County: Kerry Site name: ILLAUNLOUGHAN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 87:36 Licence number: 92E0087
Author: Claire Walsh and Jenny White Marshall
Site type: Hut site, Children's burial ground and Well
Period/Dating: Early Medieval (AD 400-AD 1099)
ITM: E 436185m, N 573362m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 51.888330, -10.379931
A five-week season in July/August 1995 saw completion of the excavation of the island. Work was concentrated on the area to the north of the drystone hut, in a trench measuring over 12m north-south by 10m east-west. Two conjoined round huts were uncovered here: both pre-date the construction of the drystone hut. One hut, measuring 3.6m internally, with a wall thickness in excess of 1m, had an internal ring of posts and a large stone-kerbed hearth. The second hut, which measured c. 4m in diameter, had partially surviving earth walls, kerbed internally and externally by large upright stones set in sockets, interspersed with horizontally laid drystone masonry. The walls measured up to 1m in thickness, and abutted the enclosure wall. A poorly preserved stone-kerbed hearth occurred also in this hut. Infant burials dating from the ceallúnach phase overlay the area of the huts.
The graveyard to the west of the oratory has now been excavated in a trench which linked with the midden area. Further lintel- and slab-lined graves were excavated here, as well as infant burials from the later period. There was no evidence of a physical boundary between the early medieval burial area and the midden outside the drystone hut. The well was also excavated in 1995.
15 St Brigid's Rd Upper, Drumcondra, Dublin 9
