2006:1982 - WATERFORD ESTUARY: Duncannon Bar, Waterford

Monitoring took place of maintenance dredging activity within the vicinity of Duncannon Bar, west of the exclusion zone placed around the Duncannon shipwreck, in March 2006. The operations were undertaken in the main navigation channel of Waterford Harbour to the west of the shipwreck exclusion zone. The vessel used for the current phase of dredging was a purpose-designed trailing suction hopper dredger.

A total of 40 parallel runs were undertaken along the navigation channel, to a maximum depth of 7m. The dredge head was lifted at the end of each run to allow visual inspection. At the completion of each dredge cycle the load was dumped at a designated dump zone. The vessel was precision controlled and did not dredge within the exclusion zone. One archaeologically significant object was recovered from the dredge head, representing a large fragment of copper sheathing from the hull of a shipwreck. The copper sheathing fragment measures 0.43mm length, 0.19m width and 1mm in thickness. It has 45 visible nail holes measuring 6mm in diameter and five in situ copper nails. These measure 32mm in length and 4mm in diameter, with a head diameter of 11mm. The fragment was recovered from dredge run number 31 between coordinates 272615.31 105064 and 272614.5 10482.6. This run was located along the centre of the navigation channel and probably represents material previously removed from wreckage. This would have taken place during earlier dredging activity, either from Wreck 1 in 2001 (Excavations 2001, No. 1259) or Wreck 2 in 2004. All other material recovered was of modern origin and included link chain, iron piping, fragments of netting and nylon rope fragments.

A total of 24 parallel runs were undertaken along the navigation channel in July, to a maximum depth of 7m. The dredge head was lifted at the end of each run to allow visual inspection. At the completion of each dredge-cycle the load was dumped at a designated dump zone. The vessel was precision-controlled and did not dredge within the exclusion zone. No archaeologically significant objects were recovered from the dredge-head. In fact, very little modern material was recovered from the dredge head in contrast with previous dredging programmes at Duncannon Bar. In addition, there was less build-up of seabed sediments within the navigation channel compared to the March monitoring programme, signifying that the dredging programme is effective in maintaining the desired channel depth over an extended period.

Brehon House, Castlecomer, Co. Kilkenny