County: Wicklow Site name: KILCOOLE
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 02E1372
Author: E. Eoin Sullivan, on behalf of ADS Ltd.
Site type: Pit
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 729594m, N 707943m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.106300, -6.064500
The removal of topsoil and groundworks associated with the construction of a private domestic house at Kilcoole, Co. Wicklow, were monitored in early September 2002. The site is c. 0.5km north-east of the village of Kilcoole. The name of Kilcoole translates as the ‘Church of the Comhghall’ (Flanagan and Flanagan 1994), and the village is on an old medieval commonage. The site is near two archaeological monuments, a 12th-century church (SMR 13:29) and a holy well (SMR 13:30). It is on flat, level land, the western extent of which is marshy low-lying ground. There is a small stream at the centre of the marshy ground. The holy well is in the adjacent field to the north-west. Topsoil was removed from an area measuring a maximum of 25m (north–south) by 18m.
Two sherds of medieval pottery (a jug handle and a basal sherd) were discovered during the monitoring. A circular pit was exposed, with a fill of burnt stones (c. 20%) in a friable clay matrix, cut into the natural boulder clay. It was 1.1m in diameter and 0.25m deep and lay 40m east of the stream. The pit was on the line of the foundation trench for the rear wall of the building and so was excavated. No artefacts were recovered from it. The function and date cannot be ascertained on the basis of its excavation. Its location, close to the margins of marshy ground that forms the western perimeter of the site, may be an indication that the pit was associated with a fulacht fiadh. No evidence of a fulacht fiadh was uncovered during the monitoring, nor were any surface indications of a burnt mound visible during an inspection of the field.
Reference
Flanagan, D. and Flanagan, L. 1994 Irish place names. Dublin.
Windsor House, 11 Fairview Strand, Fairview, Dublin 3
