County: Galway Site name: CAHERWALTER
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 98E0001
Author: Jim Higgins
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Modern (AD 1750-AD 2000)
ITM: E 562678m, N 717117m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.203181, -8.558622
Excavations took place at Caherwalter townland, Loughrea, during January 1998 in advance of a proposed housing development for which permission had been granted.
The site consisted of two large fields, deemed to be of archaeological potential because of their proximity to a medieval parish church and modern cemetery dedicated to St Bridget. The church, a single-cell structure, is in ruins. A single sherd of 17th–18th-century German Westerwald pottery was found on trodden ground outside the south doorway of the church during fieldwork.
In all, some thirteen trenches were opened in the development area using a mechanical digger, and these were examined for archaeological artefacts and features, none of which were found apart from artefacts of 19th–20th-century date and a drainage ditch feature of the same date.
