2002:0854 - TRALEE: Rock Street, Kerry

Monitoring and an architectural assessment report were undertaken in relation to renovations to the interior of a small terraced property at 23 Rock Street, within the zone of archaeological potential of Tralee (SMR 29:119). The concrete floor of the building was removed mechanically and revealed a red/brown, clayey, loose rubble, 0.2m deep, with frequent red brick and occasional wood fragments, which came down directly onto bedrock. The total depth of excavation was 0.3m. No stratigraphy or artefacts of an archaeological nature were discovered during this phase of the work.

The architectural assessment relates to a five-bay, two-storey, rectangular tannery building in a ruinous condition to the rear of 23 Rock Street. The earliest cartographic representation is found on the first-edition (1841) OS map. The 1850 Griffith’s Valuation map notes the building as being in ruins. A substantial rebuild or repair was undertaken in the latter part of the 19th century, and on the 1878 second-edition OS map the buildings to the rear of 22–24 Rock Street are marked as ‘tannery’. Modern mass-concrete tanks within the structure are related to the tanning process. A fair-faced non-local yellow stone was partially used around some of the opes; it appears to be from Dundry, near Bath, in England and is possibly the only known example of this building material in Tralee. The walls are composed of random, uncoursed, rubble limestone, with red-brick arches over many of the window and door openings. The building was recorded, and sections of it that were in danger of imminent collapse were reduced for health-and-safety reasons.

3 Canal Place, Tralee, Co. Kerry