2003:0053 - BELTURBET: Deanery Street, Cavan

Monitoring took place on 16 August 2003 during the excavation of foundations for an extension to a terraced house on the west side of Deanery Street, Belturbet. The property is situated 80m to the north-west of the remains of ‘Deanery Banks’, one of two 17th-century earthen forts in the town. A layer of surface detritus and black garden soil, up to 0.3m thick, was mechanically removed from the 3.2m by 6.2m area of the extension, exposing natural subsoil, a yellowish-grey clay. The U-shaped foundation trench, 1–1.5m wide and 0.6m deep, was excavated into the subsoil.

Belturbet was founded c. 1610, when the site was granted to Sir Stephen Butler for the purpose of building a town. It was hoped that some sherds of the pottery types dominant in the period of the town’s foundation (i.e. slipware and black- and brown-glazed earthenware) might have been present, whether in archaeological features or in the garden soil or in other disturbed contexts. In the event, no archaeological features were uncovered and no pottery sherds of any date were recovered. This was no doubt due to the small-scale nature of the development.

6 St Ultan’s, Laytown, Drogheda