But when construction machinery broke the surface at Oldtown in County Dublin, it disturbed something that had been lying undisturbed for well over a thousand years: a burial ground belonging to an early medieval community, now partially exposed and recognised as one of the more quietly significant archaeological sites in the Fingal area.

The burials came to light when disarticulated skeletal remains, those no longer lying in their original anatomical arrangement, were recovered from the disturbed ground. Subsequent geophysical survey and excavation, carried out under licences 03R095 and 03E1080, revealed that the cemetery sat within an inner enclosure of roughly 70 metres in diameter, itself part of a much larger early medieval enclosure and associated field system. When archaeologists examined a carefully controlled area of five by five metres, they found ten burials still in situ, meaning undisturbed and in their original positions, each one oriented east to west in the manner typical of early Christian burial practice. A second test area, 52 metres to the east, produced six more burials at the same alignment, all found just 30 centimetres below the present ground surface. Among the finds directly associated with the graves were a perforated stone bead and a bone bead, small objects that speak to personal adornment or perhaps devotional use. In total, the remains of at least twenty individuals were identified, eighteen adults and two juveniles, reported by Christine Baker in 2004 and 2010.

The burial ground has been preserved in situ rather than fully excavated, which means the great majority of those interred there remain in the ground. It has been scheduled through the Oldtown Local Area Plan for inclusion in a future archaeological park, so public access may improve in time. For now, the site sits within a wider early medieval landscape whose boundaries and field systems are recorded but not prominently marked, and a visit rewards those with some patience and an interest in reading the ground rather than gazing at a monument.