What is recorded here

Ancestral metalworkers in Rathmolyon lit three small bowl furnaces beside a quenching gully, shaping hot metal while nearby hands watched for colour and cools. One furnace dates to 770-900 cal. AD, but the greater cluster belongs to the late medieval period. A water pipe cut through the place much later, exposing the shallow cuts where human ingenuity had pressed into the earth.

Archaeological monitoring and excavation (07E0922) by D. Shine of a trench for a water pipe W of the graveyard (ME042-020001-) of Rathmolyon church identified a metal-working: south of the plots of the settlement (excavations.ie 2008:960, 961). The cuts of three bowl furnaces (dims 0.38-0.4m; D 0.12-0.14) set into the subsoil were recorded. What is probably a quenching gully (dims 1.6m x 1.1m D 0.2m) and a post-hole were nearby. One of the furnaces returned a C14 date of 770-900 cal. AD but the other features are thought to be late medieval. (Shine 2009, 14, 20-2) Further archaeological testing (21E0315) by A. O’Connell just to the SW at ITM produced no relat3ed archaeological material (excavations.ie 2021:262). Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 26 April, 2021 Amended: 28 April, 2023

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