County: Kilkenny Site name: KILKENNY CITY: 'Black Abbey'
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: R. Ó Floinn, National Museum of Ireland
Site type: Religious house - Dominican friars
Period/Dating: Late Medieval (AD 1100-AD 1599)
ITM: E 650240m, N 656143m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.654150, -7.257461
Restoration work outside the east window of the ‘Black Abbey’ revealed the presence of two coffin burials inside the chancel of the medieval church. Both were constructed of rough courses of stone coated with mortar to give a smooth finish.
The first coffin had been considerably disturbed on discovery. It was wedge-shaped, measuring 2m in internal length– the wider (western) end being rounded internally to accommodate the head by the re-use of a window hood-moulding of 14th-century date. The second coffin lay parallel to the first, similar in form but with a more pronounced recess for the head. It contained the remains of three individuals in addition to the primary burial.
The coffins were stratified under a mortar floor set at the same level as the footing of the tower, built c. AD 1500. The fill into which the coffins had been set, however, contained post-medieval pottery and tiles which suggest a date after 1500 for the burials.
No finds were made with the burials. Apart from the post-medieval pottery, the surrounding fill contained five fragments of line-impressed floor tiles of late 14th- or 15th-century date (including slipped and unslipped patterns depicting a lion rampant) suggesting that the medieval church may have had a chancel tile pavement arranged in chequer-board fashion.
