2008:659 - St Brigid’s Convent and Church, Main Street, Clane, Kildare

A programme of testing in advance of construction of a carpark and insertion of drainage pipes and an associated attenuation tank took place to the rear of St Brigid’s Convent and Church, Clane, Co. Kildare. Testing was undertaken on 20 May 2008.
The site was located on Main Street, Clane, Co. Kildare. The site is presently occupied by the former convent and national school, is adjacent to St Brigid’s Church and lies within the historic town of Clane (KD014–026). The church and convent are listed on the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage and Kildare County Council’s register of protected structures (RPS CL014–026; NIAH 11808008), as is the national school (RPS CL14–20; NIAH 11808006).
Testing comprised the machine excavation of five trenches with a combined length of 89.25m. The total area excavated was 124.95m2. After the initial series of test-trenches revealed archaeological deposits it was decided to extend the testing to allow the client to conduct geo-technical investigations, which took place on 16 July 2008. The investigations comprised of five boreholes with core sampling and direct cone penetration tests.
The archaeological deposits exposed consisted of the remains of a surface, a wall and a series of peaty deposits, all assumed to be of medieval date on the basis of medieval pottery sherds recovered. Archaeological material was identified at between 0.8m and 0.9m in two of the trenches and in one of the boreholes.
The results of these tests allowed the client to amend the development and to mitigate against direct impact on the archaeological deposits exposed during testing. Monitoring of the development was subsequently undertaken by Aisling Collins (see No. 660 below, 08E0831).