County: Meath Site name: PRIESTOWN, Kilbride
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 99E0208
Author: Rosanne Meenan
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Modern (AD 1750-AD 2000)
ITM: E 706194m, N 746116m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.454396, -6.401073
The Ashbourne/Ratoath/Kilbride Sewerage Scheme comprises pipe-laying from Ratoath and Ashbourne to Kilbride, with a new pumping house at Kilbride. As there had been activity in the medieval period in the area of the village, it was recommended that the location of the new pump house be tested.
Three trenches tested the areas of greatest potential disturbance. The stratigraphy was nearly indentical in all, comprising ploughsoil 0.4–0.5m deep, overlying a grey, silty layer 0.9–1m deep. A stone drain was exposed in Trench 2, dug into the silty clay layer. The underlying material in the three trenches was a gravelly stone layer in a grey clay matrix.
Much of the land in this immediate area is badly drained and remains waterlogged after rain. This would account for the necessity of the stone drain encountered in Trench 2. There was no evidence to suggest that the drain was not post-medieval or modern in date.
Roestown, Drumree, Co. Meath
