County: Offaly Site name: BANAGHER: Lower Main Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 21:3 Licence number: —
Author: Dominic Delany
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 600269m, N 715038m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.185799, -7.995975
Archaeological monitoring of the excavation of foundation trenches was carried out in advance of a proposed extension to a billiard hall in September 1997. The present church at Banagher probably occupies the site of the Early Christian foundation of Cill Rignaighe. However, the only reference to Banagher prior to the 17th century is contained in the Annals of the Four Masters, which record the re-erection of the castle of Beandchor by Tadhg Caech Ó Cerbhaill in 1544, and its subsequent destruction to prevent the English from gaining control in 1548. A settlement was present here by the early 17th century when Sir John McCoghlan was granted a market in 1610, but the real development of the town commenced in the 1620s. In 1624 Arthur Blundell built a fort at Banagher (Fort Falkland) and in 1628 a charter of incorporation from Charles I established it as a borough. The most famous find from Banagher is a cross-shaft which is now located in the National Museum of Ireland.
The site of the proposed billiard hall extension (6m x 8.5m) is located within the 17th-century town defences at the north-west end of the modern town. Three trenches (0.75m wide) were excavated along the line of the proposed foundations. The topsoil consisted of a dark greyish-brown silty clay with inclusions of cobbles, pebbles, roots, animal bone, flecks of charcoal and mortar, pottery sherds, glass fragments and modern synthetic materials. It was 0.7m thick and directly overlay the naturally occurring grey, coarse, silty sand containing cobbles and pebbles.
The finds were modern, apart from a post-medieval strap-handle/body sherd of red earthenware pottery with external brown glaze and partial internal green glaze. A decorated modern clay pipe bowl and a decorated clay pipe stem fragment were also recovered. The remains of a drystone garden wall, built of unhewn limestone boulders, were encountered directly below the surface at the east end of the site. No other features were encountered.
20–21 Main Street, Portlaoise, Co. Laois
