EMAP_Progress_Reports_2009_2.pdf - The Heritage Council

Dublin
Ballyman, Co. Dublin
Early Medieval Ecclesiastical Settlement
Grid reference: O23801860 (32380/21860)
SMR: DU028-002
Excavation Licence No: E000182
Excavation duration/year: 1983; 1984
Site director: E. O’Brien (Rathmichael Historical Society)
Research excavations occurred over a number of seasons on a site that lay approximately 76m southwest
of the early and late medieval church of Glen Muneri in Ballyman on the Dublin-Wicklow county
border. Three periods of activity were recorded from the early, late and post medieval periods.
The earliest activity consisted of a cereal-drying kiln and items related to settlement and
metalworking. The cereal-drying kiln was dumb-bell-shaped and was radiocarbon dated to the fifth
century. It was, therefore, the earliest feature on site. The finds related to settlement and industry
included a terminal of a bronze zoomorphic penannular brooch, with millefiori setting (dating to the
sixth or seventh centuries), the ring portion of a similar brooch, and a clay mould sherd. Animal bone
was also present.
Evidence for industrial activity overlay the above. This consisted of a cobbled surface that contained
iron slag, furnace bottoms, burnt clay lining and flint items such as strike-a-lights. The ironworking
activity has been radiocarbon dated to the fourteenth century. Other finds included one sherd of
eleventh/twelfth-century Normandy ware, an eleventh/thirteenth-century bronze stick pin and sherds
of thirteenth-century Leinster ware. The cobbled surface, therefore, may have been laid towards the
end of the early medieval period and was used into the later middle-ages when it became the focus
for industrial activity.
(No plans were available for this site)
References:
O’Brien, E. 1984. Ballyman, Co. Dublin. Medieval Archaeology 28, 255–6.
O’Brien, E. 1985. Ballyman, Co. Dublin. Medieval Archaeology 29, 214.
O’Brien, E. 1985:022 Ballyman, Co. Dublin. www.excavations.ie.
O’Brien, E. 1986:021. 'Glen Munire', Ballyman, Co. Dublin. www.excavations.ie.
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