2003:2349 - ARDREIGH, Kildare

A third season of excavation commenced at Ardreigh on 23 September 2002 and continued until 5 September 2003. This followed on from two previous seasons in 2000 and 2001. The site has previously been reported on in Excavations 2000, No. 458, 2001, No. 597, and 2002, No. 856.

The site lies 1.8km south of Athy along the proposed route of the realignment of the L18 Athy–Carlow road. A stretch of land measuring c. 350m north–south by c. 17–20m wide was under excavation. This passes through the medieval borough of Ardreigh.

The previous seasons of excavation suggested there were four major components to the site. These included limited prehistoric occupation, an Early Christian graveyard element, a medieval graveyard element, and medieval settlement and industry. The 2003 season concentrated primarily on the Early Christian and medieval graveyard aspects of the site. To date, the remains of approximately 1550 articulated and disarticulated individuals have been excavated. Approximately 1350 were recovered from this season of work alone, with probably a further 150–200 still to be resolved. This will ultimately give a total assemblage of approximately 1700–1750 individuals. The assemblage consisted of a mix of male and female, adult and sub-adult, the vast majority of which were extended supine inhumations aligned east–west with heads to the east. One sub-adult was buried with the head to the west, while a further two burials were buried in a prone position. Most of the grave-cuts suggested the bodies were buried in simple shrouds, with one shroud pin being found. However, several of the cuts appeared to be coffin-shaped. One burial contained a residue of what appeared to be bark but this was not in a coffin-shaped cut, suggesting a bark-shroud burial instead. This assemblage probably represents several hundred years of use of this site as an Early Christian and medieval graveyard. There is also some evidence that it may have been used even more recently, in the last couple of hundred years, as a cillín.

Underlying the burials, at the earliest levels of the graveyard site, were several large, curving ditches, probably representing Early Christian ecclesiastical enclosures. A kiln and several pits also date to this episode of use. Although Ardreigh is well documented as a medieval establishment, there had been no evidence, up until now, of an Early Christian element.

Finds from the site include approximately 7000 sherds of medieval pottery, five medieval coins, several decorated medieval pins, a 13th–15thcentury ring brooch, two ring pins, decorated bone comb fragments, a bone gaming piece, bone needles, two iron arrowheads, several knife blades, approximately twenty fragments of quern stones, spindle whorls, hone stones and many more miscellaneous metal, bone and stone finds. A final season of excavation will be required to completely resolve the site.

Brehon House, Kilkenny Road, Castlecomer, Co. Kilkenny