County: Sligo Site name: RATHLEE
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 11:27 Licence number: 05E1175
Author: Martin A. Timoney, Bóthar an Chorainn, Keash, Co. Sligo.
Site type: No archaeological significance
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 533270m, N 836763m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.275311, -9.024561
Following protracted discussions, site relocation and a geophysics survey, the site for a single house in Rathlee townland south-west of Easkey was excavated. On the south side of the road there is an ill-defined earthwork, with a souterrain within it. The earthwork is not marked on the OS map, even though the souterrain is.
A geophysics survey of 6400m2 along a long road frontage was carried out by MapArc, Galway, under licence 04R144. The survey indicated many features: the ditch of the ringfort and within it a tighter curve that may be an internal feature of the ringfort; two concentric subcircular features, with a smaller one within, towards the north-east; a sub-square feature towards the rear of the eastern third of the area; all of these features were outside of the application site. In addition, 31 possible pits showed up throughout the area surveyed. Sixteen of these pits are within the proposed development plot. These possible pits vary in size from 0.5 to 3m across but there was no apparent structural or feature pattern. The distribution of these pits is concentrated more to the north and north-west of the ringfort.
Two days were spent excavating about 2200m2 of this site. The top 0.04m of sod and the immediate root zone were stripped off with an excavator with a 6ft-wide toothless bucket. Fourteen anomaly areas from the geophysics were staked out. There was no indication of anything other than ploughed soil, with some pieces of modern crockery and a modern chop bone. Another 0.08m of soil was removed by machine. This was topsoil, ploughed and with some modern crockery, again clearly lacking archaeology.
Hand tools were used for deeper excavation to reach the undisturbed natural at two of the anomaly spots, numbers 7 and 1, and a much greater area for each than that suggested by the geophysics survey was opened. No archaeological features were noted.
The bulk of the anomaly areas, numbers 4–14, are close to the road. These blocks were completely stripped. Nothing of an archaeological nature was found.
The site does not encroach on the subcircular enclosure to the east of the front of the site. Ground was not opened in this area, as it would be outside of the applicant’s plot.
It would seem that the anomalies revealed by MapArc’s geophysics survey were caused by natural ground or geological irregularities.
