County: Kildare Site name: RATHCOFFEY NORTH
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 03E0355
Author: Emmet Stafford, Stafford McLoughlin Archaeology
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)
ITM: E 688257m, N 732510m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.335461, -6.674862
Monitoring of groundworks associated with the erection of a mobile-phone mast was undertaken in March 2003. During the course of monitoring, a number of subsoil-cut features containing glazed medieval pottery were uncovered.
The site is located on elevated ground approximately 400m west-north-west of SMR 10:18, Rathcoffey Castle, on the crest of a low hill, which gives it an elevated and visually prominent position in the local landscape.
Excavation of these features in April of 2003 uncovered a relatively large quantity of medieval pottery sherds in the topsoil horizon, a well-laid metalled surface, a small pit and a gully terminal in an area measuring 4m by 4m (the base of the mobile-phone mast). Excavation along the length of a 20m-long service trench uncovered further medieval sherds and a quantity of slag in the topsoil horizon and a subsoil-cut ditch which was stratigraphically later than the metalled surface.
Monitoring of a second, shallower, service trench in November 2003 uncovered no further features of archaeological significance.
Unit 4, Enniscorthy Enterprise Centre, Milehouse Road, Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford
