2017:630 - Fr O'Flanagan Terrace, Holborn Hill, Sligo, Sligo

Test areas were opened in 2014 to investigate the possibility that the 17th-century town defences, illustrated on Luttrell’s map of 1689, extended into the development area. Eogan in 2000 had uncovered the line of the town ditch running west from the Greenfort, in the form of a broad shallow ditch, surviving as part of the modern field boundary. This east-west line, if projected, would coincide with the southern boundary of the Fr. O’Flanagan Terrace development area.
The ditch feature visible in the sections of the current test cuttings at the south end of the development area and also noted in plan, was very similar in form to that recorded by Eogan, a broad, relatively shallow U-shape, and it is reasonable to view these sections of ditch as part of the same defence feature. Combining these results with the investigations at Emmet Place (Halpin and Dawkes 2013) and Timoney’s observations to the rear of the Gaiety cinema on Wine Street (M.A. Timoney, pers. comm.), would strongly suggest that the defences recorded on Luttrell were not aspirational, but had actually been built, at least to some extent, and recorded by him on his 1689 map.
Archaeological works also revealed that considerable disturbance had been caused by the construction in the 1950s of the housing blocks on the site. This was particularly true at the north and north-east areas, where significant ground reduction had taken place, in order to develop the level ‘platforms’ on which the blocks were constructed. In addition to this, the construction of the access road, which ran from south-east to north-west through the site, caused further disturbance. As a result it was clear that only relatively small ‘pockets’ of in situ archaeology survived.

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