County: Sligo Site name: Cleavereagh Demesne
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 08E0393
Author: Liam Hackett, Headland Archaeology Ltd, Unit 1, Wallingstown Business Park, Little Island, Cork.
Site type: Fulachta fiadh, possible enclosure, estate grounds
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 570754m, N 834650m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.259843, -8.448858
Test-trenching at Cleavereagh Demesne, Co. Sligo, took place on July 7–11 2008.
Thirty-two trenches were excavated, with eight separate trenches to target specific areas of interest, measuring 3812m in total length. Two ringforts are located within the limits of the development area (SO014–134 and unclassified), but these are not expected to be impacted on by the proposed development.
The site was formerly an estate and has high stone boundary walls to the south and east, and running through the site in a north–south orientation. The estate was owned by Captain James Martin at the time of the Griffiths Valuation in 1851. An estate road and coach run were found running along the southern boundary and through the centre of the estate. Small-scale terracing was also visible in the topography, as a result of estate land management. The grounds are listed in the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (ref. SL–25-G–706346) and are accorded protection under the 1977 Granada Convention.
A star-shaped fort lies in the impacted area; however, this feature is modern, built in the early 1970s as part of a reconstruction exhibit.
A possible enclosure with a visible bank, internal and external ditches, measuring 34m (north–south) externally (due to overhead power lines, only three sides of the possible enclosure could be investigated), a palaeo-environmental channel running for c. 100m in a north-east/south-west direction and two burnt mounds (‘A’ measured 15m by 15m, ‘B’ measured 10m by 12m) were revealed during the testing programme.
The development on this site will take the form of the importation of soil into the cleft of a natural valley to level the area to that of the surrounding land.
Mitigation strategies for the protection of the archaeological features and deposits are ongoing.
