2002:1675 - SLIGO: Quay Street, Sligo

Recent testing and a follow-up excavation, both undertaken before the refurbishment of the town hall gatelodge in Quay Street, Sligo, uncovered tantalising evidence of a previous building in the area. The Urban Archaeological Survey suggests that the gatelodge and adjacent town hall may have been constructed on the site of Sligo Castle. Archaeological investigations of the proposed extension to the gatelodge, to the south of the town hall, revealed convincing evidence of an earlier building or buildings, almost certainly the Cromwellian Ordnance Fort of 1689 and possibly the 13th-century castle. Examination of the documentary sources revealed details of a plan of the 17th-century fort, the southern end of which consists of two rectangular rooms, the northern one noted as a ‘Store’, and the southern also as a ‘Store’, on the property of ‘Mr Coghan—Merchant’. Interestingly, the width of both rooms is recorded, the southern store measuring 10ft (3m), and the northern 19ft (5.8m). The results from the testing showed that the gap between the two walls uncovered was slightly over 5m, suggesting that the northern storeroom of the castle had been uncovered. The thinner, southern room appeared to have been preserved in the Lyons complex of shops to the south.

It would be expected that, if both walls were interior divisions in the fort, they would be of similar dimensions; however, the southern wall was three times as wide as the northern, 1.2m and 0.4m respectively. This leads to the possibility that that the larger wall was the southern wall of the earlier, 13th-century Sligo Castle. This wall was founded on natural glacial subsoil and, where ground conditions warranted it, a flat stone plinth. In contrast, the narrower, northern wall was founded on made ground that overlay the plinth and therefore securely post-dates it.

Although no direct dating evidence was recovered associated with the possible castle wall, it is demonstrably earlier than the 17th-century fort wall and seems to be much too wide to be another interior wall of the later fort. It is reasonable to interpret the two walls as parts of different buildings, the substantial 13th-century castle wall being reused as the foundation of an interior wall of the 17th-century fort.

The ground toward the northern end of the excavation area was severely disturbed by the construction of the basements associated with the later town hall. Such were the scale and extent of the excavations associated with the town hall that it is likely that the only area where further evidence of the earlier castle may survive is at the southern end of the site.

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