County: Sligo Site name: SLIGO: Abbey Street Lower
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 96E0285
Author: Ruairí Ó Baoill, Archaeological Development Services Ltd.
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Post Medieval (AD 1600-AD 1750)
ITM: E 569458m, N 835805m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.270143, -8.468877
As a result of an archaeological site assessment undertaken by Eoin Halpin of ADS Ltd in September 1996 (Excavations 1996, 97), it was recommended that excavation take place in advance of the development of a site at the junction of Abbey Street and Abbey Street Lower, Sligo town. The proposed development site is 40m east of the medieval Holy Cross Abbey, and the excavation was carried out under the direction of the writer between 27 January and 14 February 1997, under the terms of the original licence.
An area of approximately 225m2 was excavated using a mixture of machining and manual excavation. However, no archaeological features or artefacts were uncovered that could be related to the abbey. There seems to have been extensive post-medieval quarrying of clay from the environs of the development site and this would account for the dearth of early material recovered.
Artefacts recovered from the excavation were all of 18th/20th-century date and were predominantly ceramics. Pottery types included glazed red earthenware, blackwares, transfer-printed earthenware, pearlware and miscellaneous stoneware.
Westlink Enterprise Centre, 30–50 Distillery Street, Belfast BT12 5BJ
