County: Galway Site name: Vicar Street, Tuam
Sites and Monuments Record No.: GA029-199 Licence number: 21E0376
Author: Richard Crumlish
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 543481m, N 751779m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.512951, -8.852137
Monitoring of groundworks at a development at the former Grove Hospital, Vicar Street, Tuam, Co. Galway, was carried out intermittently between 13 July 2021 and 31 March 2022. The monitoring was a condition of planning permission granted by An Bord Pleanála and was necessary due to the location of the development within the constraint for the historic town of Tuam (GA029-199). The project consisted of the part-demolition and extension of the former hospital and the construction of a new boundary wall along the south-east end of the south-west site boundary.
The development site was located on the south-east side of Vicar Street in Tuam and was first developed with the construction of Grove House in 1782. It was in use as a diocesan school from 1860 to 1862. It became a Bon Secours hospital, which opened in 1945 and had been vacant since 2009. The extant building had elements of the three phases described above and was set in grounds which contained landscaped lawns with trees and bushes, an access road and a car park. A number of modern outhouses, a glass house and an orchard were also located within the grounds. A former nun's burial ground, associated with the former hospital, was located adjacent to the development site but did not form part of it. No features of archaeological significance were visible within the proposed development site.
Monitoring of site investigations works was carried out in October 2017, under Excavation Licence 17E0471. The excavation of six engineering trial pits and two large scale infiltration tests revealed evidence associated with the existing former hospital building. There was little or no evidence of pre-20th-century activity. Nothing of archaeological significance was uncovered.
The 2021-2022 groundworks revealed topsoil and tarmac on the surface, above modern rubble fill, re-deposited subsoil, concrete and a modern boundary wall foundation above natural subsoils. Nothing of archaeological significance was in evidence.
Two finds were retained. A clay pipe bowl (Find No. 21E0376:1), which was stamped '43' and 'L. GORMAN WEST GALWAY', manufactured by Laurence Gorman at Mill Street, Galway, between 1880 and 1900; and an architectural fragment (Find No. 21E0376:2), which measured 0.67m long and 0.15m square and which was dressed in a style which suggested a 19th-century date.
4 Lecka Grove, Castlebar Road, Ballinrobe, County Mayo
