2011:376 - BALLYMARTIN/SMITHSTOWN, Kilkenny

Test excavations followed by full excavations were carried out in compliance with a condition of planning for a wind farm development and the recommendations of an Environmental Impact Study compiled by the author. The development involved the installation of an additional wind turbine, the relocation of a permitted turbine, and modifications to the internal site road networks. Seventeen test trenches were excavated in Smithstown and Ballymartin townlands. Nothing of significance was noted apart from in the area of Turbine 4, at the highest point of Ballymartin hill (230m), an isolated prominence that forms part of the uplands of ‘Bishop’s Mountain’, overlooking the valley of the River Arrigle in south Kilkenny. This area is renowned for its wealth of prehistoric archaeology and includes the court tomb at Farnoge and the portal tomb at Newmarket. A wedge tomb occupies the eastern flank of Ballymartin hill, and in the immediate vicinity of the excavation site are two prehistoric standing stones and a stone row, all of which mark the locale out as part of the wider prehistoric landscape. A suite of ringforts in the surrounding lowlands attest to settlement in the area in the early historic period. Following the Anglo-Norman conquest, Smithstown formed the western part of the Miles fitz David, later de Frayne, manor of Listerlin in the cantred of Iverk.

The excavation area measured 64m east–west by 25m. Within this there was a 28m section of a north-west/south-east-running track that was flanked on either side by a shallow drainage ditch. A fine example of an iron and copper-alloy-plated rowel spur of 13th–14th-century date was recovered from the silted fill of the southern ditch. There were no other associated finds. In the western half of the excavation cutting a 26m-long section of a north–south field ditch of probable 18th–19th-century date was excavated.

Kilkenny Archaeology, Threecastles, County Kilkenny