County: Wexford Site name: DUNCORMICK
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 46:57, 46:35 Licence number: 02E0040
Author: çine Richardson, Eachtra Archaeological Projects, Ballycurreen Industrial Estate, Kinsale Road, Cork.
Site type: Medieval
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 691878m, N 609385m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.228541, -6.655054
Test excavations were carried out on a greenfield site in Duncormick village before the purchase of the site by Wexford County Council. Duncormick is located c. 2.5km from the south coast of County Wexford, about 8km due east of Bannow Bay, the historic landing point of the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland. The land in question is situated near to several archaeological monuments, including a church and graveyard, a motte, a post-medieval house (Duncormick Lodge), a mill, mill-race and road.
Testing consisted of ten interconnecting evenly dispersed trenches, as there were no plans for house, road or service locations at that time. The trenches were situated to test the part of the site that has been deemed most suitable for development and that avoided extant structures such as the motte and millrace.
Medieval remains were encountered in the eastern half of the site. These included a stone wall foundation, pits and two ditches. The ditches were parallel (orientated north-south) and separated by a quantity of redeposited subsoil, interpreted as the remains of a bank between them. They were situated in the location of a rectangular field shown on the first-edition OS 6-inch sheet, and it is postulated that they may have formed a medieval moated site. Medieval pottery was recovered from the ditches, mainly Leinster cooking ware. West of these ditches, further ditches were encountered, also in the location of the field boundary. Though no datable evidence was recovered from these, it is most likely that they also formed part of the old field or enclosure boundary.
Further west, another north-south-running ditch was uncovered. This was dated to the post-medieval period and interpreted as a drainage ditch alongside the road leading to Duncormick Lodge. A gravel surface interpreted as the remains of the road was uncovered to the north and west of the ditch. Also found north of the ditch were the lower courses of a north-south-running wall, also related to Duncormick Lodge.
Editor's note: Though carried out in 2002, this summary was received too late for inclusion in the bulletin of that year.
