County: Kilkenny Site name: James’s Green, Kilkenny
Sites and Monuments Record No.: KK019-026065 Licence number: 12E0158
Author: Patrick JH Neary
Site type: URBAN MEDIEVAL
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 650190m, N 655904m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.652006, -7.258237
The site at James’s Green is located to the west of St Mary’s RC Cathedral built in the mid-19th century and lies at a distance of 125-200m from the line of the city walls.
Research shows that the affected area is partly within the zone identified in the Historic Towns Atlas as being of 13th-century origin and it is also reported as the site where the severed heads of seven of Cromwell’s government troops were buried in 1642.
Monitoring of excavations for duct-laying resulted in the identification of the surface that existed before the enclosure of the area in the mid-20th century. Also exposed was a drain that is interpreted as being the final phase of the watercourse that once flowed from St Rioch’s Well/Walkin’s Lough, through the green to the River Breagagh, which diminished over time. Part of the foundations of a circular stone feature that was erected between the time that Rocque produced his map in 1758 and the 1st edition of the OS c.1840 was also exposed.
Most significantly however was the discovery of human skeletal remains. Initially it was thought that these might have been the skulls of the soldiers that are reported to have been buried here in 1642, but excavation demonstrated that the interment of an intact double-burial disturbed the remains of at least three earlier inhumations whose disturbed skeletal remains were re-interred in the grave-fill of an adult and infant child whose remains were left in situ at a depth of 0.7m. Sherds of locally produced 14th-century pottery (identified by Cóilín Ó Drisceoil) were found in the grave-fill. This evidence strongly suggests that the area was once a cemetery and was probably attached to the chapel of St James which was demolished, along with two others, in the mid-14th century by Bishop de Ledrede who used the stones and timbers from the three chapels to build his new Episcopal Palace which has developed over time into what is now the headquarters of The Heritage Council.
Medieval and post-medieval pottery, an array of butchered animal bones and teeth, glass and some metal objects were also found.
24 Talbot’s Inch Village, Freshford Road, Kilkenny
