County: Monaghan Site name: Roosky, Tirkeenan
Sites and Monuments Record No.: MO009-060---- Licence number: 21E0230
Author: Camilla Brannstrom
Site type: Monitoring and testing
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 667253m, N 833656m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.247327, -6.968094
A programme of archaeological monitoring of geotechnical investigation (GI) pits and testing (one test trench) was implemented to identify and assess any previously unrecorded sub-surface archaeological remains within the boundaries of a proposed public realm scheme in the historic centre of Monaghan town (MO009-060----).
The excavation of a total of thirteen GI slit trenches were archaeologically monitored and one 20m long separate archaeological test trench was machine excavated and examined.
The majority of GI trenches were excavated within areas previously disturbed by the insertion of modern services, however post-medieval deposits and artefacts possibly relating to Monaghan town during the 17th and 18th centuries were uncovered at two locations. One sherd from a seventeenth-century North Devon Slipware (Sgrafitto ware) dish was recovered from TP003 at No. 10 Dublin Street. A small a cobbled surface was also uncovered within ST006 at a depth of 0.85m below the current ground level and nearby nineteenth-century outbuildings, suggesting an earlier date for this surface.
The archaeological test trench (TR001) and GI slit trenches (ST001, ST003 and ST006) within the South Dublin Street area were excavated through topsoil deposits containing frequent nineteenth- and twentieth-century fragments of porcelain, glazed earthenware (black ware), red brick, glass, slate, and clay pipe fragments. All GI trenches located in the vicinity of Lower Court House Car Park and Macartan Road were excavated through modern aggregate deposits suggesting a significant degree of modern disturbance in this area.
John Cronin and Associates, Burnside, Saint Oran’s Road, Buncrana, Co. Donegal
