2008:505 - Airgloony, Galway

Pre-development testing was carried out in January 2008 at a proposed development site in Airgloony, Ballygaddy, Tuam, Co. Galway. The site was adjacent to the R332, on the edge of an industrial and housing zone, and was immediately south of GA029–008, a bridge. A geophysical survey of the site had been carried out in July 2007 by Earthsound Archaeological Geophysics (licence 07R134). A number of anomalies were identified and testing was carried out to ascertain their nature.
A total of twelve test-trenches were opened using a 14-tonne mechanical excavator with a 1.7m-wide grading bucket. The site was rough pasture, with several areas of flooding. The topsoil was a dark-brown clayey silt and generally quite shallow, being 0.06–0.4m deep. No archaeological features, deposits or finds were uncovered during testing. All the anomalies identified during geophysical survey proved to be the result of underlying geology or modern dumping. There were areas of grey sand and gravel deposits within the generally orange clay subsoil, which probably owed their origin to glacial activity at the end of the last Ice Age. Some of the dumps of waste material possibly related to mid-19th-century road realignment works. The cartographic evidence showed that the Tuam–Ballinrobe road was realigned between the first-edition OS map (surveyed 1838 and published 1840) and the OS 25-inch edition (surveyed 1892 and published 1894). The old road ran along the north-west boundary of the site. The existing road is likely to have been used to transport materials for the construction of the new road. This road is higher than the adjacent land where the proposed development site is located and was probably built to raise the road from the boggy ground. Some of the rubble waste within the site is likely to be waste material following the embankment process of raising the new road.