County: Leitrim Site name: CARRICK-ON-SHANNON: Priest’s Lane, Main Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 31:5 Licence number: 97E0253
Author: Martin A. Timoney
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 593853m, N 799691m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.946505, -8.093636
This slightly off-square plot behind Glancy’s shop and public house, Main Street, Carrick-on-Shannon, measured about 20m by 20m. Owing to site level considerations for the proposed house, as much as a 3.5m depth of material was to be removed from the north-west corner of the site and progressively less across it. The surface of the plot had been dug over for vegetables many times in the past; there was broken tableware and glass to be seen where it had been dug in recent times.
Archaeological excavation of the site was carried out on 14 and 15 July.
Trench 1, 15m by 1.5m, was opened 3m from the south-east boundary. The top layer was a rich black soil containing broken tableware, domestic glass, a few fragments of red brick, some animal bone, several oyster shells, a few cockle shells and broken clay pipes.
Trench 2, 13.5m by 1.5m, was opened 3m from the south-west boundary of the site. The soil pattern was the same as that in Trench 1, with the black soil being as little as 0.16m deep at one point and at most 0.36m.
Being satisfied that there was no archaeology present on site, an area of 5m by 5m, extending the trenches at their junction in the south-west, was opened, with findings as above. At the exit area from the site an area 5m wide extending back from the road in the north-east part of the site was opened. The expectation of building foundations along the road proved false. Only builders’ rubble from the erection of the adjacent Park Lane House some years ago was found.
Removal of the rest of the topsoil from the site was monitored, but nothing of archaeological interest was discovered.
Bóthar An Corran, Keash, Co. Sligo
