2007:1188 - Greenore Port, Louth

Non-disturbance underwater archaeological assessment took place of a 45,600m2 area of seabed prior to the proposed Phase 2 Development Plan for Greenore Port, Carlingford Lough, Co. Louth. The proposed development will include the construction of a new Lo-Lo and Ro-Ro facility on the south-eastern side of Greenore Point. The development will provide 250m1 of berthage, accommodating vessels up to 200m in length. An area of seabed, between the 22m and 210m water-mark, will be dredged to a depth of 211m OD to accommodate this berthing facility. In addition, an adjacent 38,350m2 area of foreshore will undergo land reclamation to provide container storage and marshalling facilities.
Visual inspection and magnetometer survey by hand-held underwater metal detection was employed to assess the archaeological potential of the seabed and attendant shoreline across the survey area. Dive operations were conducted from a large rib, using a mobile surface-supplied set-up. A series of marker buoys were dropped to delineate the extent of the in-water survey area. A diver-towed search was employed, zigzagging the diver east–west across the survey area to provide full seabed coverage. The survey area constituted a 640m by 100m search area. The shoreline was also inspected to ascertain its archaeological potential.
The assessment was comprehensive and extended beyond the site boundaries identified for the development project. No archaeologically significant materials, structures or deposits were observed, during either the in-water or intertidal assessment. A flint scatter (LH009–012) is listed for the foreshore within the impact area at Greenore. However, no clear location for this site was evident; inspection of the listed RMP location did not reveal any surface archaeological remains and it was noted that the area had undergone considerable modern alteration.