2025:398 - Carlingford lanes, Louth

Louth County Council undertook to replace the tarmac surface on two lanes in Carlingford with Irish Blue Limestone setts. The southernmost laneway, Mateer’s Lane, included the installation of a road gully, inspection manholes along with a drainage pipe and service pipe below the formation level ofthe laneway. As the laneways were located within the zone of archaeological notification associated
with LH005-042—-, the historic settlement of Carlingford, the works required a section 12 notification sent into the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage prior to works commencing, and monitoring was carried out to an agreed method statement between September and November 2025.
The removal of the tarmac and associated gravel from Brown’s Lane was of sufficient depth to allow for the laying of the new paving without any additional ground disturbance. Nothing of archaeological interest was noted along this lane.
Previous pipe-laying works in Mateer’s Lane allowed for the insertion of the new pipe into an existing trench, without the need for any additional ground disturbance. The laying of the roadside gully on Newry Street and connection across the footpath to the pipe in Mateer’s Lane was excavated into ground already disturbed with numerous service lines. Finally the inspection chamber at the east end of the lane was dug into modern made ground. Consequently nothing of archaeological interest was uncovered in the curse of the works on Mateer’s Lane.