County: Meath Site name: Laytown, Ninch
Sites and Monuments Record No.: None Licence number: 18E0284
Author: Kieran Campbell
Site type: Monitoring of coastal protection works
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 716461m, N 771496m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.680200, -6.237105
Monitoring took place in June and July 2018 during excavations associated with coastal protection works at Laytown (Td. Ninch), Co. Meath, carried out by Carty Contractors Ltd. on behalf of Meath County Council in compliance with archaeological requirements in the tender documents. The works involved excavation into the existing embankment, the construction of a retaining wall and the installation of rock armour, for a length of c. 80m of the seafront.
The site was formerly occupied by shops, holiday chalets and a ballroom/cinema (The Palladium) built in the second decade of the 20th century as the village extended northwards from the River Nanny estuary. The buildings were demolished in the late 1970s when the site was infilled with 4m depth of rubble and soil and landscaped as a green area and car park. The excavations exposed beach sand, clay subsoil and concrete foundations directly under the infill material. Blown sand to a height of 2.5m above strand level indicated the former presence of a dune system at this location. The bowl of an early 19th-century red sandstone garden urn, with acanthus leaf decoration, was recovered from the introduced infill material
6 St. Ultans, Laytown, Drogheda
