2021:460 - Barrack Street, Loughrea, Galway

Archaeological monitoring of excavations for services connections located in the footpath directly outside a development site was carried out in March and April 2021. No archaeology had been uncovered during monitoring of excavations within the development site in July 2020 (excavations 2020:216) but it was known that a possible castle wall was preserved in situ beneath the gas pipe in the footpath directly outside the site. The possible castle wall had been uncovered during monitoring of excavations for the Bord Gáis Distribution Mains for Loughrea in 2009 (excavations 2009:411). It consisted of a line of large, flat limestone boulders (length c.7m east-west). The feature could not be definitively interpreted as a wall as only the tops of the stones had been exposed within the pipe trench. Notwithstanding this a decision was made to preserve the feature in situ by covering the exposed stones with geotextile membrane and sand, and inserting the gas pipe across the top of the possible wall. Excavations for the services connections were monitored on various dates between 26 March and 23 April 2021. The excavated material consisted entirely of rubble and re-deposited soils. Several existing services, including the gas pipe, were uncovered during the course of the work. Most of the ground in the immediate vicinity of the possible castle wall was excavated but no further evidence of walling was uncovered. The results of monitoring suggest the stones representing the possible castle wall are more likely to be the capping stones of a truncated stone shore rather than a wall.

Dominic Delany & Associates