2006:1966 - BALLYDUFF EAST, Ballyduff National School, Waterford

Test-trenches were dug here in November 2006. The site is a national school, Scoil Náisiúnta Baile Uí Dhuibh, in Ballyduff East, Kilmeadon, Co. Waterford. The present building was built in 1972, but the original school was established across the road to the south-west, in 1835. The present school is to be expanded at its south-eastern part.

The site lies in the environs of an early church site. The present building replaced a thatched chapel which, according to Canon Power’s History of the Dioceses of Waterford and Lismore, ‘stood on the opposite side of the road a couple of perches to the north-east. This chapel seems itself to have been the successor of a temporary Penal Days’ Mass house at Carriganure.’ The Grand Jury map of 1818 clearly shows it in this position.

The ten trenches tested were excavated to the naturally deposited subsoil. None showed any traces of archaeological features. The depth of the topsoil varied between 0.3 and 0.53m. The only find, a sherd of glazed cream plate, from Trench B, was not archaeologically significant and probably dates to the 19th century. The overburden in the three trenches in front of the school, Trenches I, J and K, contained some rubble which included red brick. This may have in part derived from the buildings evident on the 1924 OS map that are now demolished, in the area of the carpark in front of the school. An inverted T-shaped building evident in the map is echoed in a building in the first-edition 1840 map. In the opinion of the writer this may be the remains of the chapel depicted on the 1818 Grand Jury map; added to, but surviving in the cartographic record over 100 years later. Unfortunately this appears to have been cleared for a public carpark in the recent past.

7 Bayview, Tramore, Co. Waterford