2006:793 - DUNMORE: Dunmore Friary, Barrack Street, Galway

Excavations were carried out in the townland of Abbeyland South, Dunmore, Co. Galway, between June and October 2006 and in January 2007. The proposed works involved the excavation of a linear trench running east–west along the northern carriageway of Barrack Street to accommodate the installation of a storm drain, as part of the Dunmore sewerage scheme. The trench directly impacts on an unrecorded cemetery associated with the nearby Augustinian friary. The friary in Abbeyland South is part of the historic town (GA017–002) of Dunmore, and is a national monument. The excavation ran c. 70m along the length of Barrack Street near the northern kerbline and had an approximate depth of 1.5m.

According to local sources, groundworks carried out by the local council in the late 1980s had disturbed human remains; workmen at the time had recovered some bones and reburied them with the backfill. Monitoring during the initial groundworks confirmed the presence of these remains by exposing articulated bones to the west of Barrack Street near the entrance to the Fair Green, adjacent to the Eurospar Centre and in the vicinity of the Bank of Ireland. Excavation work was carried out along the length of the road, working generally from east to west. A 2.5m-wide trench was initially opened in the vicinity of the manhole opposite Dunmore Garda Station. The trench was mechanically dug to below the level of the road fill and manually excavated from this point. The human remains ran parallel to and beyond the grounds of the friary with a general east–west orientation. The majority of the remains were phased at two levels, earlier burials being cut by later ones. In total, 287 individual skeletons were recovered from the excavations at Barrack Street.

Generally the burials were interred in simple grave-cuts with very little evidence for an accompanying coffin. It is likely that the remains would have been interred wrapped in a shroud, evidenced by a small number of corroded shroud pins found in association with the burials. Osteological analysis for this project is still ongoing. The only finds of note were two coins, both dating to the Jacobite wars. These were a James II halfpenny of 1686 and a large shilling or piece of gun money dated 1689.

It is clear from the excavation that this was a community graveyard dating from the foundation of the friary in the early 15th century and possibly in use up until the late 18th century, when a Colonel Gore, dissatisfied with the existing approach to the cavalry barracks to the east of the town, cut a carriageway through the old graveyard, thus forming present-day Barrack Street.

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