Melanie McQuade

(Posted 23.05.07)
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Monitoring undertaken in Cherrywood and Laughanstown Co. Dublin during 2003 uncovered a total of six sites, five of which were subsequently excavated. One of these was located within the 18th-century military camp in Laughanstown, (RMP: DU026: 127) and is believed to be a field kitchen.

The excavation site comprised a circular arrangement of 29 trapezoidal pits which opened out onto an enclosing ditch. The area enclosed by the ditch had a diameter of 7.5m and may originally have supported an internal mound. The enclosing ditch had a maximum depth of 0.4m and the pits measured 0.48m long, 0.25m wide internally, and 0.25m deep Fires appear to have burned simultaneously within the pits with the circular ditch providing ventilation and the debris resulting from burning accumulating in the open ditch.

The site compares well with army field kitchens detailed in a mid-18th century publication. The kitchens are described as a central mound encircled by a ditch with a series of fireplaces dug into the inside wall of the ditch. Parallels can also be made to army field-kitchens investigated by O’Riordain in the Curragh. These presented as shallow ditches surrounding a slight mound which was cut by a number of internal pits. The sites varied from 5.5m–13m in diameter.

 Although there was no evidence for a central mound at the Laughanstown site, the homogenous clay which formed the upper fill of the ditch may have derived from levelling of the site and further disturbance was indicated by a series of plough furrows.

Fragments of glass, pottery, clay pipes, buttons and a coin dating from the mid-18th century were recovered during the excavation. This date is consistent with the occupation of the camp and the other earth dug kitchens for example those used by the allied army in Germany during the seven years war 1756-1763 .