County: Dublin Site name: BALALLY
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 02E0176
Author: Cóilín Ó Drisceoil, for Valerie J. Keeley Ltd.
Site type: Fulacht fia
Period/Dating: Prehistoric (12700 BC-AD 400)
ITM: E 717875m, N 725888m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.270214, -6.232813
The site was found by Gary Conboy during monitoring of topsoil-stripping before the construction of the South-Eastern Motorway. It lay on a gentle slope at the foot of the Dublin Mountains, near a stream in waste ground between modern housing and an industrial estate. When discovered, the site appeared as a discrete spread of dark soil and occasional burnt stone. On excavation, this was shown to be heavily disturbed burnt-mound material that covered a hearth and two large cut features. The hearth was a circular patch of rubified soil under an in situ ash deposit. Beside the hearth was a large circular pit surrounded by a ring of stake-holes and filled with light grey silt and burnt stone deposits. A smaller, rectilinear pit lay beside it. The base of the latter was lined with wooden planks that had badly decayed. At the time of writing, the wood type has not been identified. Finds from the site included a small quantity of lithic debitage.
258 The Sycamores, Kilkenny
