2011:602 - ST PATRICK’S CHURCH, WATERFORD, Waterford

St Patrick’s Church and graveyard is situated on the west side of Waterford city, immediately inside the circuit of the town wall. The graveyard is a roughly rectangular area, 70m east–west x 40m, and is bounded on its four sides by high stone walls. The western boundary is formed by the town wall/east wall of the Elizabethan St Patrick’s Fort. The north side of the graveyard is occupied by a well-maintained three-bay, single-storey rubble stone church, probably built in the later 17th century to replace a medieval church that served the nearby suburban population of Ballybricken.
Two phases of assessment were undertaken for a proposed extension to the church. The first involved a desk-study and the excavation of four test pits in May 2009 (Excavations 2009, no. 823, 09E0223). The second phase was undertaken in October 2011 following redesign and comprised the excavation of a further six test pits, excavated under licence 11E0391. Nine of the 1m test pits were excavated within the proposed footprint of an extension to the existing church. These were aimed primarily at identifying the level at which articulated human skeletons were present, as well as any other archaeological deposits, features or structures. The testing concluded that articulated human remains were present in seven of the test pits. These occurred at a maximum depth of 24.04m OD (test trench 1) and a minimum depth of 25.33m OD (test trench 7). The depth of the articulated burials below ground level varied from 0.52m (test pit 4) to 1m (test pit 7). The average depth at which articulated burials were found was 0.73m. The majority of deposits also contained disarticulated human bone and post-medieval artefacts, including coffin fittings. There was no artefactual evidence to suggest that many of the interments pre-dated c. 1700. The burial in test-pit 1, however, wastruncated by the 18th-century west wall of the church nave, suggesting an early date for this burial. The test excavations also determined that a rectangular stone burial-vault measuring 5.4m long (min.) x 1.2m high (min.) is present beneath the western entrance porch of the church. Three additional vaults, all of brick, were identified in the graveyard test pits. Five Victorian altar-tombs and 24 gravestones are present within the footprint of the proposed extension. Since vaults are generally (though not exclusively) associated with altar-tombs, it can be stated that at least a further five vaults may be present within the development’s footprint. Inside the church, the single test pit that was excavated (test pit 10) indicated rubble make-up to a depth of 0.9m over a pounded earth floor level. A limestone graveslab of late 17th- or early 18th-century date was set into this floor level. It is expected that further excavation will take place on the site in 2012.

Kilkenny Archaeology, Threecastles, Co. Kilkenny