County: Meath Site name: BETAGHSTOWN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 04E1649
Author: Deirdre Murphy, Archaeological Consultancy Services Ltd, Unit 21, Boyne Business Park, Greenhills, Drogheda, Co. Louth.
Site type: Prehistoric enclosing ditch
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 686647m, N 742427m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.424830, -6.696300
Testing in Bettystown, Co. Meath, was carried out in compliance with planning permission for a proposed hotel development. The site is located in the townland of Betaghstown near SMR 21:10, a cemetery, and 21:14, a holy well. Six trenches were excavated and archaeological deposits were identified in three of these. A curving ditch measuring 0.4m in depth and 1.2m in width was evident in two of the trenches along the western part of the site. The fill of this feature contained animal bone, shell, charcoal flecks and a waste flint core. To the east of the site two further parallel east-west-oriented ditches were identified. Both of these had similar fills to the ditch on the western part of the site and it is likely that the most northerly ditch represents a continuation of the western ditch. Two further features identified in the eastern part of the site were interpreted as pits of probable 17th-century date.
