County: Dublin Site name: KILSALLAGHAN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 11E0147
Author: Rosanne Meenan
Site type: Post-medieval–modern features
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 711537m, N 748536m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.475032, -6.319804
Two adjoining development sites, in one field, with separate planning reference numbers, are incorporated in this report on testing at Kilsallaghan, Co. Dublin. One licence covered the two developments.
A Further Information request required an assessment in relation to the easternmost of the two sites on which it was proposed to construct a number of houses (F10A/0472). The westernmost site (F10A/0342) received planning permission for a horticultural nursery, and pre-development testing of the site was required.
Seventeen trenches tested the site proposed for the housing development and seven trenches tested the proposed horticultural nursery site. The natural stratigraphy was consistent throughout. The ploughsoil was a loamy clay, grey/brown in colour, with occasional stones; the subsoil was similar, although in places it tended to be a purer clay with fewer inclusions.
In the housing site a band of charcoal-stained clay was exposed in Trench D, and in Trench K a spread of stone was exposed at 0.55m below the surface of the field. The only material recovered from these two features was 17th–19th-century pottery.
In the nursery site there was evidence that clay had been brought in to raise up the level of the field in the north-east corner. A circular area of charcoal-enriched clay with occasional charcoal flecks was exposed in Trench 1. A stone spread was found in Trench 2; this was interpreted as the remains of a field fence, marked on historic mapping but no longer in evidence.
Both sites were interpreted as having low archaeological significance but mitigation measures were recommended for both development sites.
Roestown, Drumree, Co. Meath
