County: Wicklow Site name: ROUND THE BEND, CHURCH ROAD, DELGANY
Sites and Monuments Record No.: WI013-004 Licence number: 11E0325
Author: Yvonne Whitty
Site type: Disarticulated human remains
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 727650m, N 710830m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.132699, -6.092376
Monitoring was carried out at the residential development, Round the Bend, Church Road, Delgany, in September 2011. The development involved an extension and alterations to the existing dwelling.
Although the proposed development is within an archaeologically sensitive area, examination of cartographic sources indicated that the site has been the location of a house since 1836. This house, which is today called ‘Round the Bend’, is adjacent to the eastern boundary of the ecclesiastical remains WI013-004, which comprise the ruins of a church WI013-00401, graveyard WI013-00402, high cross WI013-00403 and font WI013-00404. All of these features are enclosed by a modern 19th-century wall.
The cottage under discussion occupies the original entrance to the graveyard, as depicted on the Fair Plans from 1836–7 and the first-edition OS map of 1838, although it appears to have gone out of use by the time of the second edition in 1885. This was confirmed during monitoring and concurs with local oral history, according to which the entrance had to be moved to the south owing to its location on the bend, as the horses and hearses had trouble entering the site. The original entrance was defined by the terminal of a roughly coursed stone wall bound with mortar. The original graveyard wall is incorporated into the structure of the cottage. Unsurprisingly, fourteen disarticulated human bones were retrieved from disturbed material at the location of the original entranceway. This area would have been filled in once the new entrance to the south was built. Butchered animal bone and modern pottery were also recovered from the same layer as the bone.
De Faoite Archaeology, Unit 10 Riverside Business Centre, Tinahely, Co. Wicklow
