1996:150 - THE BARRACKS, Barrack Lane, Galway, Galway

NMI Burial Excavation Records

County: Galway Site name: THE BARRACKS, Barrack Lane, Galway

Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 95E0195

Author: Linzi Simpson, c/o Margaret Gowen and Co. Ltd. Rath House

Site type: House - 15th/16th century and Barracks

Period/Dating: Post Medieval (AD 1600-AD 1750)

ITM: E 550303m, N 727808m

Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.298239, -8.745513

This large site is located within the medieval walled town of Galway, with a substantial stretch of the city wall forming its eastern boundary. It was occupied in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries by large, three-storey stone houses, which were then incorporated into a new citadel built in 1652 to defend the town. The south-west bastion of this citadel was located by a previous excavation, and an exposed section forms part of the western boundary of the site (Excavations 1989, 28). The citadel was then incorporated into a large military barracks established in 1734.

A preliminary architectural survey identified standing portions of at least four walls of the large three-storey stone houses, two of which consisted of gables with cut stone fireplaces at each level. Other architectural details included ‘picked’ quoin stones, stone arched doorways, rectangular windows with stone surrounds, and a fine double ogee-headed window.

A series of test-trenches were mechanically excavated throughout the site. At the southern end of the site the foundations of several of these houses were located just under the tarmac, with part of their original stone slab floor intact. Part of this complex of buildings was later incorporated into the military barracks phase. Despite trenching along the eastern part of the site, i.e. towards the existing city wall, no deposits which could be associated with the wall were uncovered, the earliest layers probably dating to c. 1600.

Ferndale Rd, Rathmichael, Co. Dublin