County: Louth Site name: DUNDALK: Nicholas' Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 7:119 Licence number: 03E1582
Author: Caitríona Gleeson, Headland Archaeology Ltd.
Site type: Historic town
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 704848m, N 807856m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.009278, -6.400409
Testing was undertaken of a site at Nicholas' Street, Dundalk, Co. Louth, c. 60m north of the 13th-century St Nicholas' Church and c. 50m south of the junction of Nicholas' Street and Wolfe Tone Terrace. Planning permission had been granted for the construction of a three-storey building containing seventeen apartments. The area of proposed development was located within the zone of archaeological potential for the historic town of Dundalk.
Four trenches were opened along the approximate lines of foundations for the proposed development. All were orientated east-west and measured c. 10m by 1.6m. Over most of the site, the modern surface sat on a layer of later post-medieval building debris which included shattered red brick, mortar deposits and occasional flagstones. This measured c. 0.8m in depth. Underneath was a waterlogged dark-brown/black clay loam which contained quantities of shell, charcoal and animal bone. The only evidence for possible medieval/early post-medieval construction on the site was a linear deposit of angular stones noted in Trench 4.
Unit 4b, Europa Enterprise Park, Midleton, Co. Cork
