Architectural feature

The National Monuments Service's description

National Monument No. 510. Several architectural features are visible in a stretch of N-S wall forming the W side of a courtyard at the rear of the 19th century house known as Castle Bernard. There are 3 windows inserted into this wall one of which is a plain rectangular flat headed window, the other two are twin light mullioned ogee headed windows one of which has an external hood-mould visible. It is not clear if these features are original to this wall or if they were taken from the medieval church (OF036-040001-) in the village of Kinnitty and inserted into the courtyard wall of Castle Bernard in the nineteenth century. A hole was dug in the SE corner of the courtyard at the rear of the 19th century house known as Castle Bernard in 1982. The hole (top Wth. 0.55m; base Wth. 0.9m) revealed traces of a human burial which may have belonged to a burial ground although no evidence for other burials was revealed in the sections of the excavated hole. Inside this hole there was evidence for an earlier wall at a depth of 0.58m of a possible building underneath the 19th century courtyard wall. (ASI file 1982).

The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Offaly' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1997). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research.

Date of upload: 23 May 2011