County: Kilkenny Site name: Loughboy
Sites and Monuments Record No.: KK019-040, KK019-040001, KK019-041 Licence number: 22E0594 ext
Author: Gill McLoughlin
Site type: Cereal-drying kiln
Period/Dating: Early Medieval (AD 400-AD 1099)
ITM: E 651530m, N 653753m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.632549, -7.238770
Monitoring was carried out under an extension to the original licence over five weeks in January and February 2023 and related to the erection of protective fencing around the archaeologically sensitive area defined around sites KK019-040, KK019-040001 and KK019-041, and topsoil stripping outside the archaeologically sensitive area.
Subsequent to topsoil stripping being completed outside the archaeologically sensitive area, another company was engaged by the client to deal with the archaeologically sensitive area and that work was carried out under a separate licence.
The only feature of archaeological interest identified during topsoil stripping was an oval cereal-drying kiln uncovered to the south of the archaeologically sensitive area. The kiln measured 1.6m east-west x 1.2m x 0.5m deep. Radiocarbon dating of a sample of charred barley from the fill of the kiln returned a date range in the 7th-8th century AD (645-773 AD), indicating that this feature is most likely to have been associated with settlement at enclosure KK019-040 where archaeological excavations were previously carried out in the 1990’s.
c/o Courtney Deery Heritage Consultancy, Lynwood House, Ballinteer Road, Dublin 16
