2001:295 - EDDRIM GLEBE, Mountcharles, Donegal

It is proposed to use a subrectangular field beside the site of Killymard old church, a medieval church surrounded by a more modern graveyard, as an extension to the existing graveyard. The site was tested by digging three parallel trenches lengthways from north-west to south-east and a fourth perpendicular trench parallel to the existing graveyard wall. The trenches measured c. 30–50m in length; all were 2m wide.

The trenches revealed a fairly shallow clay topsoil, light brown in colour and dry and silty in consistency; general depth ranged from 0.2m to 0.3m. It overlay a grey-brown subsoil with patches of iron pan, orange staining and sparse pockets of gravel.

At the middle of Trench I and at the south-east end of Trench IV and resting in the natural subsoil were deposits of black organic-rich charcoal-stained silty soil; these appeared quite shallow, but those in Trench I were quite linear. It was not clear that these deposits were definitely archaeological in nature, but it was decided to exclude these areas from use in the proposed graveyard.