County: Meath Site name: EDEN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 00E0645
Author: Rosanne Meenan
Site type: Chapel
Period/Dating: Modern (AD 1750-AD 2000)
ITM: E 678534m, N 719130m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.848361, -6.810233
This site is on the outskirts Kilmainhamwood, Co. Meath. The development comprised the renovation of a disused schoolhouse, with the construction of a new dwelling-house at the front.
The location is marked as SMR 5:29, the site of a 17th-century cross and a piscina or possible mortar. One condition of the planning permission was to establish the whereabouts of these objects. It transpired that the cross and piscina were collected by the late landowner, Mr Oliver Plunkett, about eight to ten years ago and are now in private storage.
Condition 10 of the permission required monitoring of groundworks associated with the development. The landowners were unaware of this requirement and started work. When notified, Dúchas The Heritage Service requested that any remaining groundworks be monitored and that a trial-trench should be excavated at the front of the new dwelling-house.
Excavation of the one remaining trench was monitored. A stratigraphy of riverine deposits was exposed, but nothing of archaeological significance was observed. The 8m-long test-trench cut through the foundation trench for the wall of the 1817 chapel that stood in front of the schoolhouse, exposing many loose stones with mortar and fragments of white plaster. No earlier features were exposed.
Roestown, Drumree, Co. Meath
