- DUNLECKNY, CO. CARLOW, Carlow

Introduction
In February 1955, during ground disturbance works on a farm near Muine Bheag, Co. Carlow, workmen discovered two inhumation burials, one in a short cist and a second underneath a slab. The burials were dug out by a worker on the farm and subsequently reburied. The landowner’s daughter, Maureen Drea, wrote to the NMI, reporting the find. The site was investigated on 24 February 1955 by Breandán Ó Ríordáin (Pl. 17). The human remains from the site were not examined at the time. This report is based on Ó Ríordáin’s notes, photographs and drawings¹³.

Location (Fig. 3.3)
The site is in the townland of Dunleckny,¹⁴ west Co. Carlow, close to the border with County Kilkenny. Both burials lay in the north-west corner of a large field immediately outside the town boundary of Bagenalstown and about 400m east of the River Barrow, between c. 30m and 60m above sea level. The archaeological inventory for County Carlow lists a cist containing a pygmy cup and ‘urn’ found in the same townland during the construction of the railway in 1847 (Brindley and Kilfeather 1993, 5; see transcript below; Pl. 18).

Description of site
Grave 1 The cist was rectangular in internal plan, with its long axis aligned north/south. Internally it measured 0.8m long by 0.52m wide by 0.32m high.¹⁵ The cist comprised five principal stones set on edge, with one each forming the north, south and west sides and two at the east side.¹⁶ The western side slab appears complete on the plan but is described as broken in the report (Fig. 3.4). The east side was composed of two similar-sized stones set edge to edge. In addition to the main slab at the southern end, a smaller, thinner stone was placed inside this slab. The side slabs appear to have been of a similar size, with a maximum thickness of 0.24m, a maximum height of 0.37m and a maximum length of 0.93m. No packing stones were noticed outside the cist. The capstone of the cist had been broken, but is reported to have measured approximately 0.8m by 0.6m and would therefore have extended beyond the walls of the cist (see conjectural position on plan). The floor of the cist was not paved but was formed of rough subsoil. The pit containing the cist was not identified and is likely to have been destroyed at the time of discovery.

The cist contained an inhumation burial and no accompanying artefacts were found. The excavator assumes that it would have been a crouched burial, given the size of the cist, but it is also possible that the skeleton was disarticulated. According to the finders, the skull lay at the southern end of the grave, but the position of the remainder of the bones is not known owing to the disturbance of the grave at the time of discovery. The human remains from the burial have not been analysed.¹⁷

Grave 2
This burial is reported to have been located ‘on and in a field fence’ at an approximate distance of 2m from grave 1 (it is not clear in which direction relative to grave 1). It appears to have consisted of human remains covered by a ‘large slanting stone which may have been at one time the capstone of a cist’. The alignment of the long axis of the covering slab was not noted. The dimensions of the covering stone are not given and no further details about the grave are available, as the structure had been disturbed by the builders of the field fence. The investigation of this burial was ‘greatly hampered by the hedge or fence itself and by adverse weather conditions’. The burial consisted of a disturbed inhumation and no accompanying artefacts were found. There is no information in the report as to the position of the human remains. A portion of the skull was removed to the NMI.¹⁸ The remains have not been analysed.

Comment
In the absence of any accompanying pottery, grave 1 is included in the early Bronze Age group on the basis of the form of the cist. Grave 2 is somewhat anomalous as it does not fit into any clearly defined group of burials, partly owing to the disturbance of the site prior to inspection. It may have been a slab-covered pit burial. Its proximity to grave 1 suggests that the two graves are related, especially as there are earlier reports of early Bronze Age burials in the townland. These were discovered during the building of the railway in 1847. The railway lies about 640m directly east of the site under discussion. An account of the discovery was published in a newspaper and is reproduced below, as it has not been published or referred to since. Sir William Wilde also mentions this discovery in his catalogue of the stone, earthen and vegetable materials in the Royal Irish Academy’s museum (Wilde 1857, 178–80, fig. 129), where he describes visiting the site of discovery at ‘Knocknecoura’ in the company of Dr Todd. The very fine miniature vessel (W14; Pl. 18) was donated to the Academy’s museum by the wife of the landowner, Mrs Newton. The newspaper account also refers to the discovery of a large ‘vault’ with sepulchral remains and urns about twenty years previously. This suggests that there was a complex of early Bronze Age funerary monuments in the area around Dunleckny House, perhaps within the demesne. The site investigated in 1955 must be part of this complex.

Transcript
‘Ancient Tumulus¹⁹

In the excavations necessary for the South Eastern Railway, now in progress of being constructed from Carlow to Kilkenny, the workmen recently came upon an ancient Tumulus, or Pagan place of sepulchre at a place called Knocknacurra, at Dunleckny, county Carlow, the seat of W. Newton Esq. It is situated in a beautifully circumstanced close, in a retired part of the demesne, surrounded with ancient timber. There were two kistvaens or stone coffins, found: one composed of granite, the other of limestone. In each were two urns, one inside the other but the workmen, in a scramble for the treasure they were supposed to contain, broke all but one. In form it bears a resemblance to the echinus-shaped urns²⁰ of the Egyptians, and has a lip or rim all round, and an ansa, or handle, and one side. It was covered in some places with minute crystals of carbonite of lime. This relic is in the possession of Mr Newton, and we have no doubt it will be given to enrich the valuable collection of the Royal Irish Academy. In one of the kistvaens were also found a quantity of fragments of bones, which had undergone the process of comburation; enough remained to show that they were parts of the skeletons of an adult and a child, about eight or ten years old. About twenty years previously, it is said that a large stone vault had been discovered a few yards from the present locality, which contained a great number of urns and other sepulchral remains, but no trace of them is now to be found. It would seem as if the large sepulchre was the centre, and the smaller ones form a ring around. This, we believe, will be tried carefully by Mr Newton and any investigation noted, that may throw light upon the history of the mysterious period when frail mortality was consigned to these enduring receptacles.’

13. In accordance with the excavator’s notes, the cist burial will be referred to as grave 1 and the inhumation under the slab as grave 2.
14. Parish of Dunleckny, barony of Idrone East. SMR CW016-099——. IGR 270713 163207. The report on this site was discovered during a search of the Irish Antiquities Division archive for the purposes of this publication. As the report had not been transferred from the Museum’s correspondence file to a topographical file, it was not listed in any previously published inventory of burials or survey.
15. The measurements given here are those in the excavation report, and the width of the cist in the plan does not concur with that in the report. Since the drawings were not done on site but completed afterwards using the field measurements, the dimensions given in the report are taken to be the correct ones.
16. The type of stone used in the construction of the cist is not mentioned in the report, but in her letter reporting the find to the Museum the landowner’s daughter describes the cist stones as granite, which is the local stone of the area.
17. These remains have not been registered.
18. These remains have not been registered.
19. This extract from an unidentified newspaper article was found in the Windele manuscripts held in the Royal Irish Academy (MSS 12C10). The article goes on to describe the trip taken by Sir William Wilde and other gentlemen in 1847 by ‘express train’ to Carlow, describing other features, natural and man-made, which were observed. The account was probably written by Wilde, as it is very similar to the account published in 1857 referred to above. The report notes that on the straight runs the train reached a maximum speed of 60 miles per hour. It finishes by exhorting the engineers to be vigilant and to look after any similar discoveries.
20. An ovolo moulding, especially one having an outline with several radii or one carved with an egg-and-dart pattern.