County: Galway Site name: Postman’s Hill, Rathmorrissy
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: E003588
Author: Michael Tierney, The Archaeology Company Ltd, Hamilton House, Emmet Street, Birr, Co. Offaly.
Site type: No archaeological significance
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 546383m, N 727720m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.297067, -8.804294
Monitoring was carried out in September 2007 in advance of development works along the route of the N6 Galway to Ballinasloe Public Private Partnership Scheme at Postman’s Hill, Rathmorrissy townland, Athenry, Co. Galway. The hill rose sharply from a generally level landscape and was gently domed, creating a pudding-bowl shape. It had a basal diameter of 30–35m (not being perfectly circular). Much vegetation, primarily gorse and brambles, covered the hill. The vegetation was stripped from the hill using a toothed bucket and then the topsoil was removed using a grading bucket. The topsoil was generally quite shallow (0.2m deep on average) and overlay a natural subsoil of coarse grey gravel, with occasional pockets of yellowish-grey sand and occasional rounded stones. Six test-pits were excavated through the gravel up to a depth of 1.5m to ensure that it was definitely a geological feature. These pits proved that the entire hill was a geological deposit probably associated with glacial activity during the last Ice Age.
Editor’s Note: The summary of this work, though carried out in 2007, arrived too late for inclusion in the bulletin of that year.
