1998:634 - DUNGARVAN: Church Street/Emmet Street, Waterford

The site for a residential development in the junction of Church Street and Emmett Street, Dungarvan, was tested for archaeological survival in 1997 (Excavations 1997, 182). The site is within the 17th-century town wall, beside the main street from the castle to the medieval church (Church Street). In 1998 a large part of the roadside was investigated.

Two small pits and a few scraps of pebble surface are the only indications of medieval buildings close to the road. No post-holes, slots or hearths were found. Buildings were probably few and only standing for a short time. There were no suggestions of burgage divisions on site. By the 16th century a field occupied half of the roadside; a second field may have occupied the other half. With the 17th-century construction of a town wall (foundations were uncovered) on the line of Emmett Street, soil was stripped from the fields and houses were built beside Church Street. The buildings probably had clay-bonded stone walls, but virtually all traces of walls were removed by later buildings and clay pits.

Clay pits from the 17th and 18th century covered a good deal of the site. Clay extraction started before the construction of the town wall and continued in a belt behind the roadside houses, occasionally cutting away a roadside site. Ground level dropped beside the road and under it. The survival of pre-19th-century surfaces was poor.

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