Ecclesiastical enclosure

The National Monuments Service's description

An ecclesiastical enclosure for the early medieval church of Domhnach Mór, occupied by St Patrick's graveyard (KK019-026172-) on Patrick Street Upper. The earliest historical reference to the church site occurs in the writings of Tírechán c. 680 where it is referred to as the ‘Martartech’ ('house-of-relics') and this is repeated in the Life of Patrick known as the Vita Tripartitia, written between 895 and 901 (Bradley 1997; Bradley 2000, 13; Farrelly et al. 1993, 79). The site is also identified in the 12th-century Life of Canice (Bradley 1997). The placename ‘Domhnach Mór’ is recognised as a 5th or 6th century borrowing from the Latin, Dominicum, meaning a church. With the rise in the 8th and 9th centuries of St Canice’s church (KK019-026029-), St. Patrick’s became somewhat side-lined and with the diocesan reforms of the 12th century the lands of the church came under the see of Ossory.
When the Hightown of Kilkenny was established in the late 12th century the new town parish of St Mary was created and St. Patrick’s became an extra-mural suburb known as the borough of Donaghmore (Bradley 1997). Despite its early importance there is nothing within or near the churchyard that can be said with certainty to be of pre-Norman date. Such sites were generally enclosed within large circular enclosures and traces of an inner ecclesiastical enclosure may be represented by the curving northern boundary wall of the present graveyard. In addition, test-excavations (05E1409) in 2005 by Cóilín Ó Drisceoil of a site on Father Hayden Road 5m outside (S of) the S boundary wall of St Patrick’s graveyard identified a large NE-SW curving ditch (Wth < 4m) containing animal bone (Ó Drisceoil 2005, unpublished; 2006). This may represent part of the S circuit of the inner ecclesiastical enclosure.

Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

Date of upload: 4 April 2022

References

Bradley, J. 2000 Kilkenny. Irish Historic Towns Atlas no. 10. Dublin. Royal Irish Academy.

Bradley, J. 1997 The tomb of Anastatia Tobyn at St. Patrick’s churchyard, Kilkenny. In J. Kirwan (ed.), Kilkenny: studies in honour of Margaret M. Phelan, 21-27. Kilkenny. The Kilkenny Archaeological Society.

Ó Drisceoil, C. 2005 Archaeological impact assessment: proposed single-house development at Fr. Hayden’s Road, Kilkenny City. Kilkenny Archaeology. Unpublished report.

Ó Drisceoil, C. 2008 Father Hayden Road, Kilkenny: urban, early medieval, 05E1409. In Bennett, I. (ed.), Excavations 2005: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, 198, no. 813. Dublin. Wordwell.

Farrelly, J., O'Reilly, B., and Loughran, A. 1993 Urban archaeological survey - county Kilkenny (2 vols.). Unpublished report commissioned by the Office of Public Works, Dublin.