County: Sligo Site name: HOLBORN STREET/MARKIEVICZ ROAD, SLIGO
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 04E1453
Author: Richard Crumlish, 61 An Cladrach, Castlebar Road, Ballinrobe, Co. Mayo.
Site type: Urban
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 569174m, N 836170m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.273404, -8.473274
Pre-development testing was carried out on 28 and 29 October 2004 at a site in advance of its development at the junction of Holborn Street, Markievicz Road and the Slip Road, in Sligo town. The proposed development was within the archaeological constraint for Sligo town (SMR 14:65).
Markievicz Road was constructed in the 1840s and was originally named the Victoria Line. Two dwellings on the site that fronted onto Markievicz Road were probably of 20th-century date, as the OS six-inch edition of 1910 showed a different site layout to the present one. The dwellings dated to the second half of the 19th century at the earliest. A building that fronted onto Holborn Street was marked on the 1910 edition and probably dated to the 19th century. The first edition of the 6-inch map of 1838 showed a terrace of buildings fronting onto Holborn Street, to the rear (west) of which were back gardens.
Following demolition of the extant buildings on the site, the testing comprised the excavation (by machine) of four trenches. Unfortunately the demolition resulted in a reduction in ground level by up to 0.9m at the Holborn Street end of the site and by 0.2m at the Markievicz Road end of the site. The trenches measured 23m, 4.5m, 5m and 7.8m long, respectively, 1.2-3m wide and 0.35-2.6m deep.
The testing revealed layers of fill above sterile natural subsoil and bedrock. A wall foundation uncovered was part of the rear wall of a building that had just been demolished, which was originally part of a terrace of houses that fronted onto Holborn Street. A layer of cobbles uncovered had modern pottery sherds visible above and below them. The cobbles were probably the remains of a cobbled yard to the rear of the building facing onto Holborn Street. Only modern artefacts, dating from the 18th-20th century, were recovered from the site.
It appeared that the site had been filled up from the bedrock. This infilling may have been carried out during or following the construction of Markievicz Road in the mid-19th century.
