2010:413 - St Lachtain’s, Freshford Lots, Freshford, Kilkenny

In March 2010 human skeletal remains were discovered by county council workers whilst laying a new path outside the west door of St Lachtain’s Church, Freshford. The work was being carried out as part of the published conservation plan (Heritage Council 2004) for the site. The church is still in use by the Church of Ireland and is located on the early medieval monastic site that is reputed to have been founded by Saint Lachtain in the 7th century. The western half of the church incorporates a 10th/11th-century stone church with projecting antae and a fine mid-12th-century Romanesque porch and doorway constructed of dressed sandstone masonry. In the 13th century the church was extended eastwards to form a new chancel. Newbridge Street, which runs immediately outside the west door, was constructed through the former graveyard in the late 18th century and there are local reports that this disturbed human remains. Skeletons were also investigated in the nave of the church by Ben Murtagh in 2001 (Excavations 2001, No. 686, 01E815) and off-set plinths for the antae at the west end of the church were uncovered.
The excavation area, which measured 35m north–south and 3m wide (maximum), followed the line of the path from the northern entrance to the graveyard to the corner of Kilkenny Street in the south. The area was cleaned back to record the surface archaeology and the retrieval of bones was limited to scattered disarticulated remains on the surface and the lifting of any in situ bone that was in immediate danger. Up to nineteen individual burials were identified and these were examined on-site by osteoarchaeologist Linda Lynch; further analysis of the bones that were taken off-site was subsequently undertaken. All but two of the interments were in simple earth-cut graves and two neat rows of burials were identified with little intercutting, pointing towards a relatively well-ordered cemetery in this location. However, there was some evidence for phasing: two of the burials overlay earlier interments. Just one child burial was identified amongst the nineteen and the area was most probably given over primarily to adults. There was no evidence that coffins were used and instead wrapping and binding of the bodies was noted. Two of the graves were stone-lined, one of which was immediately outside the west door and finely built. The skeleton within this grave was not exposed but it must have been an individual of high status.
Not surprisingly, the evidence of dental and skeletal pathological lesions is limited, given that such a small quantity of bone was removed for analysis. Calculus deposits, carious lesions, and hypoplastic defects were present on the teeth, and there was congenital absence of a third molar. Degenerative joint disease and metabolic disease, muscle truama, and internal frontal hyperostosis were identified on the skeletal remains and all these are relatively common findings in archaeological populations.
Two of the skeletons (B11 and B12) were of particular interest. B11, a male of 25–45 years old, exhibited injuries consistent with a frenzied assault with a blunt-force weapon. The skeletal evidence suggests that the individual had suffered at least ten individual injuries on the cranium and mandible, with injuries also present on the first and second cervical vertebrae. He had also been incompletely decapitated. The second individual, B12, lay beside B11 and was an adult (further sexing and ageing was not possible) that had his right arm severed at the time of death. The age of both these skeletons is not known at the time of writing – radiocarbon dates are awaited – but it is tempting to associate them with the famous three-day battle of Achadh-Úr that took place near Freshford in 1169 between the combined forces of Irish, Norman and Wexford Norse troops under Diarmait Mac Murchada and the troops of the Mac Gilla Patric King of Ossory.
A 1.8m-diameter circular pit had been dug, possibly in the 17th century, immediately to the north-west of the entrance porch and filled with broken medieval grave slabs. Four fragments, representing three individual slabs, were visible on the surface and were removed for display on-site. The three burial monuments were typical Anglo-Norman cross-inscribed slabs of 13th–14th-century date. Perhaps they were placed in the pit during clearance at the time of the iconoclast Bishop Bale who lived for a time at the episcopal manor of nearby Uppercourt. Following the completion of the archaeological investigation, the laying of the footpath continued with archaeological monitoring. Nothing further of interest was noted during the course of these works.