County: Derry Site name: COOLAGH AND FAUGHANVALE
Sites and Monuments Record No.: LDY15A-003 Licence number: AE/03/81
Author: Norman Crothers, ADS Ltd.
Site type: Battlefield
Period/Dating: Late Medieval (AD 1100-AD 1599)
ITM: E 657954m, N 921540m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 55.038002, -7.093353
BGE (NI) intend to construct a gas pipeline starting at a junction to be constructed on the existing Belfast Transmission Pipeline 3.3km north of Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim, terminating at Coolkeeragh power station, situated on the southern shore of Lough Foyle some 7km to the north-east of Derry city. A metal-detecting survey of the possible location of a 12th-century battle in Coolagh and Faughanvale townlands was carried out as part of an agreed programme of pre-construction evaluation.
This battle site is mentioned in the Annals of Ulster under the year 1196, recte 1197, and the Annals of the Four Masters, sub anno 1197, and is imprecisely located to the townlands of Carrickhugh, Coolagh and Faughanvale on the south shore of Lough Foyle. The site still has not been precisely located.
The results of the metal-detecting survey proved to be very limited. Very few hits were noted and all of the 67 artefacts recovered proved to be of very recent date. No finds of any antiquity were recovered from any of the fields surveyed; indeed, the majority of the finds are of 20th-century date.
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