County: Dublin Site name: FAIRVIEW, Clondalkin
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 00E0931
Author: Ruth Elliott, for Judith Carroll & Co. Ltd.
Site type: Enclosure
Period/Dating: Post Medieval (AD 1600-AD 1750)
ITM: E 705938m, N 731037m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.318988, -6.409981
An excavation was conducted in Fairview, Clondalkin, between 16 December 2000 and 2 February 2001. The site was uncovered during monitoring along the Saggart, Rathcoole and Newcastle drainage pipeline (see Excavations 2000 No. 339).
A north-west/south-east-running hand-cut ditch was uncovered. It expanded in width from 2.4m in the south-east to 4.3m in the north-west. The sides sloped sharply to an irregular flat base at depths of 0.48m to 0.65m, being deeper to the north-west. The primary fill was a light yellowish-grey, silty clay reaching depths up to 0.38m, suggesting that the ditch remained open and contained standing water for a considerable length of time. Post-medieval pottery found within this silt dated it to the 17th or 18th century. Overlying this was a mid-brownish/grey, gritty, silty clay with frequent stone inclusions, which was used to backfill the ditch.
The ditch represented the archaeological remains of part of a pseudo-circular boundary, visible on the first edition OS map. An SMR site, the ‘Two Sisters Wells’ (SMR 21:9), was central to this boundary, and it had therefore been suggested that it had potential ecclesiastical significance. Excavation showed that the ditch did not have ecclesiastical significance, however, and is more likely to have formed one of the boundaries to lands of the Fairview oil mills (SMR 21:8), also central to the boundary, which were active in the 17th century.
Top Mews, 23 Upper Leeson Street, Dublin 4
