County: Kerry Site name: Ballynamaunagh
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 07E0765; 07R0136
Author: Archaeological Projects, 3 Lios Na Lohart, Ballyvelly, Tralee, Co. Kerry.
Site type: No archaeological significance
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 498841m, N 594337m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.091701, -9.476255
Pre-development testing was carried out at a proposed development site, consisting of a housing estate, as a component part of an archaeological impact assessment. The site is situated in a greenfield site.
Forty-one trenches, 2m wide, were opened across the entirety of the site, a total of 2305 linear metres. Topsoil was removed by track machine with a flat grading bucket. The subsoil is predominantly a mid-orange silty clay found beneath an average 0.35–0.45m of mid-greyish-brown silty clay loam topsoil. Two large irregular areas of bog were encountered during testing and mapped by GPS to national grid. The peat was investigated by sondage in several areas and recorded depths ranging from 1m to 1.4m. Beneath and immediately surrounding the peat the subsoil is impermeable light-bluish-grey clay.
Several agricultural field drains were exposed in the test-trenches. They were typically 0.3m wide, contained random stones at their base and were predominantly orientated from south-west to north-east to avail of the natural topographical slope to drain the land.
No archaeological features or artefacts were encountered during testing of the site.
A metal detector C scope CS7 was used to examine the spoil from the trenches under licence number 07R0136. The spoil was raked and was examined visually as well as with the metal detector. No modern metal objects were retrieved as a result of the examination. The archaeological artefact-bearing potential of the spoil from the trenches was negative.
Laurence Dunne and Tony Bartlett, Eachtra
