County: Dublin Site name: GARRISTOWN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 11E0043
Author: Rosanne Meenan
Site type: Vicinity of graveyard
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 707077m, N 758809m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.568240, -6.383449
The proposed development site is located to the east of the graveyard in the middle of Garristown village (DU003-01101 church, DU003-01103 graveyard). The owner of the site commissioned an assessment to accompany a planning application.
A geophysical survey of the site was carried out in 2009 by J.M. Leigh Surveys (licence 09R0144). A curvilinear feature with a possible entrance showed up at the western end of the site; a similar feature, again with a possible entrance, showed up further east. These features, if extrapolated north- and southwards, would have enclosed the site of the medieval church and therefore were interpreted as possibly being enclosing ditches of an Early Christian foundation.
Eight trenches tested the development site. Three trenches excavated at the western end of the site produced evidence for the possible inner enclosing ditch that showed up in the geophysical survey. Its maximum width in the trenches was 2.6m, with a maximum depth of 0.8m. The fine brown fill was distinct from the surrounding subsoil. Modern finds were recovered from the base of the feature in Trench 1, however, although there was no indication that the feature had been disturbed.
The remaining trenches did not produce archaeologically significant material. Drainage features and dumped rubble may have been responsible for the anomalies around the rest of the site that showed up on the geophysical survey.
Roestown, Drumree, Co. Meath
