County: Kilkenny Site name: GRAIGUENAMANAGH
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 29:18 Licence number: 01E0492 and 01E0949
Author: Rose M. Cleary, Department of Archaeology, University College Cork
Site type: Graveyard
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 670535m, N 643845m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.541383, -6.960168
Monitoring was undertaken in tandem with the development and upgrading of a sewerage scheme. Monitoring was concentrated in a greenfield location in Brandondale townland, on the west side of the town and within the historic core area. The Brandondale area was archaeologically sterile.
During monitoring in the Chapel Street section of the project, a small part of a graveyard was uncovered and a number of graves were excavated. This excavation (01E0949) uncovered the remains of c. fifteen burials and some displaced bone, presumably from successive burials. One section where the burials were particularly concentrated had two to three successive burials and associated grave-cuts. These were located adjacent to the modern burial-ground on the north-east of the abbey. The medieval burial-ground is recorded as being on the south-east side of the abbey. There is, however, a record of burials being discovered from the 19th century onwards during road repairs and road-widening at the junction of Chapel Street/Barrow Lane. The burials were within a 10m-long section of pipe trench. The ground conditions are ORS-derived sandy soil and are not conducive to bone preservation. Consequently, bones are in a poor state of preservation and only the denser bones (fibia, femur, some skull parts, etc.) survived.
All the burials appear to be of adults. The grave-cuts were generally simple pits. One exception was a square-shaped cut, which has associated iron nails, presumably from a coffin. The bones in that instance did not survive.
