2020:037 - Dock Street, Queen Street & Bothar na Long, Galway, Galway

Monitoring of groundworks at a mixed use office development at the junction of Dock Road, Queen Street and Bothar na Long in Galway City, was carried out intermittently between 17 January 2019 and 24 March 2020. The monitoring was a condition of planning and was required due to the size of the proposed development site, the scale of the proposed development and its location adjacent to the constraints for Forthill cemetery (RMP No. GA094-099) and the medieval town of Galway (RMP No. GA094-100). The development site was a former oil storage facility.
Previous monitoring of site investigations here in late 2018, under the same excavation licence, revealed evidence of the 20th century industrial/commercial use of the site and nothing of archaeological significance.
The groundworks consisted of the excavation for two large office blocks, an area measuring 60m long, 12-18m wide and 3.2-3.5m deep and for a new sub-station, which measured 15m long, 9.5m wide and 0.9-1.2m deep.
The stratigraphy revealed consisted of modern surfaces, fills and features associated with the 20th century commercial/industrial use of the site; above original topsoil, a dark grey silt, natural subsoil and bedrock. The dark grey silt contained shells and may have been part of an older shoreline of the bay, prior to the construction of the adjacent docks in the 19th century and the commercial/industrial development of the site in the early 20th century.
The remains of eleven circular concrete bases of large oil tanks which once stood on the site were also uncovered. The bases measured 7.5-8.0m in diameter and up to 0.6m thick with each base supported by 20-21 concrete piles which measured 0.4m in diameter. A number of concrete walls and foundations and numerous service pipes, cables and tanks were also in evidence across the site. Only modern artefacts were recovered. Nothing of archaeological significance was in evidence.

4 Lecka Grove, Castlebar Road, Ballinrobe, County Mayo