2003:399 - DONEGAL, Donegal

NMI Burial Excavation Records

County: Donegal Site name: DONEGAL

Sites and Monuments Record No.: DG093-013---- Licence number: 02E0851

Author: Christopher Read, North West Archaeological Services Ltd.

Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous

Period/Dating: Modern (AD 1750-AD 2000)

ITM: E 592870m, N 878389m

Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.653631, -8.110487

Monitoring for the proposed Donegal main drainage scheme took place over an eighteen-month period, starting mid-2002. Excavation works stretched throughout the town and in the immediate countryside. The vast majority of the excavation took place along the town’s streets and the adjacent country roads. Substantial amounts of early modern debris and some structural elements, including a 19th-century millrace, were uncovered. The most challenging part of the project was the monitoring of the excavations along the bottom of the River Erne where it flows through the town. This was accomplished by a hardcore surface being created in the river along the quay. This surface allowed access to the machines that then excavated through the hardcore. The spoil from the river was checked manually and metal detected. No finds earlier than the 19th century were revealed throughout the excavation in the river. Towards the end of the scheme, a portion of an 18th-century quay wall was revealed and removed under a separate licence (No. 400, Excavations 2003).

Cloonfad Cottage, Cloonfad, Carrick-on-Shannon, Co. Leitrim