1999:439 - KILKENNY: Evan's Home, Barrack Lane, Kilkenny

Archaeological assessment was carried out in December 1999 to the rear of Evan's Home, immediately north-west of St John's Priory. The site is on the eastern bank of the River Nore at the northern corner of the medieval suburb of St John's. The remains of the Blessed Lady Chapel of the priory (c. 1290) were incorporated into the present Church of Ireland St John's Church in 1817. Evan's Home is a fine, large, two-storey building built c. 1750 as the Infantry Barracks and converted to Evan's Asylum in 1818.

Three test-trenches were opened across the site; Trench 1 extended parallel to Evan's Home, 1.3m from the boundary wall with St John's Priory. It revealed stratified medieval layers, which contained a number of medieval floor tiles, pottery and bone. These were cut by a limestone wall, 1m thick and rendered front and rear, containing a protruding, chamfered sandstone door-jamb. The wall had a packing fill of alternating mortar and silt with a large quantity of medieval pottery, iron and animal bone. This wall was almost certainly part of the medieval priory chapel. It was sealed by a universal layer of mortar, rich in post-medieval brick and pottery, representing the building level of Evan's Home.

Trenches 2 and 3 were perpendicular to Trench 1 and close to the north and east wings of Evan's Home. Both trenches revealed limestone-mortared walls associated with the barracks building and representing a rear wall between the two rear wings and an internal basement wall. One isolated deposit in Trench 2 produced a single sherd of late 16th- or 17th-century German stoneware, suggesting some truncated activity after the initial medieval phase.

2 Killiney View, Albert Road Lower, Glenageary, Co. Dublin