2006:1188 - PORTLAOISE: St Fintan’s Burial-ground, Laois

An assessment was carried out in May 2006 on behalf of the Midland Health Board in advance of a proposed development within the grounds of St Fintan’s Hospital, Portlaoise, between the old Dublin road and the Stradbally road, on the eastern outskirts of Portlaoise town. The proposed development involves the erection of a new health care building. Assessment and testing was carried out to establish the limit of a known early 19th-century burial-ground, in order to avoid any impact and to formally delimit the burial-ground for the future.

St Fintan’s Hospital, formerly a lunatic asylum, was constructed between 1831 and 1833. A burial-ground appears on the second- and third-edition OS maps of 1889 and 1902 in association with a mortuary in the vicinity of the proposed health care building, Although the burial-ground was not listed in the RMP and no aboveground trace remains of the site, a low earthwork and parch mark is visible in summer, and local legend links the burial-ground to a cholera mass grave for the citizens of the town in the late 19th century.

The proposed development is located 100m north of the zone of potential of LA013–045, which is listed as a ringfort, and 1km east of the zone of archaeological potential for Portlaoise town (LA014–041). Testing aimed to establish the nature and extent of the burial-ground, so that the proposed development can proceed without impacting upon it, and to incorporate the burial-ground into a memorial garden.

Testing revealed a large concrete building, surviving to its original floor level, which is likely to be the mortuary building, and a gravel pathway associated with the mortuary, and to the building front a doorway in the southern boundary wall of the hospital precinct. Secondary features were also revealed, including three shallow post-holes, possibly marking the site of a perimeter fence, a linear concrete wall fragment of similar type and construction to the mortuary structure and a linear cut feature of unknown origin, possibly a grave-cut. However, no grave-cuts were positively identified in testing and the use of a mass grave or very deep sealed graves is a possibility.

No archaeological features of an earlier post-medieval or medieval date were revealed in testing and development was allowed to proceed.