County: Kildare Site name: KILL
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 96E0079
Author: Eoin Halpin, Archaeological Development Services Ltd
Site type: Enclosure
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 694063m, N 722964m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.248706, -6.590531
The first phase of a site assessment at a development site at Kill, Co. Kildare, was conducted in April 1993 (Excavations 1993, 47–8). Phase 2 of this assessment took place in April 1996 to further investigate and determine the line of a ditch found in Trench 5 of the initial assessment. The site is situated immediately to the west and south-west of the parish church of St Mary and St Brigid.
A single machine-cut trench, 20m long, was positioned to cross the projected line of the ditch. As with results from the first assessment, the topsoil was unusually deep–on average 0.6m. It consisted of a dark, yellow/brown clay loam with abundant evidence that it had been dumped in quite recently (glass bottles, plastic, etc.). However, some 8m from the southern end of the cutting a variation in the subsoil was noted. This proved to be the uppermost layer of a large negative feature some 6m wide and apparently U-shaped in profile, reaching a depth of at least 1m below the natural gravel subsoil through which it was cut. The danger of collapse precluded close examination of the basal layers, but these appeared to consist of a silty version of the surrounding gravels. No pottery or other easily datable material was noted. Nothing else of archaeological interest was uncovered in the remainder of the trench.
It is reasonable to interpret this feature as a continuation of the ditch noted in Phase 1 of the testing, and the suggestion is that it may form part of an enclosure associated with the pre-Norman ecclesiastical foundation located to the north of the site.
Archaeological monitoring of groundworks was carried out in June and October 1996 but nothing of archaeological significance was noted.
Power House, Pigeon House Harbour, Dublin 4
