County: Meath Site name: STARINAGH
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 04E0359
Author: Carmel Duffy
Site type: Pit
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 702229m, N 779816m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.762540, -6.480583
Monitoring of the excavation of foundations for a dwelling house was carried out. The site lies c. 130m north of SMR 13:24, an earthwork. The monitoring noted a small pit containing charcoal and burnt stone. It was located 10m west of the south-east corner of the house, 0.55m below ground level. It measured 1.1m long (north-south) and 0.6m wide. Its long axis was oriented north-east/south-west. It was irregular on the eastern side and straight on the west. Excavation showed it to be a truncated circular feature, 0.22m deep from its western edge to the centre, 0.12m deep from the eastern edge to the centre. The feature occurred in isolation and no finds were associated with it.
The pit may have been an outlier of a fulacht fiadh. The waterlogged conditions on the site and the presence of small peat deposits in the subsoil are typical of the type of terrain in which these monuments occur. They are numerous in this vicinity, many previously unknown ones having been found during the construction of the Northern Motorway (00E0282 et al., Kieran Campbell, pers. comm.).
Umberstown Great, Summerhill, Co. Meath
