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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Structure

Dunbell Big, County Kilkenny, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Structure, Dunbell Big, County Kilkenny, with a pin at the register's coordinates
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915), covering this location. Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. The pin is ours, placed from the register's coordinates.

The record

Townland
Dunbell Big
County
Kilkenny
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Not indicated
Latest-edition OS map
Not indicated
Coordinates
52.61804, -7.17806
SMR number
KK024-010007-

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

4 historical maps cover this location, the earliest the 1790 map "Composite: Ireland." (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).

Historical maps covering this location

  • 1790 · Composite: Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1869 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1891 · Ireland 16 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1911 · Sheet 14, 1911 (University Library, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

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This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗

The National Monuments Service's description

Between September 1990 and January 1991 remote sensing and trial trenching was carried out at a ringfort (KK024-010001-) in Dunbell Big (Cassidy 1990, 38-9; Cassidy 1991, 18-20). Excavations in the interior uncovered the remains of a circular structure (Cassidy 1990, 39). According to Cassidy (1991, 19-20), this circular structure, ‘had a porched east entrance. It was 6m in diameter and was probably wattle-built as traces of posthole remains were found in the foundation trench. There were no features surviving inside the house and the absence of a hearth area in particular leads to speculation on the function of the building’. A square house (KK024-010006-) was uncovered immediately to the N and the excavator suggested that, ‘the structure is sited alongside the square house yet does not overlap or interfere with it. This might suggest contemporaneity’ (ibid. 20).

Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

Date of upload: 9 November 2021

References

Cassidy, B. 1991 Dunbell ringfort No. 5, Dunbell Big. In I. Bennett (ed.), Excavations 1990: summary accounts of excavations in Ireland, 38-9. Bray. Wordwell.

Cassidy, B. 1991 Digging at Dunbell Big. Archaeology Ireland 5, no. 2, 18-20.

Nearby in the register

Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.

Sites and Monuments Record data: National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Record text is reproduced unchanged. National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland · CC BY 4.0
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