County: Monaghan Site name: GRIG (1)
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 05E0784
Author: Brian Halpin, National Archaeological Services
Site type: Burnt spread and Kiln
Period/Dating: Bronze Age (2200 BC-801 BC)
ITM: E 681916m, N 820156m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.123921, -6.746836
An excavation in advance of road development was carried out at Grig, Clontibret, Co. Monaghan, as part of the N2 Castleblayney–Clontibret road realignment scheme. In the topsoil there was occasional post-medieval pottery, a piece of a corroded horseshoe and one miscellaneous ferrous object. The site, situated at the base of a hill, measured 20m by 20m. The land is flat, containing pockets of bog. The site consists of a circular area of charcoal-rich soil containing heat-affected stone associated with deposits of grey clay and a similar but smaller spread of charcoal-rich soil with burnt stone and one subcircular area of in situ burning. There were also two post-medieval field drains.
This site can be seen to be the remains of a Bronze Age landscape that incorporated a burnt mound and two individual troughs, indicating that this was the site of a fulacht fiadh. The site contained two troughs, one of which was covered by a burnt mound. It is possible that both troughs were contemporaneous, although there is no direct physical link between the two. There were numerous associated features that may indicate further minor domestic activity associated with the main elements of the site. A series of features identified on a similar site located c. 100m to the north were identified as ‘pot-boilers’ or shallow cooking pits, also identified as Bronze Age in date. No finds of a prehistoric nature was recovered. Specialist reports are forthcoming.
Ard Solas, Lacken, Co. Wicklow
