County: Wicklow Site name: Wicklow Harbour
Sites and Monuments Record No.: WI025-012 Licence number: 14E0110
Author: Yvonne Whitty
Site type: Unknown
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 731878m, N 694218m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.982469, -6.036020
Monitoring of dredging works in Wicklow Harbour took place between 10 April and 9 August 2014. The dredging operations were conducted by Rossaveal Port Services Ltd using a barge-mounted excavator. The dredged material was filled into a bottom-opening barge which dumped the material at sea approximately 1.5 km to the north-east of the loading area.
Brady’s Shipwreck Inventory notes that there are 170 vessels in this vicinity of Wicklow Town and that the main concentration is located in Wicklow bay around the town itself. The earliest wreck recorded relates to an attack on the Black Castle in 1355 where a boat which was laden with many foot soldiers and archers sunk. The Black Castle is just south of the harbour. A wreck locally known as the Sarah is recorded in the harbour and today all that remains is her ballast which is visible at low tide.
The development of the harbour in the 1800’s with the construction of the East Pier, the Packet Pier in 1886 and finally the North Pier in 1908 plus the two previous dredging operations may have impacted upon other wrecks had there been any in situ.
The material which was dredged during this phase of works was a build up of silt in the harbour. The material was for the most part a black silt which contained occasional modern debris in the form of scrap metal, timber, tyres and rubbish. The timbers that were retrieved from the dredging operations were not of archaeological significance.
De Faoite Archaeology, Unit 10, Riverside Business Centre, Tinahely, County Wicklow
