2015:054 - Fr Flannagan Terrace, Sligo, Sligo

NMI Burial Excavation Records

County: Sligo Site name: Fr Flannagan Terrace, Sligo

Sites and Monuments Record No.: SL014-065 Licence number: 14E0401

Author: Eoin Halpin and Martin Timoney

Site type: Urban

Period/Dating:

ITM: E 169272m, N 336279m

Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.274528, -8.472498

The site is located on the eastern side of Holborn Street, Sligo, a steep street that climbs 15m heading north. This was the ancient road leading north out of Sligo towards Manorhamilton, Ballyshannon and Donegal. To the south, the alignment is on Market Street, on the other side of the Garvoge River, but evidence for a connecting bridge has never been found. Several housing schemes were built in this area in the 20th century, this dating to 1954. There is one remaining building on the site, two blocks were removed in 2011, and it is now proposed to build 22 smaller units in six blocks across the site, in phases.
The initial testing phase, in November 2014, revealed evidence for the survival of a potentially significant archaeological feature. This was a 1.4m wide and 0.5m deep ditch which was recorded running parallel to and on the north side of the concrete development boundary. The ditch was cut through two basic layers, the first a relatively thin, heavily charcoal-flecked soil and below was a less compact yellow brown clay loam with some charcoal. These soils lie directly on undisturbed natural and are interpreted as a buried soil horizon, with the heavily charcoal-flecked soil the remains of the old sod line or A-horizon and the less compact soils beneath the old B-horizon, both largely leached out. It was into this old ground surface that the ditch was originally excavated. It remained open until the area became a dumping ground and ground levels increased by up to 1m.
Testing revealed the line of the later ditch, running east-west, parallel to the southern boundary of the development area and it is tentatively suggested that it might be the remains of the 17th-century fortifications illustrated by Luttrell on his 1689 map of Sligo and subsequently transposed onto Bradley and Dunne’s 1987 Urban Archaeological Survey map of Sligo.
The 2015 follow-up excavations showed that the ditch noted in the testing phase was in fact a re-cut of an earlier, 2.5m wide and 0.75m deep feature, which almost certainly is the remains of the ‘Luttrell’ defensive ditch. Previous excavations elsewhere on the line of the projected town defenses, particularly in the area immediately west of the Green Fort in 2000 by James Eogan, revealed a ditch 2.9m wide and 0.75m deep, similar in dimensions to that found at this site. In addition, the excavations in Union Street/Emmet Place also revealed a ditch of similar depth 0.6m, but wider, at 3.9m; this width was a projected measurement, the northern part of the ditch having been truncated by the construction of a boundary wall.
It seems almost certain that the ditch uncovered at the Fr. O’Flanagan Terrace site is that illustrated on the Luttrell map of Sligo, and it now seems very likely that rather than the illustration being ‘aspirational’, it in fact represents actual defenses. The defenses have now been looked for in three locations, the Green Fort, Union Street/Emmet Place and most recently in Fr O’Flanagan Terrace, and in each location a ditch of roughly similar shape and dimensions has been uncovered. In addition the possible ditch section, noted to the rear of the old Gaiety cinema on Wine Street, may also be a continuation of the line of the defenses in this area of the town (M. Timoney pers. comm.)
It is interesting to note that the defensive ditch was re-cut and runs directly along the line of the earlier 17th-century feature. This suggests that despite some considerable time, knowledge and possibly some surface indication of the defensive ditch survived by the time the later ditch was dug. Certainly there is now clear evidence that the boundary created by the cutting of the 17th-century ditch was replaced and renewed at least twice, the latest being the current wall and railing boundary between the development and the adjoining playground.

36 Ballywillwill Road, Castlewellan, Co Down