County: Galway Site name: Owenbristy
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: E003770
Author: John Lehane, Eachtra Archaeological Projects, The Forge, Innishannon, Co. Cork.
Site type: Stone enclosure with associated burials
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 542835m, N 711930m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.154800, -8.854686
Phase 2 excavations along the 27.2km of the N18 Oranmore to Gort (Glenbrack to Rathmorrissey) National Road Scheme were commissioned by Galway County Council and the National Roads Authority.
Excavation of the enclosure at Owenbristy revealed the site to be the partly preserved remains of a cashel. A cemetery was recorded in the south-eastern quadrant of the enclosure. The area is prone to flooding and annually a turlough rises to the east, south and west of the site.
From the extant remains it is clear that the enclosing element of the cashel consisted of a double-faced wall with an internal rubble core fill. Only the south-eastern portion of this wall survived to any degree. It is likely that the remains of the rubble core have been identified across the interior of the cashel as a consistent stone spread underlying the topsoil. The present evenness of this spread and the lack of any standing surface remains suggest that the cashel at some point was subjected to intensive levelling, possibly as part of agricultural land reclamation work. It is possible that the facing stones could have been utilised to construct the townland boundary to the north of the site and the rubble core was deliberately spread across the site. This interior stone layer covered most of the site except where the burials were found. This may be indicative of prior knowledge of the burials. The presence of pits, post-holes and hearths in the centre of the site suggest a settlement purpose for the monument as well as a place of burial.
The cemetery consisted of 65 graves, which contained at least 81 skeletons and a large quantity of disarticulated human bone. The burials were restricted to an area which measured 20m north to south by 8m in the south-east quadrant of the site. The cemetery was organised into three distinct rows, with the highest density of burials being concentrated in the most northerly 10m. Two types of burial were apparent within the cemetery: simple inhumations and slab-lined burials/lintel graves. Simple graves were slightly more common and represented 39 of the burials, while the remaining 26 were slab-lined. A west–east orientation for burials predominated, with 64 of the graves being aligned west–east, although a single child inhumation was aligned north to south.
