County: Dublin Site name: DUBLIN: Clarehall District Centre, Malahide Road
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 01E1073
Author: Franc Myles, Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd.
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 720138m, N 739530m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.392247, -6.193740
Monitoring took place over several weeks on a site in the townland of Newtown, in the parish of Coolock. A large supermarket complex is to be built on the site, the construction of which will alter existing ground levels in the area. The complex is to be built within the angle formed at the junction of the Malahide Road and the Grange Road Link and is c. 27ha in extent. There are several Recorded Monuments in the general area but none that directly impinged on the site of the development. The site is on level ground that was formerly in agricultural use, although it had reverted to scrubland over recent years. The monitoring was carried out incrementally by the writer, Peter Kerins, Simon Dick and Melanie McQuade and did not result in the identification of any archaeological deposits.
The relevant enabling works for the development consisted of initial topsoil-stripping, the opening of three 4m-deep sewage trenches, and a further ground reduction of up to 2.5m in the north-eastern sector of the site. The last was necessitated by the presence of extensive modern dump deposits, and their removal exposed undisturbed boulder clay. The stripping and excavation were carried out by a selection of heavy plant, including bulldozers and 20–30-tonne excavators with both grading and toothed buckets. All of the spoil was removed by Hi-Macs to an on-site storage area, where it was regularly submitted to archaeological inspection.
The only evidence of structures was at the northern end of a culvert, where the shallow foundations of a north–south-oriented wall survived under the made-up ground. The wall was constructed in relatively modern red brick and bonded with cement. There is no record of a wall at this location on the early editions of the OS, and it is evidently quite modern. The only finds recovered were modern ceramics and glass. The results of the monitoring suggested that either there were no archaeological deposits on the site or they were so ephemeral that they did not survive to the present time.
2 Killiney View, Albert Road Lower, Glenageary, Co. Dublin
