The recent recovery of over 1,000 artefacts during the first season of a five-year excavation project at Sligo’s Green Fort sheds light on the lives of soldiers stationed there during the 17th and 18th centuries. The dig has also revealed a complex chronology of occupation, abandonment and reoccupation linked to the Nine Years War, Confederate Wars and Williamite Wars.
An excavation carried out earlier this month in one of the oldest parts of Sligo town has recovered over 1,000 artefacts, shedding new light on the story of the Green Fort in the 17th and 18th centuries. The dig – led by archaeologists from Atlantic Technological University (ATU) in partnership with Sligo County Council and the Archaeological Institute of America – marks the first season of a planned five-year research project at the fort.
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The digging concluded earlier this week, though post-excavation work has continued in ATU Sligo’s archaeology lab in recent days.
The Green Fort is a reminder of Sligo’s fortified and garrisoned past. A bastioned, or star-shaped, military fort, it was probably constructed c.1599/1600 during the Nine Years War (1593–1603). It stands on the site of an earlier ringfort recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters in 1595 as Ráith dá Briotócc. Situated on Fort Hill in Rathquarter townland, overlooking the town and Sligo Bay, it occupies a strategic defensive position. In the late 17th century, during the Williamite Wars (1689–91), the Green Fort was incorporated into a wider network of defensive earthworks in and around Sligo.
The excavation project
The current season of the archaeological project – directed by Dr Fiona Beglane (licence holder) and Dr Marion Dowd, lecturers at ATU – involved the excavation of a 30m-long trench within the interior of the fort. This phase was guided by earlier geophysical, topographic and other surveys commissioned by Sligo County Council. Carried out between 2017 and 2021, these surveys revealed buried features, including a circular anomaly measuring around 25m in diameter at the centre of the fort – possibly the remains of the early medieval ringfort referenced in medieval sources.
Students from ATU’s Certificate in Archaeological Excavation and Post-excavation and the Certificate in Archaeological Field Studies took part in the two-week dig, working alongside local community volunteers. Besides Irish students, there were also students from the US, Canada, Australia, Belgium, Germany, Kosovo and Ukraine. For many, it was their first experience of archaeological excavation, survey and recording.
Artefacts
Among the finds recovered during the dig were military artefacts such as lead musket balls and part of a mortar bomb, as well as buttons and a belt buckle likely from soldiers’ uniforms. The artefact assemblage also includes glass, pottery, metal pins, animal bones and numerous clay tobacco pipes. Together, these offer insight into the everyday lives of those garrisoned at the fort – their clothing, eating, drinking and smoking habits. As expected, the vast majority of artefacts appear to date from the 17th and 18th centuries.
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Patterns of use
Dr Beglane told RTÉ that the excavation revealed layers of burning, destruction, renovation and resurfacing with new soil, indicating repeated episodes of use, damage and repair over two centuries. The clean soil layers indicate deliberate relaying of ground surfaces. This sequence matches what was already known from the historical sources – the site was abandoned, reoccupied and altered multiple times.
Military history
The fort was in use during the Nine Years War (1593–1603) and the Confederate Wars (1641–53) and was subsequently described as being in poor condition. It was used again during the Williamite Wars (1689–91) when its control shifted several times.
Initially held by Williamite forces, the fort came under Jacobite control in 1689 when Brigadier Patrick Sarsfield seized Sligo town. This forced the Williamite commander, Col. Thomas Lloyd, to abandon the town and retreat with his men to the Green Fort before escaping to Enniskillen in Co. Fermanagh. The fort was then refortified by Col. Henry Luttrell and engineer Robert Burton. In 1690, Sir Tadhg O’Regan was appointed commander of the Jacobite forces at Sligo, and he further strengthened the fort’s defences by bringing artillery and military supplies from the town.
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But the Williamites returned. In September 1691, Col. John Michelburne and his Williamite forces launched a successful attack while a single company of Jacobites was stationed in the fort. His troops broke into the fort and drove out the garrison. Inside, they found cannons, gunpowder and military stores. The fort may have been abandoned soon after the war. By 1739, it was in ruins, with soldiers now stationed in a new barracks built in the town in the early 1700s. Preparations were made for the fort’s reuse in 1798, though it was ultimately not brought back into service.
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Present condition and recent interest
The Green Fort survives as a raised rectangular platform with salient-angled corner bastions, surrounded by angled earthen slopes and ditches. No upstanding remains or features are visible within the fort.
The Green Fort, which forms part of the public park O’Boyle Park, has long captured the public imagination in Sligo. Since the 1980s, it has been the focus of community activity: re-enactments of Williamite attacks, public lectures, guided tours and conservation work have all helped bring the site to wider attention.
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Legal status
The site is a national monument and a preservation order relating to it was made under the National Monuments Acts in 1983. Its designation and legal protections recognize its importance as one of only about 71 bastioned forts recorded in the 26 counties.
In 2017, Sligo County Council commissioned a conservation plan for the Green Fort to ensure the long-term preservation of the site.
Looking ahead
This season of excavation marked the start of a long-term project. The team hopes to return each summer for a few weeks over the next four years to investigate deeper occupation layers, find out more about how the soldiers lived and expand our knowledge of how the Green Fort functioned over time. They intend to communicate their findings to the public and to the relevant authorities, including the National Monuments Service and the National Museum of Ireland.
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