County: Galway Site name: Cloonkeen North
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: E004087
Author: Nial O’Neill, Headland Archaeology (Ireland) Ltd, Unit 1, Wallingstown Business Park, Little Island, Co. Cork.
Site type: Well
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 544650m, N 742040m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.425567, -8.832786
Excavation was carried out at Cloonkeen North, Co. Galway, in advance of the M17 Galway (Rathmorrissy) to Tuam Archaeological Services Contract (2010) forming part of the N17/N18 Gort to Tuam PPP scheme in County Galway. The Archaeological Services Contract (2010) was commissioned by Galway County Council and funded by the National Roads Authority. Full excavation was undertaken at the site in July 2010.
Excavation at Cloonkeen North revealed that a large subcircular cut, 4.5m north–south by 3.5m and 2.3m in maximum depth, was excavated into the natural geology in order to construct the structural element of the well. Approximately seven courses of unbonded limestone were constructed, within which was a depression. Six steps led from this back up to ground level, where a limestone slab was found with a circular hole, interpreted as a door jamb hole. The well proper was covered by a corbelled roof construction of flat stones with lime mortar bonding. Around the outside of the structural stone and filling the cut was sub-rounded and sub-angular rubble limestone of small to medium size. The central circular depression was infilled by loose black silt, while a deposit of decayed and decaying vegetation lay above this.
A stone-lined drain entered the well above the third and fourth steps at the level of the top of the vertical, unbounded stone. To the south side, this cut was stone-lined and had rubble filling the gaps between the stone lining and the cut. Above the stone lining was a layer of redeposited natural. The drain itself had become infilled with black to dark-brown silt which contained post-medieval pottery and bottle glass.
Immediately west of the well was a pathway orientated east–west. This had larger stones lining the northern and southern sides with sub-rounded stone inside these forming a metalled surface. Under these, a bedding deposit of dark-brown silt was uncovered. In the western corner of the site, a second metalled surface was recorded. A section of a linear drainage feature associated with the pathway was also found parallel to the pathway.
