1997:291 - KILKENNY MAIN DRAINAGE, Kilkenny

The construction of a new main drainage system in Kilkenny involved archaeological monitoring of open cut-trenches, ground stabilisation in advance of thrust-boring, and the thrust-boring operation itself.

In some instances archaeological excavation, carried out by Martin Reid (Excavations 1996, 56, 96E0047), took place in advance of the pipe-laying and shaft construction, but some other features were also exposed. These included a battered wall foundation on the south side of Mill Lane, which is located on the east side of Vicar Street and runs in an easterly direction towards the River Nore, on which a mill was located, the remains of which are still upstanding. The battered foundation extended beyond the limit of excavation, which was 2m deep beneath present ground surface. The existing upstanding wall is built on top of the earlier foundations at a depth of approx. 0.6m below present ground surface.

At the junction of Irishtown and St Canice's Place the excavation for a new manhole revealed a layer of dark brown-black peaty silt, 0.25–0.3m thick, at a depth of 1.4m below the road surface. It contained animal bone, teeth and horn of both cattle and deer, but no pottery, glass, slate or brick, which may indicate that this level contains materials from the early stages of Kilkenny's development, probably from the second half of the first millennium.

The thrust-bore operation from the shaft in the carpark beside the Watergate Theatre ran through the lower levels of the culverted mill-race which runs from the Breagagh River under Parliament Street to the Brewery. A considerable quantity of pottery, bone, horn, leather and glass was recovered, some of which no doubt came from the medieval period, but there was also a large amount of post-medieval material. The obvious interpretation of this material is that the mill-race was used as a rubbish dump by the locals before it was culverted in the post-medieval period.

12 Willow Close, Ardmore, Kilkenny