2025:732 - Building 7, Abbey Quarter (Gardens Townland, St Mary’s Parish) Kilkenny City, Kilkenny

Archaeological works in 2025 at Building 7, Kilkenny Abbey Quarter consisted of monitoring the removal of concrete overburden and archaeological test excavations. Building 7 is located within the historic town of Kilkenny (KK019-026—-), and the site partly overlaps the known extent of St Francis’ Abbey national monument (SMR KK019-026101; NIAH 12000008; national monument no. 72). This was also the site of the former Smithwick’s/Diageo brewery.

This site has previously been subject to archaeological test excavations in 2018 (2018:904), monitoring of site investigations in 2022 (2022:068), and additional archaeological test excavations in 2023. The development received planning permission in 2024.

Archaeological monitoring of the removal of a reinforced concrete slab from the demolished Smithwick’s/Diageo brewery was carried out in February and March 2025. This slab was up to 1 m thick and, in some locations, up to 2 m thick. These works uncovered walls and garden layers in twelve defined areas (A–L) associated with the eighteenth- to early twentieth-century brewery buildings, as well as pile caps and reinforced concrete foundations for the later twentieth–century Smithwick’s/Diageo brewery.

Archaeological test excavation in August 2025 consisted of four test trenches. These test trenches identified post-medieval urban garden deposits, a millrace, a refuse pit, and gullies, all predating the brewery, and masonry walls, paving, and a stone drain associated with the late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century brewery buildings. The walls matched the outline of buildings depicted on historical maps. No evidence was found for medieval burials, buildings, or structures associated with St Francis’ Abbey. Areas of the site were truncated by modern piles, services, and foundations of the Smithwick’s/Diageo brewery. Finds retrieved included various post-medieval pottery sherds, clay tobacco pipe fragments, and slate roof tiles, plus one sherd of medieval pottery. Other cultural material recovered included brick, animal bone, oyster shell, peat, and coal.