County: Sligo Site name: BALLYTIVNAN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SL014-066/281 Licence number: 11E0170
Author: Christopher Read
Site type: No archaeological significance
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 570091m, N 836980m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.280740, -8.459270
The site of a proposed car park comprises a subrectangular plot measuring 120m east–west by 70m, located in the south-western corner of a larger subrectangular field on the edge of Sligo Town, adjacent to the Institute of Technology and St Columba’s Mental Hospital. SL014-066 (Earthwork) and SL014-281 (Enclosure/Earthwork) are situated within the larger greenfield site but are located outside the proposed development site. SL046-066 is listed as a redundant record and SL014-281, an indistinct cluster of low-visibility earthworks, is located in the north-east corner of the site, more than 100m from the edge of the proposed car park.
Five test trenches were excavated across the proposed development site, with one measuring 100m by 1.8m and the remainder 4.5m by 1.8m. No archaeological features were revealed in any of the trenches, with the majority of the site being covered by a layer of dumped material, 0.2–0.35m deep and filled with late 19th/early 20th-century debris and a few lithics. It is believed this material was probably deposited during the construction of the mental hospital further up the hill.
School of Science, IT Sligo, Ash Lane, Sligo
