County: Dublin Site name: COOLMINE, Saggart
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 05E1366
Author: Martin E. Byrne, Byrne Mullins & Associates
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 701945m, N 725533m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.270326, -6.471642
Testing was undertaken at the site of a proposed hay barn/machinery store at Coolmine Equestrian Centre, Saggart. The OS maps of the area indicate the site of a monastery to the north-west of the proposed development area. The dotted outline of a rectangular area is indicated on the first-edition map (1843) but not on the later edition. There are now no surface traces of this enclosure. The only extant remains consist of a ‘buttress of masonry’ (Healy 1974, 25), which is c. 4m high, roughly aligned north–south, and composed of coursed, mortared limestone. There are putlog holes located on both the northern and southern faces of the buttress which is located in the south-western corner of the aforementioned enclosure. The site is not listed in Gwynn & Hadcock’s Medieval Religious Houses – Ireland (1988), although Ball (1905, III, 116) describes the site as a monastery, while O’Grady (1906, 78) describes it as a nunnery. In addition, the latter states that the extant buttress marks the site of a castle, to the east of which, in c. 1900, ‘human bones were found, which in the opinion of a medical man were those of females’.
Four trenches were excavated within the confines of the proposed development area. Nothing of archaeological interest was uncovered during the course of the testing.
References
Ball, F.E. 1905 A history of County Dublin. Vol. III. Dublin.
Healy, P. 1974 Report on monuments and sites of archaeological interest in County Dublin. No. 1 – Western Section. An Foras Forbartha.
O’Grady, G. 1906 History and antiquities of the district of Rathcoole and Saggart, JKAS 5, 2, 75–8.
7 Cnoc na Gréine Square, Kilcullen, Co. Kildare
