2025:618 - 10 Cross Street Upper, Townparks, Galway, Galway

Monitoring of groundworks at a development located at 10 Cross Street Upper in Galway City was carried out on 6 October 2025. The development included the replacing of all existing floor finishes and all associated groundworks to a ground floor commercial unit. The monitoring was a condition of planning and was necessary as the development was located within the medieval town of Galway (RMP No. GA094-100).

The building at No. 10 Cross Street Upper is listed on Galway City Council’s list of protected structures and is a 19th-century building with a decorated window head, dating to the 15th or 16th century, in its front facade.

The majority of the ground floor area consisted of modern tiles with a smaller area of wooden floor boards extending for 3.6m x 1.6m at the south-western end of the south-eastern side of the main chamber.

The groundworks consisted of a reduction in levels below the area of the wooden floor boards, an area measuring 3.4-3.75m north-east/south-west by 1.1-1.6m. No other groundworks were carried out in the remaining floor area. The area was reduced by 0.2m. The work was carried out by hand.

Below two modern wooden floors was fill, which consisted of loose soil which contained mortar, fragments of wood, one red brick fragment, one modern glass fragment and plastic. The depth of the fill was not exceeded during the reduction in levels.

All the evidence revealed during the monitoring related to the 20th-century use of the building. Nothing of archaeological significance was in evidence.