2003:2129 - LUSK: Minister's Road, Dublin

Monitoring was required on a site located to the west of Lusk village centre, immediately west and south of Kelly Park. Access to the development is from Minister’s Road. The area to be developed is immediately outside the zone of potential for the medieval town (SMR 8:10). During the course of monitoring (No. 638, Excavations 2003, 03E0792) several small features were identified in the south-west area of the development. These were fully excavated.

The features consisted of one well-defined oval pit, F1, measuring 2m by 1.6m by 0.58m in depth. It had three distinctive fills, all containing burnt stone and charcoal. The water table was quite high and the pit filled with water soon after excavation.

There were two other, smaller, irregular-shaped pits filled with burnt stone and charcoal: F6, 4.5m south of F1, and F13, an oblong-shaped cut 2.7m west of F1. The remains of a small thin spread (1.6m by 0.65m by 0.02–0.06m deep) of burnt material survived 1.2m south of F1. The fills of these features had the appearance of burnt-mound or fulacht fiadh-type material. F1 may have functioned as a trough. There is, however, no evidence for a mound of burnt material in the vicinity.

There were three small, irregular-shaped burnt patches 6m east of the pits; there was no burnt stone in this area and, on excavation, these patches had the appearance of burnt vegetation.

A small subrectangular feature defined by a shallow trench was identified c. 16.5m south-west of the pits. It was orientated east–west, was 2.9m long internally and 3.5m externally, 2.3m wide internally and 3.2m externally. The feature was badly truncated by two parallel furrows. The trench on the western side is quite shallow, the cut on the west edge is well-defined but the eastern edge was uncertain, as it was cut through by a large furrow. The dimensions of the trench on the west side were 3.6m long by 0.22m, and 0.2m deep. The fill consisted of a dark-grey/brown silty clay with much charcoal. Two unworked flint nodules and one flint flake were found within it. The trench on the east side was 3.6m long by 0.38m and 0.15–0.32m deep. It had a well-defined U-shaped cut with a fill of grey-brown silty clay, with very occasional charcoal and some small patches of scorching. One unworked flint nodule and two flint flakes were found within the fill, with one coarse fragment of post-medieval pottery and one fragment of modern pottery in the upper portion. There was no evidence for any internal or external features associated with this sub-rectangular trench.

This sub-rectangular feature does not fit into a defined site type, and the disturbed nature of the trench and the lack of any securely datable material from the site make interpretation difficult. It is hoped that radiocarbon analysis will shed more light on the date of the features identified.

32 FitzWilliam Place