2009:404 - GORT, Galway

Pre-development testing took place at Gort, Co. Galway, along the route of the proposed Bord G$is feeder and distributor main. Testing took place at three locations in the centre of the town. Trench 1 was located close to the bend in Church Street, which may preserve the line of a possible enclosing element associated with an earlier settlement on the site of St Colman’s Church (GA122–006). Trench 2 was located at the point where the feeder main passes in close proximity to St Colman’s Church on Church Road. Trench 3 was located along Bridge Street, which was highlighted in the desktop study (ACS May 2008) as representing the south-eastern extent of the possible Early Christian enclosure. Nothing of archaeological interest was found in any of the trenches; the ground was mostly made-up, with rubble and silt fills predominating and boulder clay subsoil throughout.
Monitoring of excavation works for the gas feeder and distributor mains took place under the same licence. Most of the scheme passed through areas of modern made-up ground and natural, but archaeological deposits were discovered in two areas. At Queen Street disturbed layers of late medieval domestic deposits were recorded in the trench and a sherd of Merida-type pottery was recovered. In Glenbrack townland disarticulated human remains, comprising cranial and mandible fragments from an adult male and a humerus fragment from an adolescent female, were discovered in the former townland boundary ditch. Both the pottery and the bones were isolated finds and no further archaeological features were found in those areas.