County: Dublin Site name: BALLYMOUNT CASTLE, Ballymount Great
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 00E0538
Author: John Ó Néill, Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd.
Site type: Souterrain and House - 17th century
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 708927m, N 730427m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.312903, -6.365343
A third series of excavations was carried out at Ballymount Great, Co. Dublin. Previous excavations had been carried out by Geraldine Stout (Stout 1982) and Malachy Conway (Excavations 1997, 22–3, 97E0316).
This phase of excavations arose from the routing of the LUAS Scheme through the complex, along an alignment dictated by previous demolition on the site. The routing of a large sewer trench through the standing remains prior to 1982 had cleared a corridor that was to be reused to take the rail line for the LUAS.
Excavations by Geraldine Stout in advance of the construction of the northern section of the M50 had revealed a series of medieval and post-medieval features on the site. The 1997 excavations by Malachy Conway removed a series of features and levels, and the remaining deposits were investigated and removed prior to construction.
Excavations in the vicinity of ‘Ballymount Castle’ concentrated on a number of deposits identified in 1997 but not excavated. These included a 17th-century clay sub-floor overlying the remains of possible souterrain, present in the trench as the remains of a largely truncated drystone-walled and -flagged chamber with a creep and passage extending from one end.
Reference
Stout, G. 1982 The archaeology of Ballymount Great, Co. Dublin. In C. Manning (ed.), Dublin and beyond the Pale. 145–54. Bray.
2 Killiney View, Albert Road Lower, Glenageary, Co. Dublin
