What is recorded here

Beneath the busy pavements of Kilkenny, a tiny human skull lay forgotten in gravel, waiting for modern shovels to reveal the quiet tragedy hidden under centuries of stone. The child may have been buried deliberately or simply lost to the chaotic reclamation of river land, yet even an accidental death belongs to the city because the city kept the body. High Street traffic still rumbles above that small marrow, proving that progress does not erase life but layers it, forcing us to imagine the parent, the garden, and the exact moment the grave vanished beneath human ambition.

Isolated infant burial excavated in 2002-2003 (02E1715) by Cóilín Ó Drisceoil beneath former rear yard and below ground level of cellar for late 18th-early 19th century houses and shops at 62-3 High Street, (NIAH 12000076 and 12000075) and 76 Kieran Street (NIAH 12000077), Kilkenny (Ó Drisceoil 2004, 276-7; 2005, 265-6; 2005, 43-61; 2012). Excavations on the site in 2002-2003 documented a series of attempts to reclaim land (KK 019-026----) in the flood-plain of the River Nore (Ó Drisceoil 2005, 50, 59-60). Once achieved, probably in the 13th century, the site was used as a rear-garden where activities such as iron smelting (KK019-026201-) and the burial of an infant occurred. The burial was represented by fragments of the infant's skull within a deposit of gravel reclamation make-up and it is possible it was a chance introduction rather than a formal burial. Compiled by: Cóilín Ó Drisceoil Date of upload: 4 November 2020

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