County: Kilkenny Site name: KILKENNY: Abbey St.
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 95E0237
Author: Rosanne Meenan
Site type: Excavation. - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Post Medieval (AD 1600-AD 1750)
ITM: E 650139m, N 656043m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.653264, -7.258959
Four test-trenches were excavated on a development site west of the line of the town wall where it runs north-south from the bank of the Breagagh to Abbey St. A limestone wall runs along the line of the town wall, built immediately to the west of it, and may incorporate the town wall in places along its lower levels. In three trenches a layer of topsoil, 1.15–1.5m deep, overlay a stratigraphy of river gravels over compact brown organic material over lenses of grey silt and grey gravel; water came into the trenches at a depth of c. 3m and they were not excavated any further. This stratigraphy abutted the lowest courses of the limestone wall.
The fourth trench was excavated at the junction of the limestone wall with Abbey St., where houses had stood until recently. A 2m-deep deposit of building rubble containing brick and recent rubble was exposed here. A stone pier was exposed within the rubble, surviving to a height of 1m; it was 700mm wide but of uncertain depth. Its association with the medieval town wall immediately to its east was not clear. It is possible that it may have been built as a foundation for the post-medieval houses here, in what would have been very soft ground.
Roestown, Drumree, Co. Meath
