2012:658 - The Park, St Brigid’s Girl’s National School, Cabinteely, Dublin 18, Dublin

In 2011 two Bronze-age axes were found gardening works at St Brigid’s Girls' National school, in Cabinteely, Dublin 18 (Fig. 1). The school is located half-way down the southern slope of the Shanganagh River valley, on land that originally formed part of the demesne of Cabinteely House, originally known as Clare Hall. This house was built for Sir Robert Nugent, Earl of Clare in 1759 but subsequently passing into the hands of the O’Byrne family and, more recently, the Mc Grath family. It now forms the centre-piece of Cabinteely Park, established in 1984.

The school has a bio-diversity garden on the northern side of the main complex, which was developed from waste ground created when the school was cut into the sloping ground. This ground was thought to have been badly disturbed during this process. In 2012, a number of pits (for apple trees) were excavated at the western end of the garden, to an average depth of 0.35m and the clay soil was then spread out in the general area. It is now known the axeheads were unearthed as part of this programme of works, both lying less than 0.1m apart. Unfortunately, they were left exposed to the elements for a period of time until they were identified by the National Museum of Ireland as two early Bronze Age axe heads (Harbison’s Lough Ravel and Killaha types). Both were suffering from bronze disease but have since been conserved by the NMI.

The finding of two axes in such close proximity suggested the presence of a hoard, perhaps associated with a Bronze Age site at the school. Previous Bronze-age activity had been identified further down the river valley along the ridge at Tullyvale and the Valley, Cherrywood (O’Donovan, Excavations 1998:128) and also further south at the Cherrywood Science and Technology Park. The latter site produced a Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age complex, which included at least one round house, 8m in diameter (O’Neill, Excavations 1998: 127).
To establish whether or not there were archaeological remains on site, an inverted L-shaped trench was opened up by hand at the find spot (Fig. 2).

Trench 1 (the north-south section) measured 5m long by 1m in width and was between 0.65m (north) and 0.35m (south) in depth. Trench 2, the east-west section at the north-west corner of Trench 1, measured 2m in length east-west by 1m in width and was 0.3m in depth. A large infilled machine pit was found at the southern end of Trench 1, which was almost 1m in depth and this may have been the original find-spot of the axes although this is not certain.

The excavation works established the presence of a soil clay layer, which had very limited sherds of Early Modern pottery, as well as several sherds of glass. However, this appeared to be very shallow, approximately 0.2m in depth, suggesting that some scarping had occurred during the construction of the school, as had been suspected. On excavation, a dark grey loamy soil that contained occasional cockle shell and tiny flecks of charcoal was identified beneath the cultivation layer and this contained no modern finds. On removal three linear trenches or gullies were clearly identified running parallel to each other along the length of Trench 1 and cut directly into the boulder clay, a light orange colour. They were orientated south-west/north-east and appeared to curve westwards beyond the limit of Trench 2. The gullies were U-shaped and measured between 0.1m and 0.15m in width by between 0.1m and 0.18m in depth. They were filled with the distinctive dark grey loamy soil mentioned above but also contained small fragments of quartz.

On excavation, the gullies were found to be positioned between 0.13m and 0.18m apart with the easternmost one curving westwards at the northern end. Two possible shallow post-holes, measuring 0.15m in diameter by 0.1m in depth, were also identified at the southern end of Trench 1, located to the north-east of the gullies. At the extreme southern end of Trench 1 and to the north-east of the post-holes a small spread of fire-reddened bright orange clay was identified measuring 0.7m east-west by 0.5m but extending beyond the north-east corner of Trench 1. This clay probably represented the site of some sort of hearth.

The gullies did not extend into Trench 2 but the base of a shallow pit was identified at the western end, filled with the brown loamy soil and measuring at least 1m in length north-south by 0.7m in width by 0.3m in depth. This fill was similar to that found in the gullies and it also contained a large number of small fragments of quartz. No modern finds were found in this pit feature.

The excavation suggests that there is evidence of Bronze Age activity at the site, probably related to habitation rather than burial, and that the axes originated from the machine pit found at the southern end of Trench 1. The archaeological information about the Bronze Age activity surrounding the area and the location of the site close to the Shanganagh river, makes this highly likely. Thus this side of the school grounds was not completely damaged during the construction of the school although there was some scarping and removal of topsoil. The linear gullies were very distinctive, their close proximity and the fact that at least one of the curved at the northern end, perhaps suggesting that they are unlikely to represent plough-marks. They may, in fact, represent slot-trenches associated with structures, small gullies that originally held the wicker walls of houses. The spread of fire-reddened clay, most likely representing a hearth, is also a strong indication of habitation.

28 Cabinteely Close, Dublin 18