2025:175 - Clarke Street, Athenry, Galway

The works comprised monitoring of open-cut excavations for electrical ducting to facilitate backup grid connection for an Aldi store at Clarke Street, Athenry, Co. Galway, located within the historic town of Athenry and within the overall Zone of  Notification for Athenry (GA084-001—-).. The monitoring was carried out at the request of the client, ESB Networks.

Full-time archaeological monitoring of the work commenced the end of June 2025. The drainage works were completed on 15^th July 2025. The works comprised open-cut excavation of a trench to a depth of between 700mm and 1m x 500mm in width to facilitate 2” x 5” electricity ducting from the entrance of an Aldi store on Clarke Street northwards to McDonald’s Lane. Monitoring began at the southern end of the works area and progressed northwards.

The stratigraphy was consistent throughout consisting of tarmac and road fill to a depth of roughly 300mm overlying a compact mid-brown, sandy deposit with frequent inclusions of medium to large stones and rubble with pre-existing services such as water and communications evident in places. There were occasional large natural boulders observed. At the base of the trench a compact natural brownish- yellow clay was noted in parts.

During monitoring at the south end and east side of Clarke Street (outside a house with ‘1916’ inscribed on the wall) on 26^th June 2025 at ITM 550189/727712, a possible bank of redeposited natural gravels and stones was exposed in the trench roughly 500mm below the modern ground level. The bank was truncated at its centre by a modern sewer which runs roughly east-west through the feature.  An initial cursory survey of the feature was carried out as access was required to an adjacent residence and the trench had to be backfilled by the end of the working day. The feature was covered with geotextile and a layer of sand pending consultation with the relevant authorities.

Subsequent to liaison with the relevant authorities it was agreed that the feature would be recorded and preserved in situ. This involved the use of a backhoe excavator to remove the fill material to the depth of the feature, which had been temporarily covered in geotextile and sand.  All machine excavations were continuously supervised and subsequently surveyed. This work was completed on 4^th July 2025.

The feature was then covered with a layer of geotextile and sand followed by the ducting with steel plates above the electrical cables. Due to the reduced depth and cover the cables required steel coverings/plates for health and safety reasons.

The possible bank measured roughly 2.4m wide east to west and was approximately 600mm in visible height. There appeared to be a stone core centrally beneath the bank, but no intrusive work was carried out to confirm this. The south side of the bank seems to be gently sloping, with the north end showing signs of possible later quarrying/removal of gravel and sands. Upon removal of remaining fill material relating to the sewage pipe which ran above the feature the feature was surveyed. It comprised a roughly east-west aligned compact core of gravel and stone measuring 650mm in width 500mm below modern ground level extending to an observable depth of 493mm (no intrusive works were carried out – the feature was left undisturbed). There appeared to be a substantial stone base which extended from beneath the gravel and stone feature and extended a further 650mm to the south, but this may have been a naturally occurring boulder.

In the 14th and 15th centuries Athenry was a prosperous town, returning a member to the Irish parliament and the de Berminghams (‘Lord Athenry’) were the premier barons of Ireland. However there was on-going Irish resistance to the Norman landlords and in 1574 the sons of the Earl of Clanricard (Ulick and John) captured Athenry – as recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters: ‘They destroyed the walls of the town of Athenry and also its stone houses and its castle and they so damaged the town that it was not easy to repair it for a long time after them’. In 1576 Henry Sidney, the Lord Deputy, planned to ‘cut the towne into two equal partes’, clearly as a means of reducing the size of the town to be protected and improving the ability to withstand attacks on the settlement. The proposed division of the town is illustrated on a plan dating from 1583 by John Brown which shows the wall partly finished.

According to the Athenry Parish Heritage website  ‘there remains the question of the line of the inner, 16^th-century wall, marked on the 1583 map as apparently at the south limit of the present and 19^th-century built-up area. It is not possible to be sure to what extent it was constructed but its line may survive – (a) in W/E property lines from between the 2 W towers which link up with an unnamed lane leading towards the stream opposite the Spa Well in the friary grounds, where no comparable line exists;  or (b) slightly further S in a line formed by a combination of property boundaries and Clark’s Street, which links N/S Chapel and Cross Streets – again the line seems to fade out in the friary grounds, or at least does not agree with that of the Browne map; or (c) it may have run slightly further  S still from S of the 2 towers, from where a lane leads to a minor break in the W wall, but there are no suggestive lines to the E of this’.

It is possible that the feature encountered may represent remains of this internal dividing wall as it roughly coincides with the suggested location in Brown’s Map.