What is recorded here

Three adults lie head-west beneath Church Lane, their bones dating from the mid-7th to mid-10th century within the old graveyard of St Canice's Cathedral. They were buried before the cathedral rose, yet the lane still covers them. The dead did not know they would sleep under gas pipes or archaeologists' trowels. They knew only darkness, and that the living would keep their names in prayer.

Early medieval human burials uncovered in archaeological monitoring (09E0457) of mechanical trench excavations for a gas pipeline on Church Lane, 12m E of the E wall of the chancel of St Canice's Cathedral, within the former extent of the medieval graveyard (KK019-026171-) associated with St Canices’s Cathedral (KK019-026029-). Three in-situ adult (sex unknown) articulated human burials, orientated E-W with their heads to the W, were recorded, and radiocarbon dated to the mid-7th – mid-10th century: Burial 1 AD 730-940; Burial 2 AD 690-890; Burial 3 AD 660-780. An antler tine offcut recovered near to the burials was radiocarbon dated to AD 900-1020. Disarticulated human bone was also recorded. The burials were fully excavated from the service trench but what remained in the trench sections was left in situ. It is clear from the amount of disarticulated human bone found in the excavation and in a separately monitored service trench (04E1535) 25m to the S that further interments are likely to be present along Church Lane (Ó Drisceoil 2004, unpublished). Compiled by: Cóilín Ó Drisceoil Date of upload: 5 November 2020

Early medieval Christian burial; associated with the ecclesiastical site of St Canice's Cathedral. Its significance lies in its proximity to an important religious structure, indicating possible high-status or ecclesiastical interment.

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