County: Donegal Site name: DUNFANAGHY
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 25:19 Licence number: 02E0782
Author: Tom Rogers, Moore Ltd.
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 601861m, N 937361m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 55.183519, -7.970777
Testing was undertaken to the rear of the Carrig Rua Hotel in the centre of Dunfanaghy on 13 June 2002. The work was carried out as a condition of planning permission for the refurbishment of the hotel and the construction of a function room and two apartment blocks. The area is close to the site of Dunfanaghy Castle, of which there is now no trace.
The development is to be supported on piles. Eight test-trenches were excavated by machine in the footprint of these buildings. Three trenches to the west were within a small concrete courtyard that overlay bright orange boulder clay overlying schist bedrock. Four trenches to the east revealed a modern fill material and beach sand probably imported to create level ground for a beer garden. A foundation crossing Trench 7, the southernmost trench, comprising rough stone and brick in a concrete matrix, was identified from a cartographic source as the remains of a 19th-century outhouse demolished in the 1980s. Trench 8, closest to the hotel, revealed some areas of burning and considerable disturbance by services dug into natural sand and probably represented a former hotel yard. Nothing of archaeological significance was revealed.
Unit 6, Riveroaks, Claregalway, Co. Galway
