County: Meath Site name: PACE (Pace 2)
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: A017/010
Author: Ruth Elliott, Archaeological Consultancy Services Ltd.
Site type: Building
Period/Dating: Modern (AD 1750-AD 2000)
ITM: E 701915m, N 744088m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.437025, -6.466131
The site at Pace 2 was located 2km north-east of Dunboyne, within Contract 1 (Dunboyne to Dunshaughlin) of the proposed M3 Clonee to North of Kells motorway. It was identified during testing conducted by Rob O’Hara in April 2004 (Excavations 2004, No. 1232, 04E0490) and was excavated fully between 21 November and 5 December 2005.
The site comprised the demolished remains of an L-shaped series of farm buildings surrounding a rectangular, cobbled courtyard. Two phases of activity were represented. The earliest structure, forming the northern building, was rectangular in plan with three ground-floor rooms. Its foundations were shallow and composed of uncoursed limestone blocks bonded with lime mortar. Rubble floor foundations survived in places. The second phase of activity concerned the addition of the western building to this structure and it had deeper, more solid foundations, which possibly supported two storeys. Its walls were constructed of cut limestone blocks with mortar bonding situated beneath a coursed, red-brick setting, two bricks wide, which may have formed the aboveground walls. This second structure had two ground-floor rooms and an adjoining byre at the southern extent. A brick-lined, semicircular hearth was located in the southern-most room. Many sherds of late post-medieval and modern pottery were retrieved from the site and a large deposit of roof slates, which had collapsed from a heat stack, were found to the north-west of the farm buildings.
21 Boyne Business Park, Greenhills, Drogheda
