Today the site was buzzing with people coming and going, surveying, filling context sheets, wet sieving, sorting finds trays and making tea. Great to see John Lalor – senior (and gifted) photographer of the Photographic Unit, National Monuments Service – who photographed the site and the excavation process. Alan and Andy are doing a super job of surveying in Cutting C(an’t buy me love) while Shauna and Geraldine were finishing feature descriptions and photos. All the action is in Cutting D(on’t let me down) where medieval deposits are being excavated in the area of Billy’s kiln. In the afternoon Tom found a cache of medieval pottery (and flint!). Tom strongly believes in the power of Curly Wurlys for his success. Our newest volunteer Margaret Nugent has thrown herself into the wet sieving and together with Marie, Cecilia and Jonathan found some more wood, bone and shells in the lower ditch deposits. We welcomed back Bective volunteer Ciaran McDonnell who also delivered a talk in Tara tonight. We were delighted to have so many visitors including Bernie, Carmel and her mom from Cavan town, Mr Bailey of the Old Drogheda Society and Joe Collins a relative of John Mc Cullens. Thank you Nóra for the tasty tea breaks. We were delighted to have director of archaeological excavations at Black friary, Trim, Finola O’Carroll come to the site and we appreciated her advice on the conservation of the excavated walls. She was telling us about her Community dig on 13–24 August which is part of the Monastic Gardens project, but focusing on trying to find the boundary between the town and the site gardens. People can find out more about it by emailing info@bafs.ie and by looking at the facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pg/Blackfriarycommunity/events/. Our last visitor of the day was senior archaeologist Margaret Keane of the National Monuments Service. On another front, after Con Manning visited Beaubec yesterday he did a bit of preliminary homework on the building’s unusual features. He writes that ‘the diagonal buttress is very rare if not unique in Ireland. One glossary…referred to this type of buttress as a French buttress. Another glossary dated them mainly from the last quarter of the 13th century to the 16th century. [The building at Beaubec] might be entirely 14th century’.
The morning of Day 18 began with official-mascot Sophie encouraging us to get a move on and get to the excavation.
The day ended with Tom finding some very large sherds of Drogheda style pottery.
Margaret Nugent began the day helping with the finds. She ended the day covered in muck after an afternoon spent sieving medieval deposits from the moat.
Peter kept his birthday on the qt, strictly hush hush. But we found out and celebrated his birthday at our morning tea break.
Senior Archaeologist Margaret Keane made an official inspection of the Beaubec excavations in the afternoon.
Kate Sweetman in conversation with John McCullen.
John Lalor, photographer for the National Monuments Service, did us a huge favour and photographed the excavation with his high-tech equipment. John’s photographs are of a quality that detailed photogrammetric surveys can be drawn from them.
Visitors today included our dear friends the Condons, Carmel, Gabrielle and Bernie.
Ciarán McDonnell viewing the finds after his work on the excavation. Ciarán is a cool customer. He worked with us today and then went to Tara and delivered a magnificent and thought-provoking lecture on the Battle of Tara and what it tells us about Irish identities. His was the last of four Tara lectures. The 2019 series is over now and we look forward to July next year and a new season of lecture. Thanks to Clare Tuffy for organising this fascinating series of talks.
Visitors to the site talking to John McCullen, historian and our host for the excavations. From left are: John, Joe Collins, Finola O’Carroll, Jonathan, Marie and Cecilia.
Nature watch: Keeping with our Beatle-themed excavation is (you guessed it) a Beatle. This one was rescued from Cutting C(an’t buy me love) by Andy Hogg. Kieran Campbell, tile expert and naturalist informed us of the following: this is the common dor beetle (Geotrupes stercorarius). It lays its eggs in pellets of the dung of herbivores which it rolls together using its strong legs.
Beaubec Excavations 