2006:911 - Booley’s Lane, Tralee, Kerry

Test excavations relating to a planning application for proposed business premises located at the junction of Lower Rock Street and Booley’s Lane, Tralee, Co. Kerry, were carried out in January 2006. The development site is within the archaeological medieval zone of Tralee.
An initial linear cutting measuring 4.8m (east–west) by 2m was made in the open, western, area of the site. The trench was excavated with a mini track machine utilising a 1m-wide ditching bucket. A later extension, measuring 1.6m (east–west) by 2.2m, was added to this trench to the north of its western extent.
The trench was excavated through the modern concrete and tarmac layers to an eventual depth of 1.01m below present ground level. Layers dating from the late 17th to late 20th century were encountered. These layers comprised a series of three cobbled floors (C2, C4 and C7), with intervening rubble deposits laid down to consolidate the cobbles. A single basal course of a limestone rubble wall footing was also exposed. These contexts overlay the natural clay subsoil.
The earliest floor in the stratigraphic sequence, as evidenced by the ceramics retrieved, is consistent with a late 17th- or early 18th-century date, whilst the later two surfaces produced 19th- and 20th-century finds respectively.
The cobbled floors encountered represent working surfaces consistent with the cartographic and documentary evidence of the site having been used for industrial purposes.