2001:490 - BALLYDAVID SOUTH, Galway

Test excavation was undertaken in advance of a proposed road-widening scheme (N65 Loughrea to Portumna) at Ballydavid, Co. Galway, on 28 September 2001. It had come to the attention of Galway County Council that the route of the proposed road-widening scheme runs immediately south-west of an old chapel site at Ballydavid. A rectangular building, orientated north-west/south-east and named ‘R.C. Chapel’, is shown on the first edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map for County Galway. The chapel was clearly in use at the time of the 1841 survey but it does not appear on later Ordnance Survey maps, indicating that it fell into disuse before the end of the 19th century. Little is known about the chapel and there is no tradition of burial on the site. The site is not listed in the Recorded Monuments of County Galway (OPW, 1997) and the only historical references are the 1841 Ordnance Survey map and O’Donovan’s Ordnance Survey Notes (1839), both indicating nothing more than an ‘R.C. Chapel’ in Ballydavid.

The site comprises a walled enclosure (16m north-east/south-west by 14m) incorporating the remains of a mortared stone building (14m by 5.5m) at its north-east end. The remains comprise traces of the north-east wall and the north-west and south-east gables of a long rectangular building, now featureless. It is built of coursed, roughly hewn limestone blocks and rubble, and the walls are 0.7m thick. The north-west gable is 2m high while the north-east wall is best preserved at its north-west end, where it stands to 1m in height. The south-east gable is almost totally collapsed, and there is no visible surface trace of the south-west wall. This building is sited on the highest point of a small hillock and appears to be the remains of the chapel indicated on the 1841 Ordnance Survey map. The south-west wall was demolished after 1841 and an enclosure was formed by extending the line of the gable walls to the south-west. These rubble-built field walls are of drystone construction.

Testing comprised the mechanical and manual excavation of two trenches. The trenches commenced at the base of the north-east wall and extended 12m to the south-west. Testing revealed that the north-east wall is built directly on the natural ground. It has a maximum height of 1m and consists of 4–5 courses of roughly hewn limestone blocks and rubble. No archaeological material was discovered and there was no subsurface trace of the south-west wall of the building. It seems reasonable to assume that the south-west wall was completely removed when the existing walled enclosure was formed.

The only finds from the excavation were a couple of modern delftware pottery sherds and glass fragments. Consequently the results of testing would appear to confirm that the building is a late 18th- or early 19th-century structure.

31 Ashbrook, Oranmore, Co. Galway