What is recorded here

Gunnocks field boundary cuts through a medieval ditch that still holds Dublins pottery and a lost horseshoe. The ditch runs northeast before turning sharply southeast, marked by clay layers and iron stains. It is not a random line but a lived edge, perhaps guiding carts, herds or claims long before modern maps.

Archaeological monitoring (15E0577) by P. Duffy, D. Bayle and J. Whitaker of topsoil stripping over a large area (c. 92 ha.) conducted intermittently between Dec. 2015 and October 2018 uncovered 37 locations of potential archaeological importance (excavations.ie 2016:051). Each of these was further investigated by the same archaeologists under different licences. At Site 19 excavation (16E0218) by D. Bayley recorded (excavations. ie 2016:544) a section of a medieval ditch (Wth 1.2m; D 0.45-0.6m) extending NE-SW (L 17m) with a right-angle turn to the SE at the SW end. It extended further NE and was cut by the NW-SE field bank and townland boundary with Gunnocks. The ditch was filled with three layers of grey to yellow silty clays with iron-panning at the bottom, and eight sherds of Dublin-type pottery dating from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries were recovered from the topmost fill. A horseshoe of medieval type was also recovered from the same context. (Duffy et. al. 2021, 30-1) See the attached plan from Duffy et al. |(2021, fig. 37) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 26 April, 2023 Duffy, P., Fairhead, S. & F. Fleeshouven 2021 Final Excavation Report for Sites 3-37, Clonee, Portan, Gunnocks, Co. Meath. Multiple licences, Unpublished report, Irish Archaeological Consultancy

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