2009:401 - NUN’S ISLAND, GALWAY, Galway

Pre-development testing was carried out on 30 and 31 March 2009 at a site at the Poor Clare monastery, Nun’s Island, Galway. The proposed development consisted of refurbishment of and extensions to the front and rear of the external monastery building, which was a protected structure. The proposed development was located within the constraint for a nunnery.
The proposed development was located within the Poor Clare monastery, which is located in the northern half of Nun’s Island and which gives the island its name. The complex of buildings which now stand on the site date to the 19th and 20th centuries; however, the nunnery was established in the 1640s on a site here granted by the Corporation. It was burned by Cromwellian forces in 1652 and destroyed again in 1691, at which time the sisters were located in Market Street. No visible trace survives of the 17th-century construction. The external monastery building at the south-east end of the site dates to c. 1900, while the convent to the north-west dates to the early 19th century with some 20th-century extensions. A chapel at the north-east end of the convent building was added in 1927. The complex also includes a burial-ground and a number of modern outbuildings.
The testing consisted of the excavation (by machine) of three trenches located to best cover the area of the proposed development. The trenches measured 7.2m, 7.3m and 9.5m long respectively, 0.8–1.3m wide and 0.7–1.2m deep.
Below the tarmac and topsoil was fill above orange/grey/brown plastic clay and orange/grey/ brown friable sandy clay (natural subsoil). The fill contained mortar, red and yellow brick fragments, slates, occasional animal-bone fragments, oyster-shell fragments, modern glass fragments, two clay-pipe stems and modern pottery sherds. The fill appeared to be associated with the construction of the external monastery building at the turn of the 19th/20th century. Nothing of archaeological significance was revealed.