County: Westmeath Site name: MULLINGAR: Blackhall Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 19:89 Licence number: 01E0172
Author: Rosanne Meenan
Site type: Burial
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 643560m, N 752910m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.524352, -7.343063
It is proposed to build a multi-storey structure here, including car-parking. An assessment was requested by Dúchas. The site is within the zone of archaeological potential for Mullingar and lies on what is considered to be the site, or part of the site, of the Domincan priory of Mullingar.
In the method statement it was proposed to excavate six trenches. A layer of garden soil was removed from Trench 1, exposing very hard compacted yellow-grey clay that contained fragments of bone and minute flecks of charcoal. It was bottomed at 2.3m below the present ground level. A human skull was exposed in the natural subsoil. The indications were that the rest of the skeleton lay under the eastern section face of the trench. It was not possible to recognise a grave-cut in the small amount of space available for trowelling. A disarticulated skull was exposed in the garden soil in Trench 2. The presence of the two skulls suggests that this may have been the location of the graveyard of the priory.
Testing was discontinued at this stage. Further test-trenching was carried out by Dominic Delany (see No. 1281, Excavations 2001).
Roestown, Drumree, Co. Meath
