County: Mayo Site name: Carrowlisdooaun
Sites and Monuments Record No.: MA100–071, MA100–072 Licence number: 10E0230
Author: Richard Crumlish, 4 Lecka Grove, Castlebar Road, Ballinrobe, Co. Mayo.
Site type: No archaeological significance
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 522960m, N 776231m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.730041, -9.167508
Pre-development testing was carried out on 1 and 2 July 2010 at a site in Carrowlisdooaun townland near the village of Ballyglass, Co. Mayo. The proposed development consisted of the construction of stables, sand arena and all associated works. Testing was required as a barrow (MA100–071) was located within the proposed development site and a cist (MA100–072) was located a short distance north of the site in the adjacent field.
The barrow was fully excavated by H. O’Neill Hencken during the Third Harvard Archaeological Expedition in Ireland in June 1934. The excavation revealed one cremated burial, a bronze axe, flint scrapers and pottery sherds. The barrow was reconstructed following the excavation and is still extant, partially overgrown with trees and bushes, near the north-western corner of the development site. Details of the excavation were published in volume LXV of JRSAI, 1935. The cist was examined on 13 April 1933 with details published in volumes 15 and 16 of JGAHS. It was located under a field wall and had been uncovered c. 80 years previously. Unfortunately neither article documented what happened to the cist, therefore it could still have been in situ, although the field wall had been removed. It was located in the field to the north of the proposed development site. The proposed stables, sand arena and access road were located over 70m away from the barrow and no groundworks were proposed in its vicinity. Similarly the cist was located over 30m away from the sand arena in the field to the north.
Testing consisted of the excavation (by machine) of five trenches located to best cover the development area. The trenches measured 109.5m, 34.7m, 37.3m, 26m and 78.6m long respectively, 0.9–1.6m wide and 0.1–1m deep. Below the topsoil and modern fill was peat, orange/brown plastic clay, blue/grey plastic silty clay, loose grey sand and gravel, grey/brown friable silt loam and orange/grey/brown loose loamy sand (natural subsoils). The topsoil contained modern pottery sherds and glass fragments, a number of disarticulated animal bones and a clay-pipe bowl decorated with a hand and a heart (of 19th- or early 20th-century date). The fill contained a small number of modern pottery sherds.
Testing revealed nothing of archaeological significance.
