County: Kilkenny Site name: Legan
Sites and Monuments Record No.: - Licence number: 06E1224
Author: Emma Devine, for Kilkenny Archaeology, Unit 11, Abbey Business Centre, Kilkenny, Co. Kilkenny.
Site type: No archaeological significance
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 668359m, N 652003m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.614967, -6.990551
An assessment was requested, as the proposed development lies within the area of constraint for KK025–015, ‘ecclesiastical remains’, and adjacent to the adjoining area of constraint of KK025–016, an ‘earthwork (site)’ at Legan, Thomastown. The ecclesiastical remains referred to are of a daughter abbey of Jerpoint, the Cistercian foundation of Kilkenny, founded by Felix O’Dulany c. 1165 (Carrigan 1905, vol iv, 279). Carrigan states that O’Dulany was, within six years of the commitment of construction at Jerpoint abbey, ‘able to send a body of monks thence, sufficient to establish a daughter abbey at Killenny, now Barrowmount, in the country of O’Ryan’ (Carrigan 1905, vol i, 23).
No surface trace now remains, largely due to the presence of a layer of rubble and rubbish to a depth of c. 2m across the majority of the proposed development site dumped by the County Council during construction of an adjacent roadway in the latter half of the last century. Testing failed to uncover anything of archaeological significance on the proposed development area.
Reference
Carrigan, Rev. 1905 The history and antiquities of the Diocese of Ossory. 4 vols (reprint Kilkenny 1981).
