County: Limerick Site name: FOYNES HARBOUR
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 02E1767
Author: Kieran Campbell, for Boland Archaeological Services Ltd.
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 525846m, N 651839m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.612732, -9.094952
Foynes, a village of ten houses in 1831, developed as a port in the mid-19th century with the opening in 1853 of a dock for a proposed transatlantic mail-and-packet station, which was subsequently relocated to Southampton. A deep-water quay was completed in 1936. From 1936 to 1946 the harbour was the base for a transatlantic flying-boat service.
Monitoring of maintenance dredging at Foynes Port took place from 7 to 14 December 2002. Previously, the port had been dredged as part of a capital expansion scheme in 1999, and maintenance dredging was undertaken in 2001, both without archaeological monitoring. The 2002 dredging operations were designed to remove estuarine silts and debris that had accumulated since the completion of the previous dredging campaigns. The present dredging involved the use of a suction hopper dredger, Medway II, with the assistance of a plough dredger, Tioga B. The suction dredger operated on a 24-hour basis, with each dredging cycle lasting for two hours. Monitoring was achieved by inspection of the dredge-head at the end of each cycle. A total of 61 dredging cycles were monitored over five days, with nothing of archaeological interest being observed.
Arden Road, Tullamore, Co. Offaly
