County: Meath Site name: Johnstown, Enfield, Co. Meath
Sites and Monuments Record No.: NA Licence number: 18E0076
Author: Declan Moore
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 678575m, N 740758m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.411096, -6.818145
Test excavation was carried out at a proposed new residential development at land west of Enfield Relief Road, Enfield, County Meath. The development is the second phase of the ‘Royal Oaks’ development, an adjoining residential development situated to the immediate north. The site was greenfield but had seen considerable disturbance in more recent years. There are no Recorded Monuments or Protected Structures within the site.
Eleven trenches were excavated on 27 February 2018 in dry and sunny conditions with occasional snow showers. The excavator was a backhoe digger fitted with a 2m toothless, ditching bucket.
The site consists of two plots in Johnstown townland to the north and south of a tree-lined boundary. The northern plot, Plot 1, is located to the south of both the Enfield Celtic FC playing fields and the Royal Oaks housing development. The plot is a 40m-wide strip that runs east-west. This plot has seen considerable disturbance from construction activity, topsoil stripping and the laying of an access track and material storage.
Plot 2, south of a treeline, includes general scrub/grassland, a barn, spoil dumps and access tracks. The tracks run from a roadside entrance on the south-west of the site to the north-west and north. There are spoil heaps, topsoil and gravel dumps mounded at varying locations. Drainage works, infilling and clearance work have altered levels to the north and to the north-west of the site. There are tracts of undisturbed ground, albeit overgrown, to the interior, on either side of the tracks, near the barn, to the south-west of the site and near the perimeters. An inspection of these areas did not indicate any sites or features of archaeological potential.
In general the stratigraphy comprised a dark-brown, silty clay topsoil overlying a compact mid-brown natural clay with patches of orange to yellowish silty clays. The plough soil averaged 0.3m with a maximum depth of 0.5m in places. Nothing of archaeological significance was noted.
3 Gort na Rí, Athenry, Co. Galway
