County: Galway Site name: 15 Merchants Road Lower, Galway
Sites and Monuments Record No.: GA094–100 Licence number: 08E0752 ext.
Author: Richard Crumlish, 4 Lecka Grove, Castlebar Road, Ballinrobe, County Mayo.
Site type: Urban
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 529756m, N 724924m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.269998, -9.053046
Monitoring of groundworks at a development at No. 15 Lower Merchants Road, Galway, continued in 2010 with the excavation of a number of trial holes at the site. The project has been subject to delay due to a number of factors and may resume in 2011. The development consists of the construction of an art house cinema in a building of four floors over a basement. The monitoring was recommended following pre-development testing of the site by the author in September 2008 (Excavations 2008, No. 550, 08E0752), which was necessary due to the site’s location within the constraint area for Galway. The development is located outside the medieval town wall in an area which was reclaimed from Galway Bay during the post-medieval period.
The trial holes were excavated on 30 March and 17 August 2010. Below the concrete on the surface were rubble fill and a modern boundary wall, above what appears to be the original ground level prior to the post-medieval backfilling of the area. This layer contained shell and pebbles and was found at 2–2.4m below the present surface. Below it, at 2.7–3.8m below the surface, was loose sand and gravel. Nothing of archaeological significance was uncovered.
