County: Sligo Site name: KEENAGHAN AND CORHOBER, Ballymote
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 33:145 Licence number: 02E0949
Author: Martin A. Timoney
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 566164m, N 815760m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.089829, -8.517183
The development site for 44 houses at Keenaghan and Corhober, to the south-east of Ballymote, Co. Sligo, is on a drumlin shoulder in an inter-drumlin basin sloping down to a large, flat, wet area. The longest axes of the site are 300m and 210m, and it comprises seven fields, with two of them rising to a height of almost 12m above the flat bottom of the basin. The steeper drumlin area in two of the fields will be scarped, and this material, together with stockpiled material, will be used to raise the lower area, which will then be piled for building. The scarped area will also be built on.
The site was tested by four trenches, 185m, 70m, 200m and 120m long and all 1.3m wide, over four days in July 2002. A small mechanical digger with a toothless bucket was used. The heavy, sticky, wet soil conditions, with water seeping into the trenches, made progress very slow.
The area tested was archaeologically sterile. The soil pattern of heavy, wet, glacial soil on the slopes and higher ground and the almost boggy lower lands was consistently natural throughout, with modern finds indicating manure in recent times.
Bóthar an Chorainn, Keash, Co. Sligo
