2000:0813 - DAINGEAN: Main Street, Offaly

Test excavation was undertaken at the site of a proposed residential development on 8 and 9 January 2000. The site consists of a large L-shaped garden plot (max. dimensions 82m north–south x 84m). It is bounded to the west by a water-filled ditch, which may preserve the line of the fosse that surrounded the 16th-century Plantation town. The site of the fort that was the origin of the town is c. 200m east of the proposed development site. The south and east walls of the original courthouse at Daingean survive as boundary walls at the south-east end of the site. The east wall façade and an arched entrance gateway immediately south of it contain date stones bearing the date 1759.

Testing comprised the mechanical excavation of six trenches (35–60m long). Several land drains (c. 1.25m wide) and areas of modern disturbance were encountered. The north wall of the courthouse was indicated by a foundation course of large, roughly worked limestone blocks (1.3m wide, 0.3m high), and a robber trench indicated the site of the west wall. A portion of an oval pit (1.9m north–south x 1.1m) was discovered close to the centre of the tested area. A section cutting indicated that it is 0.2m deep, and the fill was a mid-brown, silty clay with occasional inclusions of charcoal flecks, lumps of lime mortar, brick fragments, slate, animal bone, pebbles and small to medium-sized stones. A much larger pit (minimum 6m north–south x 15m) was encountered at the north-west edge of the tested area. It was 0.27m deep, and the fill was a grey, silty clay with moderate inclusions of pebbles, small stones, brick fragments and animal bone. The presence of brick and slate in the fills of these features indicates a post-medieval or early modern date. They may be contemporary with the 18th-century courthouse.

Monitoring of topsoil removal at construction phase was recommended.

31 Ashbrook, Oranmore, Co. Galway