County: Kerry Site name: BALLYBUNION
Sites and Monuments Record No.: RMP 4:31(01, 02) Licence number: 01E0141
Author: Laurence Dunne, Eachtra Archaeological Projects
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 486599m, N 641426m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.512410, -9.670686
Test excavations were undertaken in advance of a proposed development site at Ballybunnion, Co. Kerry. The proposed development is on the site of the Castle Hotel, a 19th-century edifice, demolished in the recent past. The western limits of the site abut the fosse of a coastal promontory fort. A shale polished stone axe was found in the area of the fosse in the recent past. Within the promontory fort stand the relict remains of Ballybunnion Castle. A number of souterrains have been exposed at various times within the limits of the promontory fort and an eroded section of one is still visible in the cliff face.
Five linked trenches were opened by mechanical track machine and cleaned by hand. The subsurface strata consisted of naturally deposited beach sand. All trenches were excavated down to natural.
Trench 1, 31.53m by 1.7m north–south, consisted of typical beach sand fill interspersed here and there with loose beach cobbles. It was excavated to base at 0.8–1m. Natural consisted of a yellow/grey boulder clay, at which point the water-table was exposed. A stony feature was exposed in the extreme north-west limits of the trench where it connects in a dog’s-leg fashion with Trench 2. This consisted of a loose rubble mound of uncoursed and unmortared stones and cobbles, surviving to a maximum height of 0.6m and overlain by a brown sandy layer 0.05m in maximum thickness and extending for approx. 5m in extent. Although darker in colour, the sandy layer did not differ in texture to the more prevalent overlying brighter-coloured beach sand. There is no visible above-ground manifestation of this feature. It was also exposed in Trench 2 to the same extent. No artefacts or other dating evidence were recovered from it.
Trench 2, 24.6m by 1.7m north-east/south-west, connected to Trench 1 in a dog’s-leg fashion where the stony mound feature survives. This feature extends along the trench for 5m. A small black amorphous deposit was exposed in the base of Trench 2 some 4m from the stony feature. It was subcircular, 0.56m in diameter. No artefacts were recovered.
Trenches 3, 4 and 5 were comprised entirely of an undifferentiated sandy fill to base at an average depth of 1m. They were identical with one another and spatially interlinked. No stratigraphy, artefacts or deposits were noted or recorded in these trenches.
These test excavations produced no significant remains and no artefacts whatsoever. It is possible that the stony feature recorded at the intersection of Trenches 1 and 2 was a recent event, inserted to reinforce the edge of the site against erosion.
3 Canal Place, Tralee, Co. Kerry
