County: Kilkenny Site name: BONNETSTOWN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 99E0601
Author: Paul Stevens for Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd.
Site type: Fulacht fia
Period/Dating: Prehistoric (12700 BC-AD 400)
ITM: E 645626m, N 658835m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.678759, -7.325268
This site was revealed during archaeological monitoring of a Bord Gáis Éireann gas pipeline development (see No. 426 Excavations 1999). The site was 5km north-west of Kilkenny City, at an elevation of 148m OD, the highest on the pipeline. Bonnetstown townland is on an eastern ridge of the Slieve Ardagh foothills, overlooking Kilkenny City and the Nore valley. Excavation was carried out in August 1999 before development.
This site extended east and west beyond the area of excavation and consisted of a heavily denuded fulacht fiadh with a thin spread of ash and burnt mound material and a small oblong trough or pit, bisected by a modern field boundary. The underlying natural was limestone bedrock and glacial, orange/brown boulder clay, with steeply undulating peaty soils and rough pastureland.
A small pit feature (possibly representing a trough), towards the west of the site, was oblong in plan with a concave profile. It was orientated north-east/south-west, was 1.5m long, 0.75m wide and 0.2m deep, and contained a backfill of burnt mound material of fire-cracked sandstone (50%, 0.06–0.15m in individual diameter) and silty clay (50%). A stake-hole was found 0.37m to the south-east of this pit and was circular in plan with a U-shaped profile.
The denuded burnt mound was irregular and patchy, with areas of dark grey ash and charcoal, fire-cracked sandstone (0.15–0.06m in individual diameters), gravel and dark brown silt. The mound, which was not visible before excavation, covered an area of 9m+ east-west (continuing under the west baulk), 11m north-south and 0.1m in truncated depth.
The insertion of a bank and ditch field boundary, post-dating the 1839–40 1st edition OS map, both bisected and levelled this site. A scattered layer of mound material, builders' rubble and gravel represented the construction phase of the field boundary.
2 Killiney View, Albert Road Lower, Glenageary, Co. Dublin
