1999:584 - DROGHEDA: Shop Street/Dyer Street, Louth

The site, which lay within the medieval town of Drogheda, extended from Shop Street on the east along the north street frontage of Dyer Street. The excavation was carried out to fulfil the requirements of Dúchas The Heritage Service before redevelopment of the site as commercial and residential units.

Pre-development testing of the site by Donald Murphy in 1996 indicated the presence of in situ archaeological deposits (Excavations 1996, 78, 96E0115). Walls of probable medieval date were identified, along with cobbled and red brick surfaces of post-medieval date. The current excavation sought to record the location and nature of all the in situ walls. Once the walls were exposed the pile layout was amended to ensure that they were avoided when construction recommenced. All of the archaeological remains lay beneath the proposed ground-beam level, and therefore it was only the piles that would affect the archaeology.

Excavations at Dyer Street in 1996 by Donald Murphy, during the Drogheda Main Drainage and Waste Disposal Scheme, revealed the remains of several medieval houses on the north side of the street (Excavations 1996, 76–7, 96E0160). One of these was very substantial and lay at the east end of the street, close to the Shop Street junction. The walls of this building stood 0.9m high, were 1.35m wide and were dated to the mid-1200s. The current excavation at Dyer Street was immediately to the north of the site of this substantial house.

The excavation revealed the remains of a substantial east-west-orientated wall that extended along the south side of the site. At its west end this wall turned south, forming a corner. The wall was on average 1.3m wide and survived to a maximum height of 1.2m. A narrow plinth was evident on both sides of the wall. The wall probably represents the back wall of the medieval house that was excavated in 1996. An internal garderobe chute was found 5.6m from the west end of the wall. The remains consisted of a vertical opening in the core of the wall (0.4m by 0.44m), which was linked to an ope in the southern face of the wall (0.34m by 0.4m) by a diagonal chute. It is likely that the chute fed one of the drains that were found inside the house during the 1996 excavation to the south. An external garderobe chute was evident on the north side of the wall 1.3m from its west end. The remains of the chute measured 0.44m by 0.2m by 0.44m deep. It is not clear whether this feature was original to the construction of the wall, as it fed into a walled, post-medieval refuse pit.

The remains of two other medieval walls were evident to the north of the house. These had been subject to modern disturbance, and their exact function and relationships are unclear, but they may have been boundary walls.

The majority of the excavated deposits were outside—to the north of—the medieval house, with most of the surviving internal deposits being outside the limit of the excavation. The deposits to the south of the wall consisted largely of redeposited boulder clays interspersed with thin bands of organic material. A number of pits were identified. Some of these were used as general refuse/cesspits, and the function of others remains unclear.

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