2003:2327 - TRALEE: Abbey Street/Dominick Street, Kerry

Test-trenches were excavated at Abbey Street/ Dominick Street, Tralee, as part of an impact assessment in advance of a decision relating to a planning application for five commercial units, a bar, restaurant and fourteen apartments. The proposed development site is situated at the junction of Dominick Street and Abbey Street. In the medieval period this was most likely the northern limit of the property of the Dominican friary. The friary was established in Tralee in 1243 by John FitzThomas FitzGerald.

Five trenches were opened on the footprint of the proposed development. They each contained a mixed rubble layer of building rubble and red brick, 0.4–1m deep, overlying a black silty layer containing postmedieval pottery, oyster shells and clay-pipe fragments. At the southern end of Trench 1, below the silty layer, there was a black organic fill with wood. The outer face of a wall was recorded on the west side of Trench 1, running north–south. This wall measured 0.5m in height and about 4m in length. As it ran parallel to the trench, it was only viewed in section and a width could not be determined. It was composed of random rubble stone set in a linear fashion and was, on average, 0.6m in height to its base, where it sat on the dark organic layer.

The inner denuded core of a wall was uncovered on the northern baulk of Trench 2. Lying on the subsoil, at a depth of 2.1m, the wall extended east–west. It was constructed with undressed rubble stone bonded with clay. Much of the revealed wall was badly denuded and robbed out, with only its northern face remaining intact. It measured 4.5m east–west, 0.55–0.6m in width and 0.8m in maximum height.

In the northern part of Trench 3 a layer of organic material (peat, straw, wood) was noted, very similar to that in Trench 1. At the southern end of the trench was a black, rich, organic layer, which contained sherds of 17th-century North Devon gravel-tempered ware, wood, leather and bone, two long bones of which were human.

The primary occupation layer that was prevalent in all cuttings comprised a rich organic fill that can be artefactually dated to the 17th century by the recovery of securely stratified North Devon ware. The poor-quality construction and bonding of the wall section recorded in Trench 2 makes it most likely that it is associated with this period also. The wall section located in Trench 1 is of more recent date, possibly 19th-century, as it lies on top of the earlier 17thcentury organic layer. The finds recovered from the trenches are almost entirely of post-medieval date, with the majority from the 17th century. No burials were recorded and only two long bones, a femur and humerus, were recovered.

3 Canal Place, Tralee, Co. Kerry