County: Galway Site name: LOUGHBOWN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: A024/4.9
Author: Finn Delaney, Eachtra Archaeological Projects
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 581640m, N 729277m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.313448, -8.275506
The assessment, including test excavation, was carried out before the construction of the proposed N6 Galway–Ballinasloe road scheme. The proposed scheme will be a dual carriageway, 56km in length, extending from the east side of Galway city at Doughiska to the east side of Ballinasloe, at Beagh Brabazon, in Co. Roscommon. The assessment was undertaken for Galway County Council and the National Roads Authority and forms part of a wider archaeological assessment of c. 15km of the proposed N6 dual carriageway (Contract 4).
The site is situated less than 3km east of Aughrim and 2km west of Ballinasloe. Field 114 of the scheme contained sites A024/4.9, a large area of archaeological potential, and A024/4.10, an enclosure (SMR 87:178). The enclosure is poorly preserved and is the subject of a separate report (see No. 624, Excavations 2005). The aim of testing was to locate the anomalies identified in the geophysical survey (ArchaeoPhysica 2004) and to establish their nature, extent and significance. In the survey the anomalies were interpreted as ‘possible buildings . . . and there are also multiple alignments and styles of furrows, perhaps indicative of a former network of small plots, associated with former dwellings’ (ibid., 54). Test-trenches were positioned, in order to test the possible areas of archaeological potential. The possible site of buildings along the road near the north-east corner of the field was not uncovered during testing (and no buildings are present in this location on the first-edition OS map). The furrows identified during the geophysical survey were orientated east-north-east/west-south-west, as opposed to the furrows identified during testing, which were orientated north–south. The former field boundary extending to the south-east from the ironworking area (see No. 624, Excavations 2005) was not uncovered during testing and no linear feature is present in this location on the first-edition OS map.
Though test-trenches were positioned in order to best test the possible areas of archaeological potential, the possible archaeological features, including the ditch and possible buildings along the road, were not uncovered during testing. This may be due to modern debris in the topsoil, which may have caused the misleading geophysical signature.
Reference
ArchaeoPhysica 2004 N6 Galway to East Ballinasloe geophysical survey report. Unpublished report lodged with the DoEHLG.
Ballycurreen Industrial Estate, Kinsale Road, Cork
