1999:260 - CRUISERATH, Mulhuddart, Dublin

This site at Cruiserath, Mulhuddart, Co. Dublin, was due to be redeveloped for industrial purposes and lay adjacent to an existing, newly developed industrial office park. The site is bounded by Ballycoolin Road to the south, the Goddamendy Industrial Park to the east, agricultural fields to the north and Church Road to the west. An archaeological assessment of the site was requested as a condition of planning permission.

The proposed development was the subject of an environmental impact statement, the cultural heritage research for which included an assessment of the medieval and more recent history of the site. The sources suggested that it had limited archaeological potential. The townland name is derived from the name of its early medieval owners, the Cruise family. Clearly the appendage 'rath' either suggests the pre-existence of a rath within the townland or may refer to a medieval, moated earthwork site. No remains of either type of site can be identified in the cultivated lands of the townland or in the aerial photographs of the site.

The later medieval development of the site was undocumented, but Rocque's map indicated a number of structures/dwellings and an associated garden on the site, which coincided with the position of the access drive to the house from the west. Cruiserath House, as depicted on the 1st edition of the Ordnance Survey, was also undocumented.

The site of Cruiserath House and its adjacent farm buildings saw continuous use, modification and rebuilding from the 19th century. The house appeared to have been demolished in the 1940s or 1950s and replaced with a small, double-fronted house to the south. A very large industrial farmyard was later developed, apparently in the 1970s. The site was evidently cleared of all structures and boundaries, even the recent farm buildings, before the preparation of the environmental impact statement and before the acquisition of the site for development purposes. All that survived were the very extensive concrete yard surface, three large silage pits, the overgrown remains of the tarmac drive to the concrete yard area and the modern house, the foundations of which are easily identified.

The test-trenching was undertaken in two phases during November 1999. Long slit-trenches were opened using a mechanical excavator with a 2m-wide toothless bucket. These were positioned between the remains of the modern house, the supposed site of the earlier house and the modern farmyard. A number of supplementary trenches were later opened in areas where features were revealed.

The test-trenches revealed the very truncated and disturbed remains of a number of masonry and red brick walls and the very well-preserved remains of cobbled surfaces, all of which were found, when superimposed by CAD, to accord remarkably with the layout depicted on the 1st edition of the OS. The remains were too poorly preserved to establish their relative date, and it was not possible, without full excavation, to establish whether any remains of the 18th-century house survived or to what extent it may have been modified. The high level of resolution between the remains record and the OS, however, in spite of the poor preservation of the remains, facilitated the identification of various elements of the house and the early farmyard complex, including the walled garden, kitchen garden and quadrangular farmyard. The structure for the new industrial facility did not impinge on the complex, and to avoid a requirement for full excavation the associated carpark was raised in level in order to preserve the remains in situ.

2 Killiney View, Albert Road Lower, Glenageary, Co. Dublin