1999:407 - MOONE ABBEY, Moone, Kildare

Excavations, before conservation and funded by Dúchas The Heritage Service, were completed in 1999 with a second season of ten weeks' duration. Two areas were investigated-the eastern end of the church (21.5m x 7.1m) and outside the south wall (19m x 2m).

Further exploration was carried out this season on the small 10th–11th-century stone church, associated with the Columban monastery. The foundations supporting the west wall and south-west anta were laid down on an apparently undisturbed stratum. They were built of local slate, with traces of mortar bonding evident in the upper courses. Most of the north-west anta foundation had been removed in the early 17th century.

The random-coursed masonry in the walls of the church had distinctive Early Christian punch dressing in vertical and diagonal strokes on several of the blocks. In addition to the sharpening marks (noted in Excavations 1998, 108–9), examples of incised designs were present on the original walling. An interesting circular geometric pattern was laid out with a compass.

A rectangular foundation or plinth (2.4m long, 1.7m wide, 1m deep), built on undisturbed soils, was discovered 10m west of the Early Christian church, underneath the 13th-century nave wall. The masonry consisted of uncoursed mortared slate, forming an offset beneath a single random course. Its function has not been determined, but it would appear to date to the occupation of the Columban monastery.

The construction of the nave and the conversion of the earlier church into the chancel most likely date to the 13th century, when it became the manorial church serving the Anglo-Norman borough at Moone. Loose, moulded stones belonging to this building phase were discovered in the excavations. Two deep exploratory cuttings were investigated on the line of the north nave wall. No evidence was found for either the foundation or the wall, all traces having been removed in the 19th century. In the south-eastern corner of the nave a 13th- to 14th-century deposit of silt mixed with sand produced pottery, a fragment from an iron vessel and a quern.

Moone Church continued in use for worship after the Reformation, but this had ceased by the early 17th century, when a masonry crypt was built by the Archbold family beneath the north-west of the chancel. The crypt was recorded in order to evaluate both the structural features and the deposits within. The rectangular interior (2.8m x 2m) was roofed with a tunnel vault. A ledge and holes incorporated into the side-walls indicated that a wooden shelf to support coffins had spanned the width of the crypt. Disarticulated human skeletal remains and coffin fragments were lying scattered on the floor. Investigations within the eastern entrance revealed evidence for four stone steps descending to the original crypt. The inscribed limestone plinth, belonging to a memorial monument associated with the crypt, was fully uncovered in the corner of the chancel. Other carved and inscribed fragments from this monument were reassembled for conservation.

Following the building of the crypt, the church interior was used for interment, and the latest small finds from the burial soil were of 18th-century date. The chancel was standing at this time, but the collapse of the north chancel wall in the early 19th century resulted in damage to the entrance and roof of the Archbold crypt. In a second construction phase the entrance was lengthened and the eastern end of the roof was repaired with granite lintels covered with reused masonry. Two lead coffins, deposited in the mid-19th century, were lying on the surface within the crypt. The doorway was subsequently sealed with masonry blocking.

Templemartin, Craughwell, Co. Galway