County: Dublin Site name: Tonlegee
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 18E0461
Author: Yvonne Whitty
Site type: Monitoring
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 721326m, N 739383m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.390654, -6.175946
Monitoring took place at the proposed development of a Primary Care Medical Centre and refurbishment of a Youth Club at Tonlegee Road, Raheny, County Dublin.
The surrounding archaeological landscape for the most part dates to the early medieval period and is associated with the foundation on St Brendan’s in the 7th century AD. The extant building of St John the Evangelist which was built in 1760 occupies the original site associated with the saint, just over 1km west of the site location.
St Monica’s Youth Centre, which will be refurbished, is located on the footprint of a Vicarage. The only surviving photo of the Vicarage, which was built in 1783, is from a private collection and illustrates what it would have looked like in 1869. By 1985 the Vicarage building was blocked up and today no trace of it or its outbuildings are visible.
Tarmac and green areas define the area where the primary care centre will be built at the northern end of the site adjacent the Tonlegee Road.
The ground was completely disturbed at the location of the primary care centre and the excavations were not deep enough to uncover natural ground. The fill material was a sterile mid-yellowish brown silty clay, a mixture of topsoil and redeposited natural. Excavation works for the attenuation tank involved the removal of approximately 1.5m of this material and natural ground was not exposed within the footprint of the tank, nor any demolition rubble associated with the Vicarage. Had such material been present it would have been removed when St Monica’s was built.
The impact assessment identified that construction works associated with the primary care centre may have uncovered remnants of the small buildings and pathways depicted on the first and third edition OS maps. No finds or features of archaeological significance were uncovered which was unsurprising given the degree of disturbance associated with the construction of St Monica’s Youth Centre and the tarmac games court.
Unit 10 Riverside Business Centre, Tinahely, Co. Wicklow
