County: Galway Site name: Birmingham Demesne, Tuam
Sites and Monuments Record No.: GA030–016 Licence number: 10E0084
Author: Jean O’Dowd, The Archaeology Company Ltd, No. 9 Riveroaks, Riverstown, Birr, Co. Offaly.
Site type: Children’s burial-ground
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 546586m, N 752911m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.523448, -8.805513
The Archaeology Company was appointed by Tuam Co-op Livestock Sales Ltd to carry out pre-development testing of a site at Birmingham Demesne, Tuam, Co. Galway. The planned development involved a new gated agricultural entrance accessed from the local public road which will have a farm roadway and turning area to accommodate livestock trucks from the loading and unloading of livestock from the lands held by the client.
The site was within the buffer zone for GA030–016, a children’s burial-ground. The RMP site is in the adjacent field and, according to cartographic sources, it lies a distance of 23m from the PDA.
Five trenches were mechanically excavated across the development site. Each trench was stripped down to the natural subsoil. The work was ceased when undeniably human remains were exposed. In Trench 3 one piece of modern pottery and a number of bones were noted.
Human remains were present in Trench 5, which was opened in the north-east area of the PDA, on a small ground rise, in close proximity to GA030–016. Bones were noted just under the topsoil, at a very shallow depth, c. 0.06–0.2m. In total, seven clusters of human bones were observed but it wasn’t feasible to ascertain if each of these remains was a proper burial or just loosely dispersed or disarticulated bones.
Testing confirmed the assumption that the north-east portion of the proposed development site is an extension of GA030–016. A small embankment encloses the area to the south-west and creates the proper limit of the burial-ground.
Project redesign was recommended in order to preserve the remains in situ; alternately it was recommended that the site at Birmingham Demesne be excavated.
