County: Dublin Site name: Carriglea Industrial Estate, Muirfield Drive, Naas Road, Drimnagh, Dublin 12
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 17E0373
Author: Thaddeus Breen; Shanarc Archaeology Ltd.
Site type: Urban
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 710939m, N 732064m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.327189, -6.334597
Archaeological test excavations were undertaken at Carriglea Industrial Estate, Muirfield Drive, Naas Road, Drimnagh, Dublin 12, between 31 October and 9 November 2017. Testing was carried out as required by conditions of the Grant of Planning Permission P3470 of Dublin City Council, for a proposed residential development with associated amenities.
Eight test trenches were excavated across the site, each one in the location of one of the proposed housing blocks. Two further planned trenches could not be excavated as they were in a part of the site still occupied by a tenant. The trenches were excavated with a 2m-wide toothless bucket, with a narrower toothed bucket being used in areas where the modern fill extended to a depth greater than 2m. The trenches were 28-55m in length, and were investigated to a maximum depth of 5m.
The site was originally part of the curving valley of a small river, 60m from the thirteenth-century Drimnagh Castle. There was a mill 80m downstream from at least the seventeenth century, but probably for at least as long as the castle was present.
The Carriglea Industrial Estate was built in the 1970s on a new, level land surface produced by infilling the valley at this point and culverting the river. The fill, which is reported to be 10m deep in places, consists of various types of rubble and soil, probably brought from a number of different locations. The infilled valley comprises about five-sixths of the area in the site. Only in two trenches, 2 and 4, was the side of the valley encountered. In Trenches 1, 5-7 and 9 the bottom of the fill was not reached. These were dug to a maximum depth of 5m. The mill-wheel pieces, bricks and cut stone from these deposits are from mixed rubble of unknown provenance, and probably have no prior connection with the site.
The remaining one-sixth of the area of the site, in the eastern part of the site, is on what was the higher ground next to the valley. The original ground surface appears to have been little altered apart from the removal of the sod layer. Traces of spade cultivation furrows have survived.
Nothing relating to Drimnagh Castle was uncovered. The infilling of the valley means that the area with the greatest potential for archaeology is buried up to 10m beneath the surface and was probably disturbed in the course of infilling.
Unit 39a, Hebron Business Park, Hebron Road, Kilkenny
