County: Dublin Site name: NEWTOWN LINK ROAD, St Margaret's
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 99E0028
Author: Claire Walsh, Archaeological Projects Ltd.
Site type: Cultivation ridges
Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)
ITM: E 711926m, N 741824m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.414662, -6.316320
A second phase of monitoring of topsoil-stripping was undertaken from 10 to 12 March 1999. The area to be stripped lay outside and to the north of the area that had previously been studied archaeologically for the construction of the new road. The area had to be stripped to allow the laying of a drainage pipe leading from the road north to the stream that flows north-eastwards just east of Connaberry Motte and for the construction of a paddock.
As this area lay outside the study area and was close to Connaberry Motte and Dunsoghly Castle, the topsoil was removed using a toothless grading bucket. A series of cultivation furrows was uncovered. They were aligned roughly north-south and were regularly spaced, 3m apart. They varied from less than 55m wide and from 20mm or less to 60mm wide. They were only visible where they cut into subsoil and did not survive in the north-west side of the stripped area, owing to the stony nature of the underlying subsoil there. The furrows were filled with grey, loamy silt, and no finds were retrieved from any of them. However, several sherds of medieval pottery (North Leinster cooking wares and wheel-thrown Dublin wares) were uncovered from the topsoil that overlay them.
The furrows are the remains of ridge-and-furrow cultivation, which is probably of medieval date. The proximity of the site to both the Connaberry Motte and to Dunsoghly Castle means that the cultivation system could have been used by the occupants of either site.
25A Eaton Square, Terenure, Dublin 6W
