What is recorded here

A thirty-metre earthen ring on a Kilkenny knoll held iron slag, a decorated bone comb, and human bones before developers erased it in 1998. The excavator wondered whether the dead beneath the soil marked a lost wooden church rather than an ordinary home. That uncertainty still haunts the vanished ditch, turning a forgotten field into a place where faith and fever may have shared one cramped circle.

On a knoll on a N-facing slope in undulating terrain. Listed in the RMP (1996) as 'Enclosure site'. One of two circular enclosures hachured on the OS 6-inch 1st ed. map. Human remains (KK019-040001-) were reported here in 1957 (Cahill and Sikora 2011, vol. 2, 486) and the destruction of the two enclosures was reported to be imminent. Excavation (Hurley 1999: 98E0219) carried out in 1998 in advance of the construction of an industrial and business park revealed the base of a steep-sided, V-shaped fosse (Wth 1-1.2m; D 0.53-0.65m) enclosing a subcircular area (diam. c. 30m) with an entrance at N. The fill of the fosse contained a considerable quantity of animal bone. A second fosse formed an annexe or enlargement to the enclosure from E to S. Three charcoal spreads in the S quadrant yielded iron slag and a fragment of a decorated bone comb of early medieval date. A hone stone was also found as well as some charred cereal grains. A number of burials (KK019-040001-) were found immediately below the topsoil. As normal habitation would be unusual so close to burials the suggestion was also made that this might possibly have been the site of an early wooden church. The second enclosure (KK019-041----) visible on the 1st ed OS map c. 55m to the E was not evident despite extensive trenching. (Cotter 2000, 123-4) Compiled by: Mary Tunney Date of upload: 12 February 2013

A fairy fort or earthen ringfort in Loughboy is a circular enclosure likely dating to the early medieval period, used as a defensive or domestic site. It is associated with local folklore surrounding fairies and other supernatural beings, common in Irish tradition.

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