County: Galway Site name: GALWAY: Forster Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 99E0149
Author: Gerry Walsh
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Modern (AD 1750-AD 2000)
ITM: E 530291m, N 725509m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.275331, -9.045156
Pre-development testing was undertaken on the site of a proposed development in Forster Street, Galway City, in March 1999. The site is c. 300m outside the medieval walled town. It is currently used as a bus- and carpark.
Four test-trenches were excavated by machine. Three were 25m long, the fourth 14m. All were 2m wide. In Trench 1 underlying the tarmac was a hardcore and rubble fill layer 0.48m thick. A redeposited, natural, stony daub, 0.31m thick, directly underlay this. Underlying the daub was a grey/brown to black garden soil layer, 0.26m thick. This garden soil layer produced some early 20th-century pottery, glass and a 1939 English halfpenny. The natural, grey/light brown, silty daub directly underlay the garden soil.
The stratigraphy within the other trenches was broadly similar to that in Trench 1. No archaeological features or finds were recovered from any of the trenches.
Rathbawn Road, Castlebar, Co. Mayo
