County: Meath Site name: KILLEEN CASTLE, Killeen Demesne
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 00E0067
Author: John Ó Néill, Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd.
Site type: Watercourse, Structure, Designed landscape - tree-ring and Road - road/trackway
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 693130m, N 754821m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.535081, -6.595106
Testing was carried out in the area around Killeen Castle and its manorial church as part of a proposed development. Earlier testing had been carried out by Rosanne Meenan (Excavations 1996, 87, and Excavations 1999, 238, 96E0001).
Killeen Castle was gutted in a fire in 1981 and is to be restored as part of the development. Other elements of the development, including a golf-course, required the testing of a number of other features in the grounds around the castle.
Trenches 1 and 2 were opened across a cropmark feature, visible as a slight fold in the ground some 300m east of the castle. No archaeological finds were made in either trench, confirming the feature as geological in origin.
Trench 3 was opened across the line of a building indicated on the first edition OS map alongside a watercourse and pond. Testing revealed that most of the area had been heavily disturbed when the stream was culverted during landscaping, probably under the direction of James Shiels in the 1840s. Further testing is to be carried out in this location in 2001.
Trenches 4 and 5 were opened across parallel linear features, some 400m south of the castle. The trenches, 14m and 13m long respectively, revealed a single deposit of grey, silty clays containing angular fragments of limestone and occasional pieces of cattle bone. This deposit was 11m long in both trenches and was 0.4–0.6m deep. No datable finds were recovered from either trench.
Trench 6 was opened across the line of a circular gully, measuring 25m in diameter. The gully was 1.2m wide and around 0.1–0.2m deep and had been cut through the topsoil c. 0.1m from the modern ground surface. The base of the gully, a mere 0.3m from the modern ground surface, had exposed some of the limestone bedrock. This site was interpreted as a tree ring.
Trench 7, 8m long and 2m wide, was opened perpendicular to a linear feature running alongside a 15th-century wayside cross (SMR 38:31). The linear feature was found to be a trackway, constructed of a 2.6m-wide layer of limestone blocks and chips in a mid-brown, clayey matrix, which also included some redbrick fragments. This surface had been laid over a centrally placed stone-lined drain, 0.4m wide and 0.5m deep. This trackway most likely dates to the 18th century, rather than the 15th century as suggested by the cross. While re-laying of the track in the 18th century may have removed an earlier structure, it is more likely that the cross was moved to its current location at that date.
Trench 8 was opened across the line of a roughly square cropmark feature, measuring about 30m by 30m. The test-trench revealed a double drain feature, with two stone-lined drains set 1.3m apart within a 1.8m-wide shallow depression. This feature is indicated as wooded on the first edition OS map and is probably another demesne feature.
Further testing is to be carried out in 2001.
2 Killiney View, Albert Road Lower, Glenageary, Co. Dublin
