County: Monaghan Site name: CLONES: Cara Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 98E0245
Author: Eoghan Moore
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 650031m, N 825627m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.177168, -7.233639
An archaeological assessment was carried out on the site of a proposed development at Cara Street, Clones, Co. Monaghan. The site was within the zone of archaeological potential for the town as identified by the Urban Archaeological Survey and lay c. 50m from the boundary wall of a graveyard that contains a round tower and an Early Christian stone sarcophagus. One test-trench was excavated on 23 May 1998. Before excavation the site was used for carparking.
The test-trench measured 9m x 1.8m on a north-east/south-west axis. It was excavated to the top of the natural subsoil. At a depth of c. 0.7m the remains of a flat-bottomed ditch with its accompanying coarse, grey fill were uncovered. The ditch was c. 1.3m wide at the point where it was dug into the natural subsoil and c. 1.1m at its base. It had been cut into the natural to a depth of c. 0.3m. It was excavated by hand.
The stratigraphy of the test-trench consisted of a gravel layer c. 0.1–0.2m deep, which lay directly above a layer of redeposited, dark brown topsoil and a layer of redeposited, dark brown/black topsoil intermixed with redeposited, coarse, grey ditch fill. A pottery sherd with the remains of a green glaze on its inner surface and three clay pipe stem fragments were found at the interface of the undisturbed ditch fill and the redeposited dark brown/black topsoil intermixed with the redeposited ditch fill. These finds (in particular the clay pipe stem fragments) indicate that the ditch dates to the early modern period (perhaps the 17th century, when the town of Clones underwent considerable development).
Two rubbish pits, cut into the natural, were also uncovered towards the centre of the test-trench. They were found to contain only modern rubbish.
In view of what was uncovered at the site it was recommended that either the proposed development be excavated before planning permission being granted or that the foundations not disturb the ditch remains. The archaeological resolution of the site has yet to be completed.
Prospect House, Dunsrim, Scotshouse, Co. Monaghan
