1996:216 - OUTRATH, Kilkenny

NMI Burial Excavation Records

County: Kilkenny Site name: OUTRATH

Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 23:14 Licence number: 96E0387

Author: Martin Reid

Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous

Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)

ITM: E 651484m, N 652021m

Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.616991, -7.239714

The construction of a prefabricated concrete reservoir immediately adjacent to the cemetery of Outrath necessitated a predevelopment site assessment. The site, located on the crest of a low hill, started as a rath which was taken over by a church and cemetery. The church is now gone and the foundations were obliterated by graves shortly before 1839, when the antiquarian J. O'Donovan visited the site. The earliest inscribed gravestones do not date back further than the early eighteenth century.

The proposed construction was to rake place in the field on the south side of the monument. One test-trench was excavated across the proposed site. The field is regularly ploughed and this ploughsoil formed the upper 0.2–0.3m of the section. Immediately below the ploughsoil there was one spread of charcoal, c. 1.4m in diameter in the section, over the undisturbed subsoil. This was an unconfined area of burning, and at this stage no indication of the date was known.

Monitoring of the clearance for the reservoir took place roughly three weeks later. The area of charcoal was more fully exposed, and an area measuring approximately 2m north-south x 2.5m east-west was defined where material had been dumped. It was not an area of primary burning but rather a spread of domestic rubbish. Several fragments of medieval pottery were found in the deposit, which was a significant find in a rural context.

Flat 3, 28 Hannaville Park, Terenure, Dublin 6