2000:0407 - ST BRENDAN’S CATHEDRAL, Ardfert, Kerry

NMI Burial Excavation Records

County: Kerry Site name: ST BRENDAN’S CATHEDRAL, Ardfert

Sites and Monuments Record No.: RMP 20:46 Licence number: E000493

Author: Fionnbarr Moore, Dúchas The Heritage Service

Site type: Cathedral

Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)

ITM: E 478576m, N 621451m

Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.331231, -9.781581

The threshold for the north-east doorway of the cathedral was excavated on 10 February. The doorway had three levels visible in section, and the aim of the excavation was to uncover the floor slab for the 13th-century level. A rise in ground level over the centuries due to burial within and around the cathedral had made it necessary to raise the level of the doorway. The stone slab for the 13th-century threshold was still in situ.

A solid layer of mortar, 0.2m above this lower threshold, may represent the level of a later medieval doorway, and in the post-medieval period, possibly as late as the 17th century, a plain ogee-headed doorway with a limestone sill was inserted at a height of 0.8m above the original 13th-century level.

Dún Scéine, Harcourt Lane, Dublin 2