County: Westmeath Site name: GA1, GARRANE
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 04E1096
Author: Laurence McGowan, 27 Lindenwood Park, Foyle Springs, Derry, for Cultural Resource Development Services Ltd.
Site type: No archaeological significance
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 643111m, N 738468m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.394612, -7.351813
This work was undertaken as part of a programme of testing ahead of the proposed realignment of the N6 Dublin-Galway carriageway. The site is one of sixteen sites of archaeological potential identified during the compilation of an EIS. It is split between two fields currently in pasture on the south-westfacing slope of a low hill at Chainage point 40,500m.
The site was identified during the assessment of the route carried out by Sheila Lane and Associates. It is described as a 'previously unrecorded univallate ringfort', with the north-east arc surviving extant and being defined by an earthen bank and external fosse, the radius of which suggests an original diameter of c. 30m that has since been incorporated into the modern field boundary, which also forms the townland boundary between Garrane and neighbouring Rathgarrett.
As part of the mitigation strategy for the site, a topographical survey was carried out before the excavation of any test-trenches. This was followed by a geophysical survey, which failed to identify any area of potential archaeology in or around the site. A series of test-trenches were excavated into the bank and ditch earthworks and extending to the north-east. These showed the ditch to be formed of a single deposition of natural subsoil dumped directly onto the sod layer. The ditch had been left open for some time and had silted up naturally. Several pieces of 19th-century pottery and an iron thatching pin were recovered from the basal fill of this ditch. In addition, several trenches were excavated in the area to the south-west of the field boundary. No archaeological activity was uncovered. It seems that the ditch and bank are part of a field boundary system dating from the last 200 years that continues for several hundred metres both to the south-east and north-west. Approximately 5m to the south-west of this arc in the boundary there was a small break through the bank, which until recently had acted as an entrance between the two fields. A section excavated through this break revealed a thick deposit of mixed stones dumped directly on to the sod layer in an effort to shore up the entrance between the two fields.
Immediately south of this break in the boundary, stones had been deposited on what appear to be the remains of a small cottage that survives today as a small raised area measuring 2.2m by 1.6m. Only a very small proportion of this structure remains, four or five faced stones arranged in a straight line, possibly the first course of a wall. To the east of this wall was a compact deposit of mortar containing stones and pieces of yellow brick, which possibly represents an internal surface or floor.
