1999:692 - KILLEEN CASTLE, Killeen, Meath

Following an application to Meath County Council for a revised layout of development in the vicinity of the castle and of the church and graveyard, further archaeological testing was requested by the National Monuments and Historic Properties Service. Testing in 1996 had revealed evidence for deposition of fill in the area to the north-west of the tower-house in order to create a terrace, presumably as a landscaping feature (Excavations 1996, 87). Testing to the south of the 19th-century extensions to the castle exposed evidence for disturbance caused by the construction of the castle and for further landscape features.

Two test-pits across the bank/edge of the graveyard on its south side exposed the presence of a low, crudely built stone wall along the edge of the bank. The date of the wall was not clear.

The further testing was requested in order to provide more information about the survival or otherwise of an enclosing element and/or burials around the graveyard and the nature of the fill in the terrace area to the north-east of the castle, with reference to the possibility of the survival of an earthen embankment associated with the tower-house or an earlier castle there.

Eight trenches tested the area to be affected by the more recent planning application. In the trenches that tested the vicinity of the graveyard, no enclosing feature was recognised other than a very crude stone wall exposed in Trench 5. No burials were exposed in any of the trenches. A stone wall probably associated with a 19th-century stone drain was exposed in Trench 7. The base batter of the tower-house was also exposed here. This was not observed in the 1996 test-trench in this area, as it had been robbed out when the 19th-century porch was added on to the east face of the castle.

Nothing of archaeological significance was observed in Trench 8.

Roestown, Drumree, Co. Meath