What is recorded here

Killegland’s buried ring-ditch still holds charcoal and burnt bone, proving that people cooked, burned, and lived beside the gentle slope before modern roads or fields erased the shape. The largest circle measures ninety centimetres across its ditch and faces east through an uncut causeway, while five smaller ditches touch it like satellites dropped from a forgotten cart. They may have been hut-sites, barrows, or merely marks of repeated human presence, but the charcoal leaves no doubt that this quiet ground once smoky, crowded, and alive.

Located towards the top a gentle NW-facing slope c. 125m W of Killegland church (ME045-004----). Archaeological testing (05E1321) by S. Halliday (2007) in advance of a housing development identified numerous archaeological features (excavations.ie 2006:1496) some of which were investigated under the original licence (excavations.ie 2006:1496), but others, numbered Sites I and III, were resolved (excavations.ie 2006:1499) later by J. Kavanagh (2007) under a different licence (06E0871). Site III consists of a bivallate ring-ditch (ME045-075----), with a line of five smaller ring-ditches touching edge to edge and extending S from this large feature. These structures might be hut-sites or barrows, and all of them are truncated slightly on the W side by a later N-S ditch that turns W at its N end as it encounters the outer ditch of the large ring-ditch. The E edges of the structures also tend to disappear through plough action. Although no burials are associated directly with these features neither are there any hearths or post-holes, The most southerly structure (int. diam. c. 9m) is defined by a rounded ditch (Wth 0.64m; D 0.55m) which cuts the ditch of the ring-ditch to the N (ME045-075004-) and has an uncut entrance causeway (Wth 1.2m) at E. The ditch has a primary fill of clay/silt with some charcoal flecking, and an upper fill with large quantities of charcoal on the N side. Two pits, one (dims 1.8m x 1.3m; D 0.14m) with in situ burning and a charcoal-flecked sandy silt fill with a small amount of burnt bone, are within the enclosure. The other (dims 2m x 0.63m; D 0.35m) was filled with a grey, charcoal-flecked sandy clay and was partially truncated by the enclosing ditch. An isolated pit (dims 0.84m x 0.74m; D 0.16m) with a charcoal-flecked silty clay fill and burnt bone was 6.5m NW of the most southerly structure. (Kavanagh 2007) See the attached plan from Kavanagh (2007, fig. 5) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 22 December 2021

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