NRA hopes to display road finds to public next year

The NRA hopes to display the remains of the 1,200 year old mill site in Kilbegley and artefacts found during excavations along the Athlone to Ballinasloe motorway route to the public some time next year. At present, the mill timbers are being conserved by the York Archaeological Trust in England with a view to bringing them back to Ireland next year for permanent public display. Although no venue has been decided for the display as of yet, if the NRA had been decentralised to Ballinasloe, as planned, the new headquarters of the organisation would have be one option for the exhibition or the library in Ballinasloe would be another. However, any proposal for the public exhibition of the timbers requires the sanction of the National Museum of Ireland, a spokesperson for the National Roads Authority said this week. Artefacts like the lignite bracelet or water wheel paddle discovered during the digs at the ten different sites along the road route by law must be reported to the Director of the National Museum of Ireland, who may decide to keep them on behalf of the people, or who may waive possession in favour of the finder or landowner. It is the current policy of the museum to retain most of what is found on archaeological excavations though, in practice, because the museum does not currently have enough storage space, a lot of this material remains in temporary stores of private archaeology companies, universities or local authorities. The NRA hope to exhibit some of the finds from new road projects in Galway and adjoining counties at the new Galway City Museum and have begun discussions with the curatorial staff about this possibility. Artefacts are conserved or cleaned and stabilised and then studied to discover where they came from and how they were made. But 'ecofacts' are also studied in this way. Things like cereal grains are just as important as manufactured objects in understanding early milling and crop husbandry. Wheat, oats, barley and rye were all grown in early medieval Ireland, but wheat was regarded as an especially high-status cereal and it is not surprising therefore that quantities of wheat grains were discovered at the mill site.