2011:250 - CLONBROCK DEMESNE, Galway

Clonbrock Castle, a late 15th- or early 16th-century tower-house on the south bank of the Clonbrock River near the village of Ahascragh, is currently being restored along with a series of adjacent early modern estate-workers’ cottages. In April 2011 a programme of testing was undertaken at five locations on the site, using a tracked mechanical excavator fitted with a toothless grading bucket. These trenches were located on the proposed positions of three water-storage tanks, an effluent treatment system and a soil polishing filter, and all the trenches appear to lie outside the limits of the late medieval bawn. No features of archaeological interest were uncovered during the testing programme, but a subsequent phase of monitoring in late 2011 uncovered a substantial wall foundation during the excavation of a pipe trench close to the tower-house. This feature, which appears to belong to a now-demolished 17th-century house which once extended from the north wall of the tower-house, will be the focus of a small excavation in 2012 or later.