2016:124 - Lands off Oldcourt Road, Oldcourt, Dublin 24, Dublin

A programme of monitoring and subsequent excavation was carried out at a development site on the OIdcourt Road called ‘Dodderbrook, Ballycullen’. The archaeological works involved monitoring of topsoil stripping across the entire development site, followed by excavation of numerous archaeological features, and of a prehistoric site. The site is located on the south side of the Oldcourt Road, Firhouse, Dublin 24. The site was in two GAA playing pitches prior to this development. The key finding is that the low-lying part of the site was formerly a wet and marshy landscape that was exploited by people from the Neolithic, Bronze Age and early medieval periods. A Neolithic blade c. 3500-2500 BC, may have come from a weapon or tool used in hunting animals or exploiting plants on the wetland.

The southern part of the site rises up towards Mountpelier Hill and the Dublin Mountains, and here a fulacht fiadh was excavated (est. Bronze Age, estimate pending radiocarbon dating), located at the junction of a former streamcourse and the edge of the wetlands/marsh. The Oldcourt fulacht fiadh has a low spread (22m by 15m and less than 0.5m thick) of fire-cracked and heat-shattered sandstone and charcoal extending over, and filling, two troughs and a system of pits and channels to regulate water into and around the troughs. No kerbs or fire-pits were identified. No artefacts or animal bone was recovered, and no evidence for any specific activity was identified.

Analysis of the vertical stratigraphy of the fulacht fiadh spread demonstrated at least two phases of use separated by a thin lens of redeposited subsoil near one of the troughs. This subsoil lens probably reflects the construction of the second trough (or at least its significant deepening), so the early phase of the fulacht fiadh had a single trough, which appears to have been backfilled before the second trough was constructed 5m away on slightly higher ground. Both troughs were oval and measured 2.35m by 1.35m and 0.45m deep (early trough) and 2m by 1m and 0.55m deep (later trough), and both had evidence of drainage gullies/feeders, internal linings, and above-ground associated structures. This site forms part of a wider landscape of Bronze Age settlement in the Oldcourt-Ballycullen area around the base of the Dublin Mountains.

The wetlands continued to be utilised into the historic period, and four charcoal-production pit-kilns positioned at the edge of the marsh may represent charcoal making for metalworking during the early medieval period (estimate pending radiocarbon dating). The Oldcourt kilns consisted of shallow rectangular pits with rounded corners, measuring c. 1.55-1.8m long, 0.5-1.1m wide, and 0.15-0.3m deep. They were packed with pure charcoal, including large woody charcoal chunks, and contained nothing other than charcoal. Traces of red burnt clay along the upper edges indicated in-situ burning.

Archaeology Plan, 32 Fitzwilliam Place Dublin 2