Burial

The National Monuments Service's description

Three post-medieval human burials uncovered in two separate archaeological test-excavations by Andrew Gittens (02E0485) and Cóilín Ó Drisceoil (06E0306) in a former walled garden known as the 'Deanery Orchard', now a park and carpark, 40m SE of St Canice's Cathedral (KK019-026029-) (Gittins 2004, 272-3; Ó Drisceoil 2006, unpublished; 2009, 273-5).The Deanery Orchard site is depicted, almost exactly as it appears today, on John Rocque’s 1758 map of Kilkenny, the only difference being the division of the area into three enclosures by stone fences that were added in the 19th century. Before it was the orchard for the Deanery (KK019-026033-) on the opposite (W) side of Coach Road (built 1690), it formed part of the plot of the manse house (KK019-026106-) for the precentor of the cathedral in the Cathedral Close. A single isolated human burial was discovered in the NE of the Deanery Orchard, 15m outside (to S of) the present boundary wall of St Canice’s graveyard (KK019-026171-) during the test-excavations. This was an extended inhumation of an adult (sex unknown) orientated E-W, with the head to the W. Its grave-cut (1.6m E-W x 0.75m N-S) contained glazed red earthenware pottery of 18th/19th-century date and was dug into a post-medieval cultivation soil. Two further burials, an E-W orientated infant with its head to the W, and an adjacent burial identified by its partially exposed grave-cut, were located in the centre of the main, W, compartment of the Deanery Orchard (Gittins 2004, 272-3). Rather than indicating the graveyard extended into the Deanery Orchard these burials can probably be regarded as an outlying, extra-mural, interments. The burials were all preserved in situ.

Compiled by: Cóilín Ó Drisceoil

Date of upload: 5 November 2020

References

Gittens, M. 2004 Saint Canice’s Orchard, Coach Road/Church Lane. In I. Bennett (ed.), Excavations 2002: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, no. 1006, 272-3. Bray. Wordwell.

Ó Drisceoil, C. 2006 Archaeological Assessment: Proposed Carpark Development at The Deanery Orchard, St. Canice’s Cathedral, Kilkenny City 06E0306, (Kilkenny Archaeology, unpublished report).

Ó Drisceoil, C. 2009 The Deanery Orchard, St Canice’s Cathedral, Kilkenny. In I. Bennett (ed.), Excavations 2006: summary accounts of archaeological excavations in Ireland, No. 1062, 273-5. Bray. Wordwell.