County: Leitrim Site name: MANORHAMILTON
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 03E1446
Author: Declan Moore, Moore Archaeological & Environmental Services Ltd.
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 589157m, N 839549m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.304580, -8.166599
Testing was carried out at Our Lady’s Hospital, Manorhamilton, Co. Leitrim, in October 2003 to investigate an area designed for the proposed reburial of 77 inhumations previously excavated to the north of the hospital. During construction works for the new North Western Health Board Headquarters, coffins from the former Manorhamilton Workhouse cemetery were uncovered. Seventy coffined inhumations were excavated in late summer and autumn 2001 ahead of the construction of an access road to the rear of the headquarters. In October 2002 a further seven were excavated ahead of the construction of a kerb (Excavations 2001, No. 737, 01E0720; 2002, Nos 1061–2). Further testing, by Tom Rogers, in 2002 (Excavations 2002, No. 1062, 02E1846) was unsuccessful in locating a suitable location for reburial.
It is intended that the skeletons be reinterred close to the original burial ground, to the north of the existing boundary of St Joseph’s Building and to the south of the existing Famine graveyard. A single rectangular area 6m by 2m was excavated. Although it was originally proposed that four trenches be excavated, this was deemed unnecessary, as the first trench excavated was sterile and suitable for reburial. The trench was excavated by machine using a 1.8m toothless grading bucket. Stratigraphy encountered comprised topsoil and sod, beneath which was a loose black/dark-brown sandy silt. This directly overlay a compact yellowish clay with outcrops of limestone bedrock.
Corporate House, Ballybrit Business Park, Ballybrit, Galway
