2001:233 - N71 SKIBBEREEN RELIEF ROAD (Ilen River), Skibbereen, Cork

An assessment was carried out over the west bank of the Ilen River at Skibbereen in advance of the excavation of a proposed river diversion channel to permit the construction of a bridge for the N71 Skibbereen relief road. A large section of the proposed relief road embankment had been constructed in the previous year without any prior archaeological assessment or monitoring. The decision to implement archaeological requirements was undertaken by NRA area archaeologist Ken Hanley. Nine trenches were excavated as part of this assessment on 29 June 2001.

Trench 1 was excavated along the centre line of the section of riverbank to be removed as part of the bridging of the river, and Trenches 2–9 were excavated on either side of the existing embankment along the course of the proposed river diversion channel, taking the form of a centrally placed trench along the proposed channel with branching trenches alternating on either side.

No features, deposits or finds of archaeological significance were revealed in any of the assessment trenches or from subsequent monitoring of the excavation of the river divergence channel. The assessment revealed that a significant area west of the Ilen River comprised made-up ground, in the form of imported clay deposited over the natural gravel and which according to local knowledge was undertaken in the second half of the 20th century in order to reclaim a significant stretch of the riverbank, which was prone to seasonal flooding, for agricultural purposes. Remnants of this former marsh survived as thin layers of peaty black soil in Trenches 6–9. Local tradition also relates that during the early 1940s a World War II fighter plane crashed into this area of marsh; no trace of the aircraft was located during assessment.

Unit 22, Boyne Business Park, Greenhills, Drogheda, Co. Louth