County: Kilkenny Site name: CASTLETOWN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: Maurice Hurley, for the National Parks & Monuments Branch, Office of Public Works
Site type: Ecclesiastical enclosure
Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)
ITM: E 642163m, N 625897m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.382997, -7.380661
The local community intend to re-utilise the old cemetery at Kilkieran for burial purposes. Kilkieran is generally believed to have been an Early Christian monastic settlement. The cemetery contains three high crosses. An area 36m x 12m to the north of the high crosses was the subject of a four-week trial excavation.
The upper levels were seriously disturbed by the removal of trees and levelling of the ground which took place in recent years. The excavation revealed foundation courses of a stone wall which survived in situ. This wall may represent the monastic enclosure or vallum. Outside the wall a ditch, medieval field boundaries, and a number of pits were excavated. Features excavated within the enclosure include pits, postholes, the fragmentary foundations of a rectangular stone house, and an area of paving. The finds include stone discs and hones, iron slag and five sherds of locally manufactured medieval pottery.
