County: Louth Site name: DUNLEER: Main Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 02E0217
Author: Rosanne Meenan
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 705728m, N 787774m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.828710, -6.393923
Permission was granted by Louth County Council to build six townhouses with associated site works, with a condition requiring pre-development testing as the site is within the zone of archaeological potential of Dunleer.
Grey garden soil was exposed in all three trenches. This overlay a stiff yellow boulder clay, stony in places. A modern soak-hole was exposed in Trench 2. A small gully-like feature was exposed in Trench 3, filled with hard-packed grey silt that contained fragments of brick. The gully was 0.5m wide and was cut into the boulder clay to a depth of 0.3m. A sherd of medieval green-glazed pottery was recovered from the garden soil in Trench 3.
After testing, monitoring of ground disturbance during construction was recommended; the licence was extended to cover the monitoring, which was carried out in two phases. First the modern sheds and the stone wall facing onto the street were demolished. The sod was cleared, and a layer of topsoil, 0.2–0.3m deep, was removed. Nothing of archaeological significance was exposed at this stage.
Some weeks later, foundations were cut using a machine with a 3ft (0.9m) bucket. The building was divided internally into six units. The foundation trenches were excavated to a depth of 1m. They bottomed onto very stiff boulder clay. An existing sewage pipe running along the eastern boundary of the site was exposed.
No structures or finds of archaeological significance were revealed.
Roestown, Drumree, Co. Meath
