County: Kildare Site name: KILMEAGE
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 99E0625
Author: Rosanne Meenan
Site type: Church
Period/Dating: Modern (AD 1750-AD 2000)
ITM: E 677434m, N 723128m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.252866, -6.839608
The development site is to the north-west of the Church of Ireland church in Kilmeage village. The site slopes steeply upwards, eastwards from the Kilmeage–Allenwood road, and is bounded on the north-west side by the Kilmeage–Robertstown road and on the south-east side by a large sand and gravel quarry. There are good views westwards to the Hill of Allen and southwards towards the Wicklow Mountains. The major portion of the site at the back of the existing bungalow is currently under grass. The portion of the site fronting the Allenwood road is overgrown with vegetation and may have been quarried out in the past, as suggested by a steep scarp downwards from the boundary fence of the existing bungalow.
The church is reputed to have been built on the site of an earlier church, although the site is not marked on the Sites and Monuments Record for County Kildare.
The village of Kilmeage was laid out in the 1830s. There is a tradition that a large quantity of human bone was found when the houses south-west of the church and across the road were being built, suggesting that a graveyard originally surrounded the church. There is also a tradition that the northern and western limits of the original graveyard extended further outwards than today's boundary.
Ten trenches tested this development site. Four of them were in the vicinity of the graveyard, to establish the presence/absence of burials and/or an early enclosing feature around the church. Such remains were not found. The scarcity of human bone was noteworthy, as disturbed human bone is generally found in the vicinity of graveyards. Very few fragments were found in these trenches.
The other trenches tested the wider development area. Two pit-like features were exposed. It was suggested that one of them (in Trench 5) may have been a hand-dug test-pit for quarrying purposes. The function and date of the other, in Trench 10, were not clear. Ash had been thrown into it, and it may have had some kind of domestic function.
No human burials were exposed. There was no evidence for the remains of an enclosing ditch associated with an earlier church on the site.
Roestown, Drumree, Co. Meath
