Kilkenny Archaeology

25/02/2026

05/02/2026

With flooding in the news it's worth reminding ourselves that over half of the medieval town of Kilkenny was constructed on ground that was reclaimed in the thirteenth century from the floodplains of the rivers Nore and Breagagh. This map was produced by plotting the occurrences of medieval and early modern floodplain reclamation archaeology and the pre reclamation alluvial river deposits in archaeological and geotechnical investigations throughout the city and relating them to its contours. Remarkably, the massive campaign to narrow the river and build into its former floodplain was achieved over the course of a short few decades in the 13th century. You can read more about Kilkenny's reclamation archaeology in C. Ó Drisceoil, 2003,‘Kilkenny Reclaimed: The Archaeological Evidence for Medieval Reclamation in Kilkenny City’ Old Kilkenny Review 58.

https://kilkennyarchaeologicalsociety.ie/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/OKR2003-58-Coilin-O-Drisceoil-Kilkenny-reclaimed-the-archaeological-evidence-for-medieval-reclamation-in-Kilkenny-city.pdf

24/11/2025

Please note that as a mark of respect for the untimely death of the Chairperson of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society, Rev’d Canon Ian Coulter, the lecture scheduled for this Wednesday (26th Nov.), has been deferred and will be rescheduled to a later date.

My sincere condolences to his wife Daphne, his son Rian, his daughter Ailbhe, and to all the members of his wider family and his many, many friends at this very difficult time.

Kilkenny Archaeological Society Lecture, Wednesday 26 November, 8.00pm at Rothe House

The Stonyford Roman Burial: New Research and Discoveries (Speaker: Cóilín Ó Drisceoil)

In 1852, a remarkable set of Roman funerary objects (a glass cremation urn, a bronze mirror, and a phial) was uncovered near Stonyford. Long debated as either a genuine Roman cremation or a 19th-century fabrication, research (including a fresh geophysical survey) now strongly supports its authenticity and reveals a richer archaeological landscape than previously understood.

This talk will explore the discovery, the newly identified findspot, and what these insights tell us about the extent of the Roman cultural presence in Kilkenny.

📍 Rothe House
🕗 Wednesday 26 November 2025, 8.00pm
💶 Members €8 | Non-Members €10
All are welcome. Please share!

21/11/2025

Kilkenny Archaeological Society Lecture, Wednesday 26 November, 8.00pm at Rothe House

The Stonyford Roman Burial: New Research and Discoveries (Speaker: Cóilín Ó Drisceoil)

In 1852, a remarkable set of Roman funerary objects (a glass cremation urn, a bronze mirror, and a phial) was uncovered near Stonyford. Long debated as either a genuine Roman cremation or a 19th-century fabrication, research (including a fresh geophysical survey) now strongly supports its authenticity and reveals a richer archaeological landscape than previously understood.

This talk will explore the discovery, the newly identified findspot, and what these insights tell us about the extent of the Roman cultural presence in Kilkenny.

📍 Rothe House
🕗 Wednesday 26 November 2025, 8.00pm
💶 Members €8 | Non-Members €10
All are welcome. Please share!

14/11/2025

The late 13th century Dominican Black Abbey, Kilkenny has dozens of mason's marks on its stonework. Medieval mason's marks served multiple purposes, including identifying the craftsperson who prepared a stone (banker marks), for example a fine stylised fleur-de-lis in the south transept; and acting as assembly marks so stones could be correctly positioned and joined. The simple V’s incised into the wedge-shaped stones - 'voussoirs' - used to build the arches in the south nave arcade are likely to have been used at the time to quantify piece work by the stone cutters. You can also see indentations in many of these stones that were formed by the iron tongs that lifted the pieces into place. Many of the columns in the South transept also have small rectangular slots, subsequently filled, that supported the formwork for building the arch.

12/11/2025

French and Spanish wine was one of the chief imports into medieval Kilkenny. The wine was brought in casks upriver from the ports of Waterford and New Ross, but before it reached Kilkenny the wine had to be transferred onto smaller boats owned by the fishermen at Inistioge. In 1537 there was a complaint made by the city to the king's council in London that the fishermen of Inistioge were breaking open the casks, drinking the wine, and then filling them again with water!

05/11/2025

Sitting within the railed garden outside the east wall of the south transept of the Black Abbey, Kilkenny is a very unusual and beautifully carved statue niche canopy. Dating from the 15th century, it is ornamented with microarchitecture of buttresses, lancets, four pointed arches with crockets and ball finials. Its original underside (the current top of the stone) has carvings to represent rib vaulting and a central boss. Less ornate examples are to be seen in the buttresses at the west end of the Cathedral at the Rock of Cashel and an alabaster statue canopy of the same era from Italy provides a close comparison. Where exactly this was set up in the church is unknown but clearly it must have been for an important statue, perhaps the wooden statue of St Dominic or the alabaster Holy Trinity statue that are still at the Black Abbey today.

01/11/2025

The underside of the vault over the choir and friar’s ‘walking place’ at the Black Abbey, Kilkenny (fd. 1225) was decorated with elaborate rib vaulting, which was replaced in 1979 by timber ribs. However, the original early 16th century decorative corbels that carry the vault still survive with their very fine vine leaf foliage, probably the work of the famous O Tunny school of sculptors. The surfaces of the piers and arches below the vault are punch dressed, which was meant to fix plaster for frescoes, part of one of which was found in 1975 on north side of crossing tower. Unfortunately, neither it nor a record of it survives.
A commemorative plaque (raised from its original position below the sanctuary) in the SE pier below the vaulting asks for soul prayers for James Schortals, Baron of Ballylarckin and Ballykeefe and his wife Katherine White ‘who gave the workmen employed in the er****on of this tower their daily pay from the beginning to end’. The date of the work is left out but it has to have been before James died in 1527 - the effigial tomb to him and his is to be seen today at St Canice’s Cathedral.

29/10/2025

The Black Abbey - or to give it its full canonical title, the Convent of the Holy and Undivided Trinity – was founded in 1225 as a Dominican friary by William Marshal the younger. Today, the Black Abbey is the only one of the 38 medieval Dominican houses still being used for its original purpose.

The remains of the friary church contains many high quality sculptures from the medieval period, including two stone head portraits of a bishop (or bishops) ornamenting the great late 14th/early 15th century Decorated style south widow of the south transept.

One of the bishop’s head portraits marks the keystone of the hood moulding over the outside of the window. He’s wearing the usual rectangular mitre with a pedimented top and a decorative strap at its base and the chasuble mass vestment. He may be missing his right arm, which, typically would have been outstretched in blessing.

On the inside left of the window splay, we find another, almost identical, beautifully executed bishop’s head on a stiff leaf capital at the base of the rere arch and above a timber replacement shaft. Rosettes, signifying devotion to the Virgin Mary, are carved on either side of his shoulders.

The two bishops heads could signify that the patron of the window was a bishop but they most likely are commemorating the bishop of Ossory under whose tenure the work was done. Which bishop exactly is unknown but one possible candidate is John de Tatenhale (bp. 1361-64) who was of the Dominican Order.

Thank you to Johnny Barrett for the superb photos of the bishops heads, which allow us to have a close look at them for the first time.