2022:221 - Loughboy, Kilkenny

Testing was carried out pre-planning at Loughboy, approximately 2km south of the centre of Kilkenny City. The testing follows an archaeological excavation carried out at the site in 1998 (Hurley, 1999), where enclosure KK019-040 and burials KK019-040001 were excavated in advance of a development which never took place. At that time, recorded enclosure KK019-041 was not detected. More recently a geophysical survey was carried out (Leigh 2022) in an attempt to establish whether there were any further remains associated with the excavated site.

The testing took place over six days from 10 August 2022 and a ditched enclosure was identified in the east of the site that corresponded with a faint trend indicated in the geophysical survey. The ditch measured up to 2.2m wide and 0.68m deep and contained a gravelly fill with inclusions of animal bone. This enclosure may have been truncated from above but appears to be otherwise intact and may represent the remnants of ditched enclosure KK019-041, which eluded discovery during previous site investigations.

Human remains were discovered in four trenches, mostly in the area between the previously investigated ditched enclosure KK019-040 and the newly discovered ditched enclosure to the southeast. The remains were identified in Trenches T7, T8, T11 and T25 and were found just below the shallow topsoil, as little as 0.15m below the ground surface, and appeared to be heavily disturbed. There was little indication that any of these remains were in situ articulated remains, however it is possible that some of them may be. An antler gaming piece was also recovered from the ditch fill in T25.

Enclosure KK019-040 (Site A), which was previously investigated in the 1990’s, was identified in trenches T7, T8 and T5, and a ditch feature to the southeast identified in T8, T25 and possibly also T12 may represent an associated outer enclosure. In trenches T7 and T8 the ditch appeared to be intact and measured up to 1.3m wide, but was quite shallow and is likely to have been somewhat truncated from above. In trench T5 to the north it appeared more truncated and only measured 0.53m wide x 0.22m deep. Human remains were found both in the enclosing ditch in T7 and just below the topsoil in both T7 and T8. In T8 the human remains were found within the interior of what appeared to be the main enclosure KK019-040.

Specialist analysis of the human bone assemblage recovered during testing produced evidence for a minimum of eight individuals, representing a minimum of four adults (including one male) and four juveniles.

The antler gaming piece was a pegged conical example, fashioned from the tip of an antler tine and the closest parallels are from excavations on Viking-age sites at High Street, Winetavern Street, Fishamble Street and Christchurch Place in Dublin.

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