2024:762 - Loughrea, Castle Street, Church Street, Piggot’s Street, Moore Street, Kelly's Street, King’s Street, Dolphin Street, Mount Carmel Crescent and Athenry Road, Galway

The archaeological monitoring of groundworks and rescue excavation were undertaken for Uisce Éireann’s (UÉ) Water Network Programme (WNP), Loughrea Combined Schemes in Loughrea, Co. Galway. It relates to the Loughrea Cast Iron Tranche 1 (including Castle Street, Kelly’s Street, Church Street, Piggot’s Street and northern part of Moore Street schemes), Moore Street, King’s Street, Loughrea Cast Iron Batch 2 (including Dolphin Street, Mount Carmel Crescent and Athenry Road) schemes.
The schemes involved the installation of c.1,324m of rehabilitated water mains along existing roads. The installation methods used were pipe bursting (Castle Street, Church Street, Piggot’s Street, Moore Street, King’s Street, Dolphin Street, Mount Carmel Crescent and Athenry Road), open-cut trenching (Kelly’s Street and part of Mount Carmel Crescent) and directional drilling (part of Mount Carmel Crescent).
The monitoring followed a high-level Cultural Heritage Screening Assessment (CHSA) undertaken for the scheme by Archaeological Management Solutions (AMS) in 2023.
The excavation of several access pits (AP), trial holes (TH) and open-cut trenches along existing roads was carried out within the Zone of Notification (ZoN) for the medieval town of Loughrea (GA105-150—-) and in the vicinity of the town defences (GA105-150001-). The archaeological monitoring of the schemes was carried out intermittently on 24 and 25 July 2023 and between 17 October 2023 and 23 May 2024 under licence 23E0496. The archaeological monitoring was carried out between 23 November 2023 and 28 May 2024. Monitoring was carried at the southern end of Piggot’s Street, Dolphin Street, and the southern end of Athenry Road, all in proximity to the national monument GA105-150001- (Town Defences) under Ministerial Consent C001191 and associated registration E005514.
One burial (Church Street), disarticulated human remains (Church Street and Piggot’s Street), a pit (Moore Street/Barrack Street junction) and animal bone (Church Street and Piggot’s Street) were found during the monitoring of the Loughrea Combined Schemes. Other cultural heritage features comprising a stone wall foundation of the Constabulary Barracks (Castle Street), a possible wall foundation (Piggot’s Street), stone culverts (Church Street, Dolphin Street, Mount Carmel Crescent and Athenry Road), a stone bank representing a townland or field boundary (Mount Carmel Crescent) were also revealed during the monitoring.
The human remains and animal bone assemblage will be analysed, and a final report will be prepared including specialist reports.