County: Galway Site name: N6 LOUGHREA BYPASS: Cuscarrick/Tullagh Upper/Tullagh Lower/Caherlavine/Gorteenabohogy/ Cosmona/Monearmore/Caheronaun/ Greeneenagh/Fairfield
Sites and Monuments Record No.: GA105-191 Licence number: 03E0505
Author: Jerry O’Sullivan, National Roads Design Office
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 563953m, N 717226m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.204241, -8.539564
Construction of the N6 Loughrea Bypass and associated N66 Gort Link will require the compulsory purchase by Galway County Council of a road construction corridor approximately 40m wide extending over a total distance of 7.3km, between Cuscarrick in the west and Fairfield in the east. Assessment of the route included a desk-based study and walkover inspection by Arch. Consultancy Ltd, a geophysical survey by Archaeophysica Ltd of Shrewsbury (UK) and mechanical excavation of test-trenches by the writer. The principal features recorded during testing are described here, townland by townland, from west to east.
Cuscarrick (fields 1–5)
Backfilled cattle watering pond (recorded on firstedition OS map)
Shallow ditches or breaks in slope forming strip fields across a south-facing hill slope.
Small pits on the hill summit with naked barley grains, hazelnut shells and possible worked flint flake.
Tullagh Upper (fields 6–9)
Former earthwork enclosure (SMR 105:191), now quarried, backfilled and levelled.
Floor remnants and sub-floor drains of 18th-century cabin with adjacent burials of four individuals in a narrow boundary ditch (see No. 766, Excavations 2003, 03E1344, excavated by Martin Jones).
Tullagh Lower (fields 10–13)
Consent for testing was withheld by landowner
Caherlavine (fields 14–20)
Charcoal-filled pit with food debris and clay pipe near site of pre-Famine clachan.
Backfilled quarry pit of unknown date.
Gorteenabohogy (fields 21–23)
Derelict later 19th-century cottage (recorded but not trenched).
Ditch associated with former avenue to house at ‘Cottage Hill’.
Broad ridge remnants.
Cosmona (fields 24–32)
Several linear ditches of broadly east–west and north–south orientation, up to 2m wide by 1m deep, and with occasional inclusions of carbonised hazelnut shell and charcoal flecks.
Small quarry of unknown date Midden spreads on sites of former kitchen-garden allotments from ‘Economic War’ years.
Broad ridge remnants.
Construction materials in bed of disused Loughrea/ Attymon railway line (1890–1975); also ruins of railway cottage (recorded but not trenched).
Monearmore (fields 33–34)
Consent for testing was withheld by landowner.
Caheronaun (fields 35–43)
Trackway by mill-stream.
Masonry remains of late 19th-century livestock pen.
Group of small pits containing some charcoal.
Backfilled quarry pit associated with 19th-century limekiln.
Rubble-filled field drains.
Greeneenagh (fields 44–51)
Series of isolated large pits, up to 4m wide by 1m deep, with loose rubble fills (possibly drainage features).
Shallow V-shaped ditch, 1.5m wide by 1m deep, filled with redeposited soils.
Fairfield (field 52)
Landowner withheld consent for testing.
Testing will be completed in Tullagh Lower, Monearmore and Fairfield if the compulsory purchase of these lands by Galway County Council is approved by An Bord Pleanála.
The archaeological work for this scheme was commissioned by Galway County Council and funded by the National Roads Authority under the aegis of the National Development Plan 2002–2006.
Galway County Council
