County: Kildare Site name: BLACKCHURCH
Sites and Monuments Record No.: KD020-027---- Licence number: 03E1607
Author: Carmel Duffy, for IAC Ltd.
Site type: Metalworking site and Burial
Period/Dating: Early Medieval (AD 400-AD 1099)
ITM: E 696637m, N 723917m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.256799, -6.551694
The site, which lies within the N7 Road Widening and Interchanges Scheme being implemented by the NRA and Kildare County Council, was identified by geophysical methods and subsequent testing. Some surfaces and ditches, slag, burnt and unburnt bone and a fragment of a lignite bracelet were found.
The ongoing excavation area now covers c. 5500m2 and consists of numerous pits, some of which are keyhole-shaped burning pits, gullies, ditches, etc., all of which lie under plough marks/cultivation ridges. A single extended inhumation burial was also found.
Finds form a typical assemblage of probable Early Christian date, namely several fragments of lignite bracelet, a perforated lignite object, probably a loom-weight, a blue glass bead, a bronze ring-headed pin and a piece of perforated bone which had small discs cut out of it.
No sign of associated occupation has been found so far. The finish date for site work is 31 March 2004.
8 Dungar Terrace, Dún Laoghaire, Co. Dublin
