County: Kilkenny Site name: ILKENNY CASTLE, DUKESMEADOW, KILKENNY
Sites and Monuments Record No.: KK019-026078 Licence number: C455; E4249; R248
Author: Thaddeus C. Breen
Site type: Castle
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 650803m, N 655732m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.650403, -7.249205
Monitoring on behalf of the Office of Public Works took place in January and February 2011 in the courtyard and park at Kilkenny Castle. The works consisted of a replacement of the lighting system and involved the excavation of a number of trenches, 0.6m wide and 0.5m in maximum depth, both in the courtyard itself (54m x 45m) and extending a further 60m southwards into the castle park.
A number of archaeological features were discovered, mostly in the vicinity of the demolished south-east range. Six walls were uncovered, along with a stepped platform and the top of the 19th-century service tunnel that provided access to the kitchens from the street. There were two areas of cobbling, and some deposits of mortar and building or demolition waste. All the walls, with the exception of one, were left undisturbed and only the upper surface was uncovered. The sections of wall in a cutting immediately to the west of the 19th-century tunnel probably formed parts of the (medieval) south-east curtain wall and range, demolished in the 18th century and further damaged when the tunnel was constructed in 1862.
Walls found in two other cuttings differ in orientation from the existing castle buildings and are likely to relate to the 17th-century structure of which traces were found during previous work.
In a cutting to the west of the tunnel, the wall and two mortared areas relate to a structure which stood immediately outside the curtain wall. In another cutting outside the curtain wall a ‘platform’ of flat stones was found, along with a possible cobbled area. In the smaller cuttings outside the castle, the only structural feature was a small area of cobbling north-east of the North Tower.
A total of 92 artefacts were recovered (fourteen medieval, 35 post-medieval, eleven modern). They consisted of ferrous and non-ferrous metal, ceramics including pottery, clay pipe and tile artefacts, and a single burnt bone fragment. The assemblage included a medieval ring-brooch, medieval and post-medieval local and imported pottery fragments, carpentry and horseshoe nails, clay pipe bowls and stem fragments and one tile fragment. There was also a bullet casing and button from the 1919–21 period.
13 Wainsfort Crescent, Dublin 6W, for Project Director Valerie J. Keeley
