louth, in December 1998 in advance of a proposed residential development. The site lies immediately south of the known location of the Early Christian monastery, the remains of which consist of two souterrains, a high cross and possible church foundations. Termonfeckin was also a major ecclesiastical centre in the later medieval period, and a borough was founded at this location.
Nine test-trenches were excavated in the areas to be disturbed. Trenches 1–3 and 5 in the south-east corner of the site revealed medieval loam layers at between 0.6m and 0.81m below the sod. Trench 4, in the north-east corner of the site, revealed three roughly equally spaced cuts into natural, between 0.6m and 1m in diameter, filled with dark brown, silty clay containing medieval pottery. These were interpreted as medieval plough furrows. Part of a small cut filled with a mid-brown loam and a high percentage of shell was encountered in the east of this trench. All of these features lay under 0.69m of sod and ploughsoil.
Trench 8 in the north-eastern corner revealed three linear cuts of medieval date, which were interpreted as plough furrows, a part of a pit containing loam and a large quantity of shell at 0.6m below sod.
Trench 6 contained a layer of redeposited natural underlying 0.53m of sod and ploughsoil. This overlay a setting of unmortared stones. The trench was excavated down to 1m below the sod.
Trench 7 in the south-west of the site uncovered sod/topsoil up to 0.52m thick. It overlay a layer of mid-brown loam containing a large percentage of shell and animal bone. No datable artefacts were found in the 0.28m of this layer that was excavated. A spread of charcoal and fire-reddened clay underlay this layer and was not excavated further.
Trench 8 was excavated close to the western boundary of the site. Sod and ploughsoil were up to 0.44m thick. They overlay a layer of mid-brown loam between 0.18m and 0.41m thick, containing a large percentage of shell. The orange boulder clay lay under this. A portion of a cut into natural was encountered at the northern end of the trench. This was filled with a mid-brown loam containing a large fragment of local medieval pottery. A linear cut was visible at the western end of the trench cut into natural and a hard, silty grey-brown clay.
Trench 9 revealed a cut into natural underlying up to 0.65m of sod and ploughsoil. This was filled with a sticky, dark brown clay containing a high percentage of shell and animal bone.
15 Trinity Street, Drogheda, Co. Louth
