1998:677 - TAGHMON: Main Street, Wexford

An archaeological evaluation was carried out at a site at Main Street, Taghmon, Co. Wexford, on 15 and 16 October 1998. An archaeological assessment report had already been carried out on the site in response to a request for further information from the Planning Authority. Some existing modern buildings were to be retained as store houses during construction, and therefore a two-phase plan for testing the site was agreed. Four SMR sites lie a short distance outside the eastern boundary of the site. These range in date from the Early Christian period to the Anglo-Norman. The site is bordered to the north and west by the gardens of street-frontage properties and to the the south by pastureland. The site was in recent years used as a cattle mart and was a traditional market site before that. The placename is derived from the Irish Teach Munnu, 'the house (church) of Munnu', the eponym in the name referring to St Fintan Munna, who founded a church in Taghmon and died in AD 636.

Eight test-trenches were inserted along four trench lines. Three of these were positioned along the lines of the proposed houses, while one was placed across an earthen bank at the southern end of the site. The topsoil had been stripped from much of the site in living memory, and this was apparent in the absence of a topsoil horizon across the northern and north-western areas of the site. A deep layer of gritty gravel (hard-core), which lay directly beneath the sod, was observed where topsoil was absent and represented an imported material that had been spread over the site as part of its preparation for use as a mart.

The test-trenches were generally dug to a depth of 0.8–1m. Over most of the site the natural was quite close to the surface, occurring at a depth of about 0.5m below the present ground surface.

Nine features of archaeological significance were identified. These occurred over the general area defined by the test-trenches but most were concentrated in the northern and north-western parts of the site. They consisted of localised cuts into the natural that contained charcoal-rich fills, as well as a number of possible ditch features that were filled with materials of a highly organic composition. In one case an additional test-trench, which had not formed part of the original testing strategy, was inserted to test the assumption that one of these features represented a ditch. The occurrence of a feature of similar proportions and composition a few metres to the north-east was taken as an indication that a linear feature was represented.

In view of the fact that the site had been heavily disturbed during the construction of the cattle mart and that this event resulted in the truncation of the archaeological features, a programme of monitoring of all groundworks associated with the development was recommended.

Monitoring of foundation trenches along the northern end of the site proceeded in December 1998. The results indicated the presence of at least two separate ditch features that run roughly north-west to south-east through the northern end of the site. These ditches appear to be parallel and possibly follow a concentric curve, with the westernmost ditch being the more substantial of the two. The fills of these ditches are complexly layered and organic matter, e.g. timber fragments, hazelnut shells and leaves, occurs as a frequent inclusion within the fill of the westernmost ditch; this ditch also contained timber planks within its basal layer. The remains of two substantial timber posts were also found near these ditches. The excavation and removal of these posts necessitated the extension of the foundation trenches. Some discrete charcoal-rich features were also found during this monitoring phase both in between and beyond the ditch features referred to above.

Further monitoring of groundworks, together with some open-plan excavation, is to take place in 1999.

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