Burial, Portmarnock, Co. Dublin

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Burial Sites

Burial, Portmarnock, Co. Dublin

Somewhere south of Station Road in Portmarnock, Co. Dublin, there are now houses where a man was buried sometime between AD 410 and 607.

The site no longer exists in any visible form; a residential development has been completed, and nothing of the monument remains above or below ground. What was found there before it was removed, however, is worth knowing about, because the burial and the enclosure that contained it tell an unexpectedly detailed story about a single individual living at the edge of the sea during one of the least-documented periods in Irish history.

The excavation, carried out under licence 16E0613 from January 2017 over fourteen weeks, was led by archaeologist Gill McLoughlin and revealed a large sub-circular ditched enclosure measuring up to 77 metres east-west by 70 metres north-south, with an entrance to the east. A ditched enclosure of this kind is essentially a defined space marked by a dug boundary ditch, sometimes associated with ritual or funerary use. Within its southwest quadrant lay a single adult male, buried in an extended supine position, his head oriented to the west-northwest. He was estimated to have been between 40 and 45 years old at death and stood approximately 172 centimetres tall, which would have been notably above average for men in early medieval Ireland. His right shoulder showed severe degenerative arthritis, and there were signs he had compensated by favouring his left arm; his upper vertebrae were similarly affected, and the condition would have caused him considerable pain. Radiocarbon dating of a tooth placed his death somewhere within the range AD 410 to 607, at the transition between the late Iron Age and the early medieval period. The grave had been reopened at some point after the original burial, and deposited in the upper fill was a fragment of vertebra from a small cetacean, probably a whale, dolphin, or porpoise, lightly modified to serve as a suspension weight. Archaeologists considered this a possible votive deposit, meaning something placed deliberately as an offering. A flint scraper was also recovered. Strontium isotope analysis of three molars suggested a strongly marine-based diet throughout his life, though whether he was local to the Portmarnock coast or had travelled there could not be determined, the marine signal being too dominant to distinguish residency from movement.

There is nothing to see at the site today, and no marker records what was found there. The excavation report, prepared by Courtney Deery Heritage Consultancy Ltd. and submitted to the National Monuments Service on behalf of Sherman Oaks Ltd., remains unpublished in the public sense, though it is held within the national record. The adjacent Portmarnock mound, recorded separately, lies east of the railway line and may still be visited, though access and condition should be verified locally before making the journey.

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