County: Westmeath Site name: MULLINGAR: Friars Mill Road
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 99E0069 ext.
Author: Donald Murphy, Archaeological Consultancy Services Ltd.
Site type: Graveyard
Period/Dating: Modern (AD 1750-AD 2000)
ITM: E 643791m, N 753211m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.527037, -7.339538
An assessment carried out by Matthew Seaver in February to March 1999 at Friars Mill Road, Mullingar, before a commercial development revealed the presence of an extended inhumation of an adult male (No. 870, Excavations 1999). Further work was recommended, and the excavation of foundation trenches was monitored by the writer in May 1999 under an extension to the existing licence.
The site is close to the medieval town wall and is partially within a 19th-century graveyard. Monitoring exposed the remains of three further individuals close to that of the previously discovered inhumation. The burials were in shallow graves, covered with lime, and were accompanied by sherds of 19th-century pottery. A coffin handle was recovered from the fill of the third burial. All were found at the south end of the site in a foundation trench, and it was only the lower part of the burials (i.e. the leg bones) that were exposed. The upper parts of the skeletal remains lie outside the development site and were not disturbed.
15 Trinity Street, Drogheda, Co. Louth
