2024:502 - Townparks, Dundalk, Louth

A total of five linear test trenches (T1 – T5) with a combined length of 360m were excavated within the boundaries of a proposed development site, divided between two parcels.

Trenches 1 – 3 were located within the southern portion of the site and excavated through topsoil and garden soil deposits. Upon excavation it became apparent that the topsoil had been landscaped to create a level field from the former rear gardens of properties facing Seatown Place to the north and frequent buried modern demolition rubble and waste from site clearance was noted throughout. Some of the rubble and waste was buried in a series of machine-excavated pits. This is consistent with the levelling of the rear gardens in the early 2000s as evident from modern aerial imagery. Several of the former plot boundaries, orientated north-south, were still visible as linear features in all three trenches. The natural subsoil, a loose sand and gravel and a light blueish-yellow clay, was encountered at a depth of 0.6m to 1.4m below the existing ground surface.

Trenches 4 and 5 were located within an existing school campus which forms the northern portion of the site. Both trenches were excavated through garden soils with evidence of modern disturbance in the form of plastic artefacts to the level of subsoil which consisted of loose coarse sand and gravel with water-rolled large pebbles encountered at a depth of 0.6-0.8m below the ground surface.

No archaeology was found within any of the excavated trenches.