County: Galway Site name: CLARETUAM CASTLE, Claretuam
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 43:39 Licence number: 95E0060
Author: Richard Crumlish, Archaeological Services Ltd
Site type: Castle - unclassified
Period/Dating: Late Medieval (AD 1100-AD 1599)
ITM: E 539963m, N 749523m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.492298, -8.904726
This excavation was carried out as a result of earlier pre-development testing at this site (Licence No. 95E36), which was located 2.4km from a reservoir site on Knockacarrigeen Hill, along the route of the main water pipeline of the Tuam Regional Water Supply Scheme (Contract No. 2). The work was carried out by the Archaeological Services Unit, UCG, for Galway County Council, between 28 February and 12 April 1995.
The site is marked on the OS maps as Castle (in ruins). It defended a ford on the pass to Tuam and belonged to the Burkes. In 1585 it was resided in by a Redmond McMoyler. All that remains of the castle is a single block of masonry, not in situ, which has been incorporated into a field boundary. This mortared block of undressed masonry measures 1.7m in length, 1.3m in width and 1.9m in height.
Sixteen trenches were manually excavated, seven of which were begun during the pre-development testing at the site. Eleven of these trenches were located along the line of the proposed pipeline, just south of the remains of the castle, while the remaining five were located as close as was possible to the east of the castle remains (the actual remains of the castle being located outside the pipeline corridor).
The corner of a foundation, which measured 3.9m x 3m x 4.9m and 30–240mm in thickness, was uncovered just south of the remains of the castle. Two later rubble-built walls and a semicircular area of paving stones were also discovered.
Finds from the site included a large amount of animal bone (some of it showed evidence of being butchered), modern and post-medieval pottery sherds, clay pipe fragments, a fragment of a rotary quern, the keystone of an arch and a late 18th/early 19th-century pair of burnt rosary beads made from fruit-stones.
A radiocarbon date of AD 1396–1440 was procured from a charcoal deposit, located adjacent to the corner of the foundation, at the bottom of the stratigraphic sequence.
Oranmore Industrial Park, Claregalway Rd, Oranmore, Co. Galway
