County: Galway Site name: CÉIBH LEITIR MÓR, Lettermore
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 02D089
Author: Jerry O’Sullivan, NRA Project Archaeologist
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 489655m, N 727798m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.289000, -9.655000
Galway County Council proposes to build a marine slipway at Céibh Leitir Mór, on Lettermore Island, Co. Galway. This will form part of the improvements to an existing harbour of early 19th-century date. An archaeological assessment of the site consisted of a site inspection and a study of available desk-based sources.
The harbour is not protected as an archaeological monument under the National Monuments Acts 1930–94 or as an element of the architectural heritage (i.e., as a protected structure in the County Development Plan).
The present harbour is represented on the first edition of the OS (1839) and appears to have been associated with an adjacent coastguard station. The Preventative Water Guard was founded in 1809 but in 1822 was amalgamated with the Riding Officers, who patrolled the shores, to become the coastguard. It may reasonably be surmised that a coastguard harbour appearing on a map of 1839 was built at some time between 1809 and that year. The area around the harbour has been extensively redeveloped in recent decades, however, and the coastguard station and several other buildings of that period are no longer to be seen. Only the boat harbour survives and is still in use for small boats.
Among other sources consulted, the inventory of ‘Ports, piers and harbours of Ireland’ (Dúchas, unpublished) notes only some proposals for ‘the repair of Lettermore pier’, recorded in the archives of the Office of Public Works for the years 1906–11. The ‘Inventory of shipwrecks off the Irish coast’ (Dúchas, unpublished) records nearly 140 historical wrecks off the coast of Galway, but no wreck is specifically identified with the harbour at Céibh Leitir Mór.
In addition to the desk study, the site and its environs were inspected at low tide to maximise the potential survey area. Conditions were favourable, being still, dry and bright, with thin cloud cover. This was a visual inspection only, and no digging, probing or geophysical prospecting was undertaken. No features or objects of archaeological interest were observed, on land or in the tidal zone, other than the early harbour itself.
Galway County Council
