2011:546 - MARKET STREET, CASTLE STREET AND GRATTAN STREET, SLIGO, Sligo

Market Street, Sligo, widens northwards from High Street to the Lady Erin 1798 statue erected in 1898 close to where Sligo’s medieval Market Cross once stood. The enhancement works here involve the eventual underground ducting of ESB and any other cables, the replacement of the concrete paving with one of brick, the changing of the route of traffic from going west of Lady Erin to one around the east side, the brick paving of the area between Lady Erin and the west side of Market Street, and the planting of four trees in this new civic space.

All of the works carried out in 2011 were monitored, and excavation took place where necessary. Despite this area being the presumed focal area of medieval Sligo, centring on the medieval Market Cross itself, the anticipated medieval and post-medieval deposits did not materialise. Nevertheless, some archaeological information was recovered at specific points. The positions of these are recorded by reference to the adjacent premises and by chainage from the north side of Castle Street/Grattan Street.

Immediately under the existing concrete footpath, an area of cobbling, 1.4m by 0.6m, was exposed in situ close to the northern end of the street on the east side; this was outside No. 1, Flaunt, at chainage 9m. It was left in situ and sealed.  At several places along the east side of the street similar disturbed individual cobblestones were found, indicating that all along this side of the street had been cobbled.

Two archaeological rubbish pits were encountered along the east side of the street. The one outside No. 4, Alliance, at chainage 28.7m, was 0.6–0.7m below the surface of the pavement; it measured 1.9m north–south and reached almost 1m out from the face of the building. That at chainage 43.9m, outside No. 6, Kennedy Pottery, was 0.9m north–south and reached almost 1m out from the face of the building. Only the surface of either pit was exposed, as they could be avoided by the new ducting. From the curvature of these pits it was obvious that they continued in under the front walls of both buildings. Earlier work during the developments of No. 11 (Excavations 2005, no. 1318, 04E1013) and No. 12 Market Street (Excavations 2007, no. 1553, 07E0233), 20–30m to the south, between chainage 63m and chainage 70m, had not exposed similar archaeological deposits within either of these buildings or under their front walls.

A third rubbish pit was exposed near the northern end of the west side of Market Street outside of No. 35, a premises called COCO, at chainage 21.5m. In contrast, this was centred, not under the building, but at least 2m out from the front wall of the building under the present road surface; there was an interval of 0.7m between the pit and the wall of the building. Unlike the two pits on the east side of the street, a section of this had to be dug out all the way to the bottom, as a chamber for the ESB had to be positioned against the wall here. This pit was almost 1m deep and the area excavated was 0.85m north–south by 1.1m, but from the excavation it was estimated that this pit was at least 2.5m in diameter.

Four 1m³ holes were dug in the area between the Lady Erin statue and the west side of the street. This gave the opportunity to see a reasonable cross-section of the road for short distances; the other diggings for the kerbing, gullies and ducting were not clearly informative in this regard. The section in the southern face of the southern hole gave the clearest picture. Beneath 0.17m of tar there was 0.32m of hardcore/gravel bonded with cement, of not-too-ancient vintage. Beneath this there was 0.15m of compacted, but not bonded, gravel that was an ancient road surface. Beneath this again there was the compacted ancient topsoil, about 0.05m thick. The only ancient find in any of these four 1m² openings was a single sherd of what looks to be coloured post-medieval pottery, found in the make-up of the old road.

There was a hint, later on, towards the dating of the three rubbish pits in that several pieces of broken wine bottles of probable late 18th/early 19th-century date were found in the portion of the pit partly excavated outside of No. 27, The Vibe, at chainage 64m in early January 2012.

The remainder of the work, the cross-trenching of the southern end of Market Street for ducting and the replacement paving of the western side of the southern end, took place in January 2012 without adding to our archaeological knowledge.

Bóthar an Corainn, Keash, Co. Sligo.