2008:666 - Pipers Hill, Killashee, Kildare

Monitoring was carried out over seven days intermittently between autumn 2007 and spring 2008 (1, 2 October 2007, 16 April 2008 and 26–29 May 2008) at a development site in Pipers Hill, Killashee, Naas, Co. Kildare. The development site is a large-scale site, where an educational campus, eighteen-hole golf-course and clubhouse, office units and a nursing home are being constructed. KD024–003, an ecclesiastical complex consisting of a church and graveyard, a round tower, a souterrain and a holy well, lies partially within the site boundary and partially just beyond the south-west boundary.
Groundworks within the footprint of a 17th-century farmhouse and stables were monitored during the excavation of a basement. The surviving north and east walls of this structure are to be incorporated into the new clubhouse structure. An area c. 17m by 30m was monitored as the area was cleared by a 30-ton machine using a grading bucket, and at times a toothed bucket, to clear rubble. The foundations of the 17th-century house were 0.4m deep. At the east corner, the foundation was deeper and had been backfilled suggesting that an earlier, smaller farmhouse had originally been in the location of the later structure. The natural was a mid-yellowish-grey clay with streaks of fine grey sand. Vegetation undergrowth was cleared from the area adjacent to the cemetery wall. No burials or archaeological features were disturbed during this work. No archaeological material or remains were observed during this first phase of groundworks, although the area had previously been heavily disturbed. Monitoring is ongoing at the site.