2010:370 - Ballycarty, Kerry

A large, possibly 17th-century, building is located at the north-east corner of a small housing development in Ballycarty townland, Tralee, Co. Kerry. The structure is situated on the west bank of an unnamed tributary of the River Lee. This unusual building has often been referred to locally as a castle or a mill. It would appear that the current edifice was an earlier 17th-century defended structure that was added or remodelled in the post-Cromwellian period. The building is structurally unsafe and consolidation works are proposed.
In advance of the consolidation works, a single cutting 1.2m in width and 1m in length was excavated to an average depth of 0.35m by hand over the visible extant ragged limits of an internal rib wall to determine its subsurface extent in order to expose a consolidation footing for possible future conservation works. The small keyhole excavation revealed a number of fallen or tumbled limestone within a dark organic-rich topsoil that lay directly on the subsurface remains of the 0.45m-thick rib-wall that was exposed for a distance of 0.7m. No further excavation was required and no finds were recovered.