County: Louth Site name: CRUMLIN (2B)
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 99E0430
Author: Patricia Lynch, for Valerie J. Keeley Ltd.
Site type: Fulacht fia
Period/Dating: Bronze Age (2200 BC-801 BC)
ITM: E 704388m, N 803881m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.973660, -6.408774
This site was identified as a large area of burning during monitoring of the digging of interceptor drainage for the construction of the Northern Motorway/Dunleer–Dundalk Bypass. This area had been topsoil-stripped earlier in the construction phase. Only the grass of the sod was removed, and the remainder of the layer was sealed beneath ‘fill’ of the new road. It was during the deeper excavation of trenches for the interceptor drains that this site was identified.
The site was located c. 90m west of Crumlin 2A (see Excavations 2000, No. 652), at the base of a low, east-facing hill slope and 40m east of a small stream. It measured 4.75m x 6.8m. Two cuttings were opened, divided by a modern drain. The area to the extreme north of the site was not excavated.
This feature consisted of a spread of burnt mound material, which measured 6.83m x 2.15m and was skirted on the south, east and west by a mix of clay, burnt mound material and modern china. F2, a possible rectangular trough, 1.75m x 1.5m x 0.43m, was found in the southern cutting. Most of the northern side of the feature was destroyed as a result of modern drainage activity. F3, a shallow, oval pit, 1.4m x 0.8m x 0.21m, which may have been a hearth, was also found.
Editor’s note: The summary of this excavation, which was carried out during 1999, arrived too late for publication in the bulletin of that year.
112 Cianlea, Swords, Co. Dublin and Brehon House, Kilkenny Road, Castlecomer, Co. Kilkenny
