County: Offaly Site name: Bollinarig Big
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 04E0178
Author: Environmental Services, Corporate House, Ballybrit Business Park, Galway.
Site type: No archaeological significance
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 606449m, N 709232m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.133582, -7.903622
Monitoring was carried out at Boolinarig Big, Birr, Co. Offaly, in December 2004. The proposed development entailed the extraction of sand and gravel from a small hillock located to the west of the site. Permission to build was granted by Offaly County Council and An Bord Pleanála subject to monitoring of all site investigations and other excavations.
The topography of the site selected for the sand and gravel quarry comprised low-lying undulating pastureland with occasional hillocks. The first phase of groundworks took place in December 2003. Nothing of archaeological significance was detected during the course of this monitoring by Tom Rogers.
The second phase of groundworks on the site took place during four days in December 2004. The area to be stripped measured c. 4ha and was located to the south-west of the previous excavated area. The Boolinarig quarry is situated off the main Birr to Athlone road. The site is accessed through a gravel road. The site had a rectangular shape with a tapering end towards the east. The south-west corner of the site was excluded from the work due to an ESB overhead power line running in a north-west/south-east direction across the field. The general stratigraphy of the site consisted of a thick topsoil overlying a natural subsoil of light-brown/orangey sandy silty clay over grey sand and gravel. Nothing of archaeological significance was uncovered during the course of these works.
Eoghan Kieran, Moore Archaeological and
