County: Kerry Site name: Ashe Street, Tralee
Sites and Monuments Record No.: KE029–119 Licence number: 05E1438
Author: Linda Hegarty, Headland Archaeology Ltd, Unit 1, IDA Industrial Estate, Wallingstown, Little Island, Co. Cork.
Site type: Post-medieval
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 483737m, N 614555m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.270386, -9.703510
An excavation was carried out in advance of the construction of a commercial building at 10–11 Ashe Street, Tralee, Co. Kerry. Testing on this site in 2005 by Laurence Dunne and Tony Bartlett of Eachtra (Excavations 2005, No. 714, 05E1308) identified ‘a possible medieval layer exceedingly rich in organic material’. Fragments of worked wood, two-ply rope, possible basket fragments, animal bone and shell were recovered from this layer during testing.
Full resolution of the archaeology was conducted on the site in January 2006. This involved the excavation of a 1m-wide trench around the eastern side of the perimeter of the development site, down to 0.8m below the finished floor level, in order to facilitate the concrete floor slab; this did not impact upon archaeological layers.
The black organic layer found during archaeological test-trenching was identified, along with a layer of pink mortar and a grey/black waterlogged silt layer. These layers extended beyond and below the limits of excavation. Organic materials, as well as finds of china, glass and leather, were recovered during the course of the excavation. The finds recovered suggest a post-medieval date for the layers excavated on the site.
