County: Monaghan Site name: Magheracloone
Sites and Monuments Record No.: - Licence number: 05E1374
Author: Gill McLoughlin, Irish Archaeological Consultancy Ltd, 8 Dungar Terrace, Dún Laoghaire, Co. Dublin.
Site type: Pits and ditches
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 680082m, N 799928m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.942480, -6.780219
An assessment was carried out at the site of a proposed housing development. The proposed development is near a church (MO033–005) and each application is in relation to one house.
Thirty-three test-trenches were excavated within the area of the proposed development over two days from 26 January 2006. These consisted of one long trench along the centre of the area and staggered offsets every 10m.
In general the trenches at the south end of the field were 0.3–0.4m deep and topsoil overlay yellow sandy subsoil. In the north of the field the ground sloped down from the church to the river that formed the eastern boundary to the site. In this area there was a mixed deposit made up of redeposited natural, tree stumps and river silts generally noted at 0.4–0.5m below sod. This deposit was c. 0.2–0.5m deep and overlay orange/yellow sandy gravelly subsoil. It appears to have been dredged out of the river over time and dumped, levelling the field to some extent.
Three ditches were identified in the test-trenches, one of which runs parallel with the church boundary wall and may be related to that boundary. A section excavated across this ditch yielded a lump of slag. A shallow linear ditch running in the direction of the river also contained slag and was probably related to drainage. A rectangular pit with a charcoal-rich fill, a small irregular pit containing much slag and a small charcoal-rich spread containing slag were also identified in the trenches.
