County: Carlow Site name: Maryborough Street/Barrow Street, Graiguecullen
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 07E1002
Author: Leigh W. Barker, Valerie J. Keeley Ltd, Brehon House, Kilkenny Road, Castlecomer, Co. Kilkenny.
Site type: Urban; no archaeological significance
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 671573m, N 676870m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.838022, -6.937690
Test-trenching was undertaken at the junction of Maryborough Street and Barrow Street, Graiguecullen, Carlow. The work was conducted in advance of the proposed construction of a retail and residential development.
The site lay on the western side of the adjacent River Barrow (c. 30m to the east), which divides the suburb of Graiguecullen from the town of Carlow. It lay within the zone of archaeological potential surrounding the medieval town of Carlow (CW007–018). Graiguecullen developed as a suburb of Carlow after the latter was founded by William Marshal the Elder in the 13th century. The name of an unidentified castle (‘White Castle’) survives in leases and deeds. The castle stood somewhere on the bank of the river in Graiguecullen and may have been a tower-house (Bradley and King 1990, 10).
Five trenches of varying sizes were excavated across the development site. Thick alluvial deposits of grey sands associated with the River Barrow were encountered beyond an average depth of c. 1m. Rubble and modern debris were encountered above this level. No features of archaeological significance were found. Subsequent monitoring of associated groundworks and the demolition of an existing 19th-century structure and boundary walls also revealed no features of archaeological significance on the site.
Reference
Bradley, J. and King, H. 1990 Urban Archaeological Survey of Co. Carlow. Unpublished report for the OPW.
