2020:296 - Connolly Park, Carrowntober, Tubbercurry, Sligo

Monitoring of groundworks at a development at Connolly Park in Tubbercurry, County Sligo, was carried out between 21 September and 16 November 2020.The monitoring was a recommendation of the Development Applications Unit, Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht (as the Department was then known). The development consisted of the demolition of four vacant housing units and the construction of ten dwelling units and all associated site works. The monitoring was necessary as a possible souterrain (SL038-032) was located just outside the development site.
The development was located across two areas (Sites A and B) separated by a public road. Site A was the larger area and consisted of an overgrown green area which sloped down from north-east to south-west and which was the site of four semi-detached, two-storey, dwellings which were demolished in the last 20 years. At the south-west end of the north-west side of Site A were two extant derelict, semi-detached, two-storey, dwellings. To the south-east of the two dwellings was a public amenity area. Site B contained two derelict, semi-detached, two-storey, dwellings.
Connolly Park was developed as council housing in the 1930s/40s, on the site of a Union Workhouse. The workhouse opened in 1852, one of three in County Sligo, and was built to house up to 500 inmates, although there was rarely more than 100. It was offered for sale to Sligo County Council in 1924 and subsequently demolished. The workhouse graveyard is located a short distance to the north-west of the development site.
The groundworks comprised topsoil stripping and the reduction in levels to formation level, the excavation of foundations for the new dwellings and the boundary walls, the diversion of services and the excavation of an Attenuation Tank.
The demolition of the two derelict houses in Site A revealed re-used cut and dressed blocks in the wall fabric. The dressing indicated a 19th-century date for the blocks with the Union Workhouse the likeliest source. The dressed blocks were retrieved from the rubble and stored on site for use in landscaping features as part of the new development.
The stratigraphy encountered during the monitoring of groundworks consisted of a tarred road, concrete and topsoil on the surface, above modern rubble fills, above original topsoil, natural subsoils and bedrock.
A number of mortared rubble walls and wall foundations and a small area of stone flags in Site A appeared to be the remains of the workhouse. The construction of Connolly Park had removed most of the physical evidence of the workhouse.
There was no evidence of the souterrain. Only modern artefacts were recovered. Nothing of archaeological significance was in evidence.

4 Lecka Grove, Castlebar Road, Ballinrobe, County Mayo