1998:276 - SKELLIG MICHAEL (Monks' Garden), Great Skellig, Kerry

NMI Burial Excavation Records

County: Kerry Site name: SKELLIG MICHAEL (Monks' Garden), Great Skellig

Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 104A:001 Licence number:

Author: Edward Bourke, DĂșchas

Site type: Enclosure and Steps

Period/Dating: Early Medieval (AD 400-AD 1099)

ITM: E 424676m, N 560649m

Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 51.770662, -10.540524

Work this year concentrated on a recently discovered entrance through the southern wall of the inner monastic enclosure. This proved that the entrance and the part of the wall immediately to the west of it pre-date all standing structures within the inner enclosure and ignore the present layout of the monastery. The entrance lies beneath the large oratory and pre-dates both it and the graveyard immediately to the east of it. Ground level in the inner enclosure at the entrance would have been at least 2m below present ground level, although the area opened was too small to reveal any structures associated with the entrance.

By the time that the large oratory was built this entrance had gone out of use, and traces of stone revetment both for the foundation of the large oratory and for the blocking of the entrance were revealed by the excavation. At a later stage a series of rough steps and a pathway around the oratory and past the entrance were constructed. After this had gone out of use the ground was raised again, probably in the 1870s, and in the uppermost layers of this backfill some redeposited human bones were found. These may have been retrieved from the partial collapse of St Michael's Church in the last century and reburied by the workmen. Work in this area is set to continue in 1999.

51 St Stephen's Green, Dublin