What is recorded here

Beneath the Monavalley factory, four pits hold prehistoric remains, including a stone-lined hole where reused grinding tools formed part of the wall. Iron slag filled the top, suggesting smithing or heavy work near a domestic place. The large pits may have stored food, waste or tools for a Lee Valley settlement long before Tralee had a name. Modern monitoring revealed what human hands had dug, used and abandoned centuries earlier.

'Monitoring of all ground disturbance aspects of a factory site in the Monavalley Industrial Estate, in the northern part of Tralee town, was undertaken to comply with a planning condition. An area of archaeological stratigraphy was noted during topsoil-stripping and was subsequently excavated. Four pits were excavated. One of the pits, measuring 1.6m north-south by 0.9m and 0.98m deep, was stone-lined on the south-east side. A saddle quern and a rubbing stone had been reused to line the pit. Iron slag was recovered from the upper fill. A second large pit was found 1m to the south-west; it measured 3.1m north-south by 2.7m and 0.8m deep. Two small pits were found to the south and east. They measured 0.8m north-south by 0.76m by 0.2m deep and 0.75m north-south by 0.7m by 0.15m deep. The material recovered from one of the large pits would suggest that they are prehistoric in date' (Kiely 2000, 116-7; Kiely and Dunne 2005, 45). Description from ‘The Prehistoric Settlement of the Lee Valley, Tralee, Co. Kerry; A Landscape Perspective’ by Michael Connolly. PhD Thesis UCC 2008 Pit no. C 24

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