2020:153 - Abbey Graveyard and St Vincent’s Hospital, Abbey Road, Athlone, Westmeath

Works comprised a programme of Stage (i) Test Excavations within lands available for the ‘Whitegates to Marina Building Athlone Shared Cycleway and Footway’ scheme. A Metal Detection Survey (R000524) was also conducted in tandem with the testing.
The investigations were confined to two adjacent areas within Athlone town: Abbey Graveyard (WM029-042092) and St Vincent’s Hospital (former Athlone Union Workhouse complex). The former contains the extant remains of a seventeenth-century Franciscan Friary building (WM029-042001). Human remains (and wall foundations) had previously been encountered within the grounds of the hospital by M. Fitzpatrick (Licence No: 10E0186Ext.; Excavation Bulletin Nos: 2016:342; 2017:429) and J. Tierney (Licence No: 19E0409).
Phase 1 testing within the Abbey Graveyard involved hand excavation of eight trenches (2m x 0.5m, total area 8m2), to a depth of 0.25m (Plate 1; Figure 1), followed by Phase 2 hand excavation of the remaining cycleway footprint (87.5m x 0.9–2.8m, total area 116m2) to a depth of 0.25m.
Two machine-dug trenches (Trench A and Trench B) were excavated within St Vincent’s Hospital along the footprint of a new boundary wall and cycleway, respectively. Trench A measured 86m x 1.2m with a depth of 0.6–0.7m; Trench B measured 123m x 3.1m with a depth of 0.30–0.50m.

Beneath the sod, the hand-excavated trenches within Abbey Graveyard revealed a c.0.15m thick layer of yellowish grey clayey silt (C2) overlying a dark brownish black clay (C3) at a depth of c.0.25m. Small fragments of disarticulated human bone were noted within C3 and both deposits contained modern finds. C2 is interpreted as a soil capping layer brought in for landscaping purposes during works at the graveyard in the mid-1980s. The disturbance noted in C3 is also believed to be the result of 1980s clearance works. A section of the original nineteenth-century graveyard boundary wall uncovered in the Phase 2 Trench marked a notable change in the soils within the investigated area, with the area to the north of the wall dominated by twentieth-century gravel deposits. The boundary wall was protected and preserved in situ.
Trenches excavated within the hospital grounds revealed considerable modern disturbance with infill deposits and a large number of services recorded. A single grave cut (C14) orientated west-east was uncovered at a depth of 0.7m, located close to articulated human remains previously identified at a similar depth (Figure 1). The burial had been truncated by modern activities exposing part of a cranium and mandible of a child. The remains were protected and preserved in situ.
The testing also uncovered a number of artefacts (20 iron nails, a possible metal coffin handle, an iron strap and nine clay pipe stems), the majority within Abbey Graveyard. Four further nails were uncovered during metal detection (Excavation Bulletin No. 2020:152).
Each excavated trench was lined with geotextile and backfilled and will be re-excavated by the contractor at construction stage, with the geotextile acting as a guide to indicate base of trench/depth of advance archaeological resolution. No excavation will be undertaken beneath the level of the geotextile membrane or beneath 0.6m in the area of the in situ burial (C14).
Specialist analysis of bone and artefacts found during the investigations is proposed with the results to be incorporated into a final report.

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