2024:152 - Carrowbunnaun, Sligo

The proposed development site was in a coastal location close to Sligo Bay and directly south of the core area of the town of Strandhill. The sub-rectangular shaped development area comprised three large agricultural fields in use as grazing. The eastern end of the fields was bounded by the housing estate of Atlantic View, located on a steep rise to the east. The western field overlooked Strandhill Golf Club which bounded the western area of the site. The proposed development entails the construction of housing units, along with associated site roads and all associated site development works at Carrowbunnaun Co. Sligo. A Geophysical Survey was completed by Joanna Leigh in October 2023; due to the sandy subsoil only the first field could be surveyed. No finds or features of archaeological significance were noted in the survey.
As part of this testing report a review of the available desktop sources for were consulted for the proposed development area.
Archaeological testing took place in February 2024, during which 13 trenches were mechanically excavated across the proposed development area. An exclusion area of 50m was maintained around a badger sett and no testing took place in this area. The parallel trenches were evenly spaced apart covering the whole development area bar the exclusion zone for the badger sett. The total area excavated comprised 1692m of open test trenches.
The subject area had a gently undulating topography, which was very steep in the eastern area of the site. All trenches were excavated to 2m width, which is the width of the graded machine bucket. All trenches were excavated to the underlying natural sandy substrate which in most places comprised a yellowish-orange boulder clay with moderate occurrences of small to medium-sized stones.
No finds or features of archaeological significance were found during the testing trenching programme.

Cooldrumman Upper, Carney, Co. Sligo