2005:601 - GALWAY: 19 Eyre Square, Galway

Pre-development testing was carried out between 14 and 26 January 2005 at the former Bank of Ireland, 19 Eyre Square, Galway. The testing was required as a condition of planning permission and was necessary because the proposed development was located within the archaeological constraint for Galway city (SMR 94:100).

The site is located outside the medieval walled town in an area said to have developed in the later medieval and post-medieval periods. The Pictorial Map of 1651 did not show any buildings in the vicinity of the site, while the site was marked on the six-inch OS sheet of 1838 as a pig market. The former Bank of Ireland, built in 1863, consists of a five-bay, three-storey building in Italianate style. It was renovated in 1920 and in 1988 and is a protected structure.

The testing comprised the excavation (by machine) of four trenches, which measured 25m, 8.7m, 9.15m and 8.2m long, 0.8–1.1m wide and 0.1–1.8m deep. Five phases of activity were revealed, four of which related to the building of the bank and its three subsequent 20th-century extensions. The earliest phase related to the site prior to the construction of the bank. This phase of activity (post-medieval/modern) was represented by a layer of cobbles located 1.25–1.55m below the surface in two of the trenches. A stone culvert exposed in a third trench, at 1.3m below the surface, also probably dated to this period.

The original bank-building phase corresponded with three walls uncovered, one which contained a course of cut and dressed ashlar blocks, and two compact stone surfaces. An upper layer of cobbles uncovered in two of the trenches was a later feature. The first extension to the bank probably took place in the middle or early part of the later half of the 20th century, its limit represented by a concrete wall revealed in two of the trenches and a layer of tarmac. This concrete wall was the rear wall of the bank at that time, with a tarmac yard outside the building. The second extension probably took place during the 1980s, when the bank was further extended to the south-west. This phase was represented by a number of concrete beams found in three of the trenches.

The most recent phase of activity at the site concerned the final extension to the rear of the site, when it was connected to the adjacent Eyre Square Centre in the 1990s. This phase was evident at the south-west end of Trench A, wherein lay the thickest layer of concrete in the site, above hardcore and large rocks to at least 1.8m below the surface.

This site had been much developed in the 20th century and no medieval structures or deposits were revealed during testing. The earliest feature uncovered was the lower level of cobbles, which may date to the post-medieval period.

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