2009:787 - PHASE 2, IRISH STREET, DUNGANNON, Tyrone

Monitoring of Phase 2 of ground-reduction works was carried out on behalf of Toal’s Bookmakers over a period of six days between 8 and 23 April 2009 and related to ongoing redevelopment of Toal’s Bookmakers at Irish Street/Wilson’s Lane, Dungannon, Co. Tyrone. Monitoring of ground-reduction works revealed an earlier phase of building construction below the present site in the form of brick walls with associated foundation layers. Unfortunately, previous construction at the site has masked or destroyed the full extent of this room. The first-to third-edition OS maps of Dungannon indicated the existence of a building at the site from 1833, suggesting that the surviving walls may date to at least 1833.

Below the remains of this early 19th-century building were the remains of a stone-lined well. The well appears to have been backfilled and capped with brick before the construction of the building above it. Whether the well dried up or was abandoned is unclear. It was, however, deliberately backfilled before it was capped, with animal bone, pottery, glass, leather and wood, as well as building rubble, recovered from within the well.
In total nineteen pottery sherds were recovered from within the well. Included within this assemblage were four rim sherds, from three separate vessels, and six base sherds from four separate vessels. The remaining pottery sherds are from the bodies of a number of separate vessels. All the pottery is of the mass-produced blackware type, dating from the late 18th century onwards.