County: Sligo Site name: ABBEYTOWN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 20:159 Licence number: 04E1469
Author: Ken Wiggins, Judith Carroll & Co. Ltd, 13 Anglesea Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2.
Site type: Enclosure
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 569568m, N 804318m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.987230, -8.464010
Testing in October 2004 in the vicinity of an enclosure was part of an overall assessment in the townlands of Abbeytown and Kilboglashy connected with developments by Harrington Concrete (Sligo) Ltd at the Abbeytown quarry on the western side of the village of Ballysadare. Details of related testing at other RMP sites can be found elsewhere in this volume: Abbeytown, SMR 20:158 (No. 1486 above, 04E1468); Kilboglashy, 20:109(02) (No. 1525 below, 04E1470); Kilboglashy, 20:109(06) (No. 1526 below, 04E1471); and Kilboglashy, 20:109(07) (No. 1527 below, 04E1472).
The enclosure is in a rectangular grazing field sloping gently south to north, with excellent views across the bay to Knocknarea and Ben Bulben. The enclosure is an impressive, well-preserved bivallate ringfort. The northern extent of the enclosure is protected by a 15m-wide buffer, beyond which a playground area of 500m2 is to be developed. The proposed playground measures c. 25m (east-west) by c. 20m. Testing took the form of the excavation of two 20m-long strip trenches. Topsoil was removed by a mechanical excavator fitted with a 1.4m-wide ditching bucket. There were no finds of archaeological significance in either cutting.
