County: Meath Site name: ABBEYLAND SOUTH AND BLACKCASTLE DEMESNE
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 98E0463
Author: Niall Brady
Site type: Burnt mound, Burnt spread and Structure
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 685693m, N 768110m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.655730, -6.703616
A thin stratum of archaeological deposit was revealed below landfill deposits in Abbeyland South on the south bank of the River Blackwater in advance of the Navan Inner Relief Road 2A. The investigation of a 103.6m2 area between 6 and 28 October 1998 uncovered the remnants of walls that would have belonged to substantial buildings of the post-medieval period. A large assemblage of potsherds and several other objects, including three copper coins and fragments of an inscribed finger-ring, suggest a date in the early/mid-17th century.
A small area of medieval activity was identified below one of the wall features. It constituted a patch of burning datable to the 14th/15th centuries on the evidence of associated ceramics. The inclusion of line-impressed tile fragments suggests an ecclesiastical association. The site lies c. 120m west of where St Mary's Priory is believed to have been centred, and it is likely that this represents part of the complex. The post-medieval activity occurred between the priory's dissolution and the building of a cavalry barracks c. 1700.
In the course of removing topsoil at the edge of the land-take on the north bank of the Blackwater in Blackcastle Demesne townland, part of a previously unrecorded fulacht fiadh was exposed on 16 October 1998. The section was recorded, and the site was reburied.
