County: Mayo Site name: STRADE ABBEY, Strade
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 97E0381
Author: Donald Murphy, Archaeological Consultancy Services Ltd.
Site type: Religious house - Franciscan friars and Religious house - Dominican friars
Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)
ITM: E 525767m, N 797613m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.922556, -9.130145
Further archaeological monitoring was carried out at the old Penal church at Strade Abbey, which is being refurbished to serve as the new Michael Davitt Museum. The excavation of service trenches around the perimeter of the church was monitored in February 2000. The proposed service ducts were kept at minimum levels to avoid unnecessary disturbance to archaeological deposits.
A brown loam containing stone was exposed in all trenches, but only the upper portion was removed by hand to facilitate the insertion of the ducts. A small section of the wall, which was exposed running east–west in the 1998 excavation (Excavations 1998, 159–60), was exposed outside the west gable of the church. This wall is associated with the abbey itself, on which the Penal church was later built. A possible floor surface of clay and stone was exposed below the concrete floor in the north transept of the Penal church. This was carefully covered and a new floor laid above it.
Evidence for burials was recovered along the south (outside) wall of the south transept during the insertion of a service duct here. The burial was carefully covered and the pipe inserted above. No further excavation will be carried out at the site as the museum is now complete and open to the public.
15 Trinity Street, Drogheda, Co. Louth
