House - fortified house

The National Monuments Service's description

The surviving architectural remains of the manor form a roughly rectangular courtyard with out-buildings attached to and extending E and W of the original 17th century manor house. The N gable wall and SW corner is all that survives of the manor house. It is built of lightly bonded masonry with block and dot decoration on the quoins indicating a 17th century date. The N wall rises to two storeys with splayed embrasure on the ground floor and a fireplace on first floor (est. dims. c. L 16m, Wth 8.20m). A rectangular vaulted chamber is attached to the N end (int. dims. L 9.50m, Wth 3.70m). Window in N wall (Healy 1977, 1-5; St John Joyce 1912, 217-219; Stout 1982, 217, Stout 1998, 145-154).

Further excavations in 1997 uncovered the eastern section of a substantial stone building, of which a small section (west) survives above ground in derelict form. The eastern gable end of the structure had been removed by the sewer-pipe trench (at 62.09m OD). Excavation directly east of the standing section revealed sub-surface remains of the central portion of the structure, including foundation walls, a partition wall, internal post-holes and a series of internal cobbled floors and drainage features. A mixture of medieval and post-medieval finds were recovered from the cobbled floors and associated wall foundations. The remains of a late outhouse structure were recorded and a section of stone wall was uncovered within the cobbled surface 1.5m south of the outhouse. This wall survives to a length of 2.6m, and is on average 0.74m wide and 0.3m high (63.29m OD). Several walls of 17th century date were uncovered within the excavated area. These included the south-west portion of the manor house, and the north wall of the manor house which forms the south wall of the barrel-vaulted building (McConway 1998, 22-23).
Compiled by Geraldine Stout

References

Stout, G. 1998 The archaeology of Ballymount Great, County Dublin. In C. Manning (ed.), Dublin and beyond the Pale, 145-54. Bray. Wordwell.

Stout, G. and Stout, M. 1992 Patterns in the past: county Dublin, 5000 BC-1000 AD. in F.H.A. Aalen and K. Whelan (eds), Dublin city and county: from prehistory to Present, 5-14. Dublin. Geography Publications.

Joyce, W. St. John 1912 (Reprint 1995) The neighbourhood of Dublin by Weston St. John Joyce. Dublin. Hughes and Hughes.

McConway, C. 1998 6-11 Kevin Street, Dublin. In I. Bennett (ed.), Excavations 1997: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 46. Bray. Wordwell.

Joyce, W. St. John, 1912 (1988 ed.) Neighbourhood of Dublin. Monkstown.

Healy, P. 1975a Second report on monuments and sites of archaeological interest in county Dublin. An Foras Forbartha Teoranta.

Healy, P. 1975b Third report on monuments and sites of archaeological interest in county Dublin. An Foras Forbartha, Dublin.

McConway, C. 1998 Dooradoyle. In I. Bennett (ed.), Excavations 1997: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 114. Bray. Wordwell.