County: Louth Site name: Tierney Street, Dawsondemesne, Ardee
Sites and Monuments Record No.: LH017-101 Licence number: 21E0395
Author: Linda Clarke, Archaeological Consultancy Services Unit Ltd
Site type: Pits
Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)
ITM: E 696315m, N 790575m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.855694, -6.535987
Monitoring of topsoil stripping was carried out at Tierney Street, Ardee, Co. Louth on 22nd July 2021. The site is located north of the River Dee and is in a rectangular shaped site. It is bounded to the east by Tierney Avenue estate, to the south by Tierney Street, to the west by a medical practice and to the north by a (soon to be
developed) green field. It recently was the location of a single-storey residential property with a concrete courtyard fronting Tierney Street. The site is located within the Zone of Archaeological Potential associated with the historic town of Ardee (LH017-101-). A Castle – tower house known as ‘The Courthouse’ is located c. 175m to the west of the site. The nearest recorded monuments to the site are two pottery kilns; (LH017-101030 and LH017-101031). These were identified in the plot adjacent to and east of the site. The kilns were identified during archaeological monitoring carried out under licence 02E0831. The site is located outside the
Architectural Conservation Area for Ardee town and does not contain any Protected Structures listed within the Louth County Development Plan 2015-2021. The nearest such structure is a locomotive shed (RPS ID. LHS017-041) associated with the former railway station (Lhs017-039). Both structures are listed within the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (NIAH Reg. No. 13823060) and located c. 75m north of the site.
The site was stripped using a 14-tonne tracked excavator. The topsoil (C1) was a dark brown silty clay with frequent roots and it contained both domestic and garden waste. It had a depth of 0.6m to 0.8m. The natural subsoil (C2) was a compact orange/brown boulder clay. The site contained numerous field drains and
cultivation furrows that contained 18th/19th-century pottery, red brick and ceramic pipes. Three archaeological features were identified (C3, C5 and C7). C3 consisted of a ditch/pit and was probably medieval in date. It was located in the centre of the site and was aligned north to south and measured 5.6m in length by 1.25m to 1.95m in width by 0.47m in depth. It was filled with a grey silty clay (C4) that contained 39 sherds of medieval pottery. This ditch/pit C3 was greatly disturbed and it was cut by a post-medieval pit (C7) to the west, by a cultivation furrow (C9) to the south and its upper levels were truncated by the 18th/19th- century activity on site. C3 was cut into a small sterile pit (C5) to the east. Due to the level of truncation on site it cannot be determined for definite if C3 represented the remains of a highly truncated ditch or that of an elongated pit. It was a medieval feature that was likely associated with kilns (LH017-101030 and LH017-101031) which were excavated to the east of the site in 2002. It is likely that there were more medieval features on site but due to the agricultural disturbance and the construction of the 1970s bungalow they did not survive.
All archaeological features have been resolved and no further archaeological input is required.
Unit 21 Boyne Business Park, Greenhills, Drogheda, Co. Louth. A92 DH99.
