Castle — ringwork in Dukesmeadows (shillelogher By., St. Patrick's Par.)

According to the Annals of Tigernach, in 1173 the 'foreigners' in the 'castle [caislen] of Kilkenny' were attacked by the combined armies of Domhnall Ó Briain, the king of north Munster, and Conchobhar Ua Conchobair, the son of the 'king of Ireland' Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair (Annals of Tigernach T1173.10). The castle was abandoned and 'the town was breached after the Foreigners left it, and the whole district was plundered. That reduction was a grief to the Foreigners of Ireland'. Orpen identified the 'castle of Kilkenny' that was the attacked as probably a motte in the area of the present Kilkenny Castle (Orpen 1909, 316-7; 1911, vol. 1, 332, 376-7). After Strongbow's death in 1176 the lordship of Leinster, including whatever settlement then existed at Kilkenny, was placed into royal custody, pending the marriage or majority of his heiress Isabel de Clare (Orpen 1911, vol. 2, 5). Nothing is recorded about the castle, or adjoining borough, between c. 1175 and 1192, which might, as Adrian Empey has suggested, imply they had been abandoned, but this is far from certain (Empey 2017, 64). Mac Gilla Pátraic dominance in the area, and in most of central Ossory, continued until around 1190, when William Marshal, earl of Pembroke, who had married Isabel de Clare in 1189, eventually gained seisin from a reluctant King John of his wife’s inheritance in Leinster (Carrigan 1905, vol. 3, 47; Bradley and Murtagh 2017, 217). This broadly coincides with the statement, as recorded by James Ware in his ‘Annals’, that in 1192 ‘in Leinster the castle of Kilkenny was built and another at Kilfeacle in Munster’ (Ware 1705, 33). At Kilkenny Castle the earliest phase of settlement uncovered thus far in excavations is a ‘sod building’ with contemporary metalworking activity, that was excavated by Ben Murtagh in 1992-3 beneath the central, W, wing of the castle (E627, Cutting 1e) (Murtagh 1993, 1108; 2018, 293). Sherds of ‘local cooking ware’ pottery from in and around the ‘sod building’ have been compared with Leinster Cooking Ware pottery, which based on current dating of the pottery type, would place the structure and its associated metalworking horizon no earlier than the late 12th century and therefore probably belonging to the early Anglo-Norman occupation of the site (Murtagh 1993, 1114; Ó Flóinn 1988; Bradley 2000a, 1; McCutcheon 2006, 36). As no close identification of the pottery has yet been published and no scientific dating of the structure has been undertaken, its precise chronology remains poorly understood. It is possible that the pottery in question is the same 10th-12th-century coarse cooking ware pottery that has been found in the Hiberno-Norse towns of Waterford, Wexford and Cork, although to date none of the excavated early medieval sites in and around Kilkenny have produced this particular ware (McCutcheon and Meenan 2011, 95-6). The 'sod building' was sealed beneath an earthwork rampart of an earth-and-timber castle that preceded the masonry castle built by William Marshal in the early 13th century. Sections of this rampart and fosse have been uncovered in excavations at a number of locations within the S half of the Inner Ward of Kilkenny Castle (Murtagh 1993, 1108-10; 2017, 173; 2018, 292-3). Where it survived most intact, under the W wing (E627:Cutting 1), the rampart stood to a height of 3m above the old ground level and was c. 7m wide (as excavated), comprising of layers of redeposited boulder clay derived, presumably, from the digging of the surrounding fosse (Murtagh 1993, 1108-10, fig. 3). Determining the physical form of the original castle enclosure is complicated by its possible recutting when the masonry castle was subsequently constructed and because of the limited amount of excavation undertaken, particularly on its N half. The excavations have determined that the masonry castle followed the same general layout as the earth-and-timber castle, and this is demonstrably the case for the S half of the castle (Murtagh 1993, 1108, 1111; Murtagh 2017, 177, fig. 5.40; see Bradley 2000, 2). Whether the same applies to the N half of the castle, however, remains unclear. The earth-and-timber castle, as excavated, has been regarded by Ben Murtagh as ‘a ringwork, built by Earl Strongbow and burnt down in 1173’ or a ringwork castle that succeeded the original motte and bailey castle built by Strongbow (Murtagh 1993, 1108; 2017, 173; 2018, 292). An alternative scenario is that it represents the former bailey of the motte and bailey castle, which Orpen suggests may have been still standing on the site in the early 1300s (Orpen 1909, 316-7). Compiled by: Cóilín Ó Drisceoil Date of upload: 4 April 2021