County: Kerry Site name: LACKABAUN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: RMP 30:64 Licence number: 01E0757
Author: Laurence Dunne, Eachtra Archaeological Projects
Site type: Pit
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 498323m, N 613046m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.259719, -9.489429
Test excavations were carried out in relation to a proposal to construct a single house at Lackabaun, Castleisland, Co. Kerry. The proposed development site is near a monument classified as an enclosure. Most of the monument was levelled some thirty years ago. However, coherent low-level remains still survive. These comprise a subcircular platform area, enclosed by a low earthen bank with an external diameter of 31m north-west/south-east by 26.7m. The bank is best preserved in the south, where it has a basal width of 10.6m and a height of 0.7m. There is no visible evidence of an enclosing ditch.
Three test-trenches were excavated. A single pit feature was recorded in Trench 1, while Trenches 2 and 3 proved archaeologically sterile.
Trench 1 was 10m by 3m with an average depth of 0.4m. The stratigraphy consisted of a mid-brown topsoil overlying a yellow clay subsoil. A single feature, a shallow circular burnt pit (0.31m north–south by 0.33m with a depth of 0.04m), was identified and excavated. It contained a single charcoal-enriched fill within a fire-reddened clay cut. Nothing else of archaeological significance was recovered.
3 Canal Place, Tralee, Co. Kerry
