County: Offaly Site name: Fort Eliza, Banagher
Sites and Monuments Record No.: OF021-002--- Licence number: 20E0684
Author: Rory Sherlock
Site type: Nineteenth-century gun battery
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 600261m, N 715561m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.190499, -7.996095
A programme of archaeological monitoring was undertaken at Fort Eliza, Banagher, Co Offaly, over three days in November and December, 2020. The monitoring was designed to mitigate the impact of excavations associated with conservation works on the site, which is a Napoleonic-era artillery fort overlooking the River Shannon.
The excavations were not deep and were generally limited to the removal of vegetation, debris, and topsoil from within and around the ruined magazine building and guardhouse. The most significant finding of the monitoring programme was the re-discovery of the cobbled drain around the perimeter of the magazine building, which appears on old plans of the site and which will be preserved in situ beneath a geotextile membrane and a layer of pea gravel. Several fragments of stone and clay ridge tiles were also found in the debris removed from the interior of the magazine building, suggesting that the slate roof which once covered the structure was originally capped with stone ridge tiles, before they were replaced at a later date with ceramic ridge tiles.
Oughterard, Co Galway
