County: Meath Site name: RATOATH: Dunshaughlin Road
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 02E1446
Author: Rosanne Meenan
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 701715m, N 751937m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.507578, -6.466596
The development site lies on the Dunshaughlin Road, Ratoath, outside the medieval core of the village but inside the zone of archaeological potential. Ratoath village lies on what may have been a pre-Norman settlement, as evidenced by the placename Rath To and by the street layout.
An assessment was requested before the construction of eight semi-detached dwelling-houses in four blocks, with an access road leading from the Dunshaughlin Road. The north of the site, fronting onto the Dunshaughlin Road, was tested in March 2001 (Excavations 2001, No. 1043, 01E0174). Some rubble deriving from the demolition of 19th-century houses was exposed but nothing of archaeological significance.
The current development is at the south of the same site. The ground originally sloped down from the back of the site to the valley of the River Broadmeadow, although there are now houses between the site and the river, and in other places building rubble has been introduced. Nothing of archaeological significance was found.
Roestown, Drumree, Co. Meath
