County: Galway Site name: TEMPLE JARLATH, Tuam
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 29:180c Licence number: 01E1193
Author: Jerry O’Sullivan, NRA Regional Design Office, Galway County Council
Site type: Church and Graveyard
Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)
ITM: E 543391m, N 751988m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.514822, -8.853529
Monitoring of urban improvements took place in November 2001 at Temple Jarlath, where an ornamental iron railing and new gateway were to be erected along the west perimeter of the graveyard. A ruined medieval parish church stands within a raised graveyard. To the south and west the perimeter of the graveyard and the adjacent streets appear to perpetuate the curvilinear boundary of an early medieval church site.
To facilitate the insertion of principal uprights for the railing, twenty small cuttings were opened within the existing low kerb wall along the west perimeter of the graveyard. The cuttings were opened at intervals of c. 2.5m and to a maximum depth of 0.3m below existing paving level. The stratigraphy within these cuttings consisted more or less uniformly of a thin brown loam over glacially deposited coarse gravel. A few fragments of disturbed human bone were also recovered. Deeper loam was observed in only two cuttings — at either side of the steps leading to an entrance at the south-west corner of the graveyard (Nos 1 and 2 from south). In one of these (No. 1) articulated human remains appeared at a depth of c. 0.2m. These were articulated lower leg bones of at least one adult, oriented and supine. The remains were allowed to remain in situ (sealed by a double layer of heavy polythene) and the upright for the railing was reduced in depth to accommodate this.
The presence of undisturbed human remains and a greater depth of loam soil or ‘grave earth’ in Cuttings 1 and 2 can easily be explained. Here they were protected from disturbance by proximity to the massive stone steps of the south-west entrance. Elsewhere the perimeter of the graveyard was truncated by urban improvements of the 1970s, when the pavement was widened and the raised edges of the cemetery landscaped to form a uniform slope. Hence the shallow stratigraphy and absence of in situ burials in Cuttings 3–20.
The writer has sought permission from the National Museum of Ireland to rebury the human bone fragments which were recovered at Temple Jarlath, if this can be achieved without unnecessary disturbance to the remainder of the cemetery.
Corporate House, Ballybrit Business Park, Galway
