2018:449 - No. 4 Nuns' Island, Galway, Galway

Monitoring at No. 4 Nuns’ Island Road was carried out over a period of four months from March to July, 2018, during the redevelopment of the building and the construction of an extension to the rear. In the course of the works twenty-one engineering trenches were excavated at the site, nine within the building itself and twelve in the yard to the rear. The stratigraphy encountered in the trenches, which were all c. 1.1m in length and 0.6m in width, was very homogenous, and comprised of an overburden of re-deposited material including stone, sand, mortar and soil as well as modern plastic. Underlying this material was a black humic silt, which was excavated to significant depths of up to 1.4m. This layer yielded a mixture of finds, mainly comprising pottery, glass and clay pipe. The pottery ranged in date from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, with the finds highly mixed within the contexts, suggesting re-deposition and widespread disturbance.
An usual setting of stones was discovered in a trench within the building. The stones appeared to have been derived from a nineteenth-century fireplace but they were deliberately laid flat, with a keystone included in the setting, at a depth of 1m below current ground level. Apart from a small setting of cobbles found in the yard to the rear, there were no other features of interest discovered during the works.

80 Portacarron, Ballymoneen Road, Galway.