placenamesKingstown
Baile an Rí
Excavations near Ballinteer exposed prehistoric activity and later cultivation within Kingstown townland.
The name
These Irish name elements are associated with this record in the Logainm glossary.
An element’s translation is a clue, rather than a complete explanation of the name. Its form and meaning depend on local history and the full Irish name.
Recorded forms
- Baile an Rí · Irish · main form · validated name
- Kingstown · English · main form
Place & story
Discoveries during road construction
Monitoring for the South-Eastern Motorway at Kingstown ran from December 1999 into May 2000. Archaeologist Mark Clinton recorded work around Kingstown House and Ballinteer Road. Several suspected monuments proved natural or modern, but a small isolated pit contained charcoal, cremated bone and a pottery fragment of prehistoric appearance. Its discovery showed the value of examining ground beyond the features previously identified by survey. [2]
A trough beside an earlier stream
Another excavation uncovered a fulacht fiadh beside a former stream channel. Heat-shattered stone and charcoal surrounded an earth-cut trough, with an overflow leading towards the watercourse. Post-holes indicated timber structures of uncertain form. Clinton considered cooking one possible explanation for the installation, but the surviving evidence did not establish exactly how every feature was used or whether all belonged to the same phase. [3]
Later cultivation across the site
The prehistoric remains had subsequently been crossed by cultivation trenches. Clinton distinguished probable eighteenth- or nineteenth-century lazy-beds from plough furrows, using their alignment, spacing and pottery finds. These later features cut through the burnt-stone spreads. The excavation therefore preserved evidence of farming as well as earlier activity, revealing successive uses of this small area. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Townland
- County
- Dublin
- Barony
- Rathdown
- Civil parish
- Taney
- Within
- Dundrum-Taney
- Coordinates
- 53.26905, -6.24861
- Mapped area
- 0.78 km²
- Logainm ID
- 16630 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Kingstown. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Kingstown motorway monitoring, 2000:314, licence 98E0206 extension · Mark Clinton, Valerie J. Keeley Limited, Excavations.ie
- Kingstown fulacht fiadh excavation, 2000:313, licence 00E0147 · Mark Clinton, Valerie J. Keeley Limited, Excavations.ie
- Boundary geometry retains its source attribution and licence in the downloadable geographic record. Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2024-06-28. How this page was prepared.