1990:063 - GALWAY: Quay Street, Townparks, Galway

In 1990 a vacant site in Galway city centre was earmarked for a possible hotel development. As the site is within the 'designated area' of the city, an archaeological investigation was necessary in order to comply with conditions of planning permission. The excavation took place over four months in the summer of 1990 and was funded by the owners of the site, Thomas McDonagh & Sons, Ltd., Merchant's Road, Galway.

The site, almost two acres in extent, had been most recently used as a fertilizer store, and most of the 18th- and 19th-century buildings had been demolished several years previously. One wall of a late medieval towerhouse still remained standing and fragments of late medieval cut stone set in some of the boundary wall of the site suggested that the area was one of potential archaeological interest. Cartographic evidence supported this, with several 17th-century and later maps showing two mills and the curtain wall running through the site.

About two thirds of the site was covered with redeposited material and was archaeologically sterile. The earliest evidence of activity consisted of layers of peaty infill material containing scattered deposits of medieval French pottery. Remains of the medieval city wall were uncovered, as were parts of the two mills, one possibly dating to the 15th century. The lower foundations of the towerhouse were exposed but no associated deposits remained in situ. The construction of a canal removed a 45m length of the wall from the northern end of the site and elsewhere the city wall foundations existed only intermittently as much of the area was badly disturbed by the construction of later mills and related structures and by a 19th-century distillery.

Organic material and metal objects were not well represented and most of the material recovered consisted of late medieval and post medieval imported French and English pottery.

1A Dr. Mannix Road, Salthill, Galway