County: Laois Site name: Ballynagall 1
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 18E0428
Author: David Bayley
Site type: Kiln and isolated post-hole
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 665251m, N 683386m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.897372, -7.030206
The excavation of a kiln and isolated post-hole at Ballynagall 1 followed on from previous phases of archaeological investigations including desktop assessment, geophysical survey and test trenching, carried out as part of the N80 Maidenhead Realignment Scheme, Co. Laois. This work was undertaken on behalf of Laois County Council and Transport Infrastructure Ireland.
The excavation at Ballynagall 1 followed on from a programme of Stage (i) testing undertaken in March and April 2018 by David Bayley of IAC Ltd under licence 18E0130 (Bayley, D. and Coughlan, T. 2018).
Stage (iii) excavation works at Ballynagall 1 took place between 31 August and 5 September 2018. Two archaeological cuttings were opened for this site.
Cutting 1 contained a sub-rectangular kiln. The cut comprised of two chambers separated by a slight ridge. The chamber at the western end of the cut was slightly deeper, which could suggest that this was the location of the fire pit, with the drying chamber at the eastern end of the cut.
The only archaeological feature identified in Cutting 2 was an isolated post-hole. A stone-filled drain of modern date and another post-hole that cut this field drain were also identified in this cutting.
In Cutting 1, two north-south oriented drains were identified. One was located at the western side of the cutting, while the second was located on the eastern side of the cutting.
No artefacts were recovered during the excavation.
c/o IAC Ltd, Unit G1 Network Enterprise Park, Kilcoole, Co. Wicklow
