County: Wicklow Site name: COOLBEG
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 05E0748
Author: Claire Cotter
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 727823m, N 690785m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.952611, -6.097735
Monitoring/testing was carried out at a proposed green waste facility located at Coolbeg, Co. Wicklow, during June/July 2005. The proposed development was located in the western part of a worked-out sand and gravel quarry. As part of the site development, an area of unworked deposits along the western perimeter of the quarry was to be cut back and landscaped, and a temporary access road was to be constructed at the south. The main works buildings would be sited on the quarry floor itself.
No features of archaeological interest came to light. The quarry floor appeared to have been worked out to well below the level of any surviving archaeology. With the exception of the access route, the remainder of the site had also been largely stripped of topsoil in the past, with a limited amount of blown soils subsequently accumulating around the sparse vegetation now present.
Given the record of prehistoric artefacts from the Coolbeg area and the close proximity of monuments, such as a fulachta fiadh and a possible Beaker settlement, it would be unusual if no prehistoric activity had ever taken place within the confines of the present development site. The absence of evidence may be due to the fact that most of the site has already been quarried away or stripped of topsoil, but this of course remains unestablished.
7 De Burgh Road, Dublin 7
