1996:217 - KELLS PRIORY, Rathduff (Madden), Kilkenny

Excavations in the fifteenth-century tower house known as the Prior's Tower were carried out in advance of conservation and were funded by the National Monuments and Historic Properties Service, Office of Public Works. The Prior's Tower was built against the thirteenth-century choir at the south. It is likely that the prior lived in the tower house, but the ground floor, which has a doorway to the choir, was possibly used as a sacristy. A pointed stone barrel vault covers the ground floor, and the existing ground and first floors were investigated.

In the north-east corner of the ground floor, a cutting 1m x 2.35m was excavated to undisturbed soil. A shallow deposit of roofing slate fragments pre-dated the tower house. Overlying the slate, a layer of compacted clay mixed with sand, c. 0.25m in depth, lay beneath a mortar floor, measuring 5.73m x 4.53m, which was uncovered in the chamber. The mortar was, in general, well preserved but had been disturbed in the west, east and north-east. Along the base of the walls plain white plaster was extant, which terminated at the mortar floor. The overlying strata of clay or sand date to the post-monastic occupation. A clay floor, c. 0.12m in depth, probably belonged to the reuse of the building as the dwelling-house of a farm. It contained five penny tokens dating to second half of the seventeenth century, three clay pipe bowls of similar date, and early eighteenth-century decorated clay pipe stems.

The main chamber on the first floor measures 6.5m x 5.3m. The crown of the barrel vault, constructed with unhewn stone heavily bonded with mortar, was revealed. This was covered with clay, 0.04–0.1m thick, which was also used to fill the haunches of the vault, where it had a maximum depth of 0.8m. In the southern part of the east haunch there was loose stone and sand up to 1.4m deep. Both of these fills were taken from elsewhere in the priory, and contained pottery, ridge tiles and floor tiles datable to the thirteenth-fourteenth centuries. The overlying thin spread of sand and pebbles had the remains of a mortar floor preserved on top. Above this, a clay floor, 0.1m thick, contained eighteenth-century pottery and glass. The roof had collapsed after this date as the slates were lying on the clay.

A small chamber, measuring 3.3m x 1.6m, located at the west side of the first floor was also investigated. Evidence was found for the basal jambs of a doorway, 0.7m wide, leading from the main chamber. The floor in the small chamber had been removed, and heavily mortared unhewn stone was revealed below floor level. Here the opening for the murder-hole, 0.3m x 0.5m, was found. This was well built with random coursed masonry, the distance to the hallway below was 1.65m. A rectangular limestone slab, 0.55m x 0.6m x 0.07m, covered the murder-hole.

Templemartin, Craughwell Co. Galway