County: Dublin Site name: CLONTARF: Redcourt
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 03E0970
Author: Angela Wallace, for Arch-Tech Ltd.
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 721124m, N 736425m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.364137, -6.180102
Monitoring was required on a development site located west of Clontarf Road in the area known as Redcourt. The area measured 50m east–west by 85m. There is one recorded monument in the vicinity of the site, SMR 19:16, classified as a ‘mound site’; this lies c. 100m to the north-west.
The area had been badly disturbed prior to monitoring; most of the topsoil had been removed and the area was used for stockpiling material. The entire area was scraped back with a mechanical excavator using a toothless grading bucket. Prior to development this area appears to have been in continuous use as a garden/green area. The site is bounded by residential dwellings to the north, south and east, and a large modern wall separates the area from surrounding residential estates.
Topsoil, where it survived, consisted of a loosely compacted mid- to dark-brown, silty sand, with a depth of 0.3–0.4m across the site. Fragments of modern glass, crockery and seashells and occasional naturally occurring nodules of flint were recovered from this layer. The topsoil appears to have been part of a garden soil layer across the site. Subsoil consisted of an orange-brown, slightly sandy, gravelly clay.
Several linear features and a roughly circular pit were exposed cut into the subsoil. Modern glass, glazed crockery and oyster shells were recovered from sections across these features. They were probably 19th/20th-century drainage channels or plot boundaries; the pit appears to be a dump for burning refuse. No archaeological finds or features were recovered.
32 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin 2
