Kells Priory - Excavations

Excavations

Tom Fanning, a state archaeologist and subsequently senior archaeology lecturer in NUI Galway began an excavation of the site in 1972, his work was completed by Miriam Clyne after Mr. Fanning’s death in 1993. The excavation is one of the largest ever undertaken in Ireland at a monastic house and the publication by Clyne (2007), Kells Priory, Co. Kilkenny: archaeological excavations by T. Fanning & M. Clyne, is one of the largest ever published on a rural medieval site.

There were some 20,000 archaeological finds which range from pieces of carved stone, pottery including Ham Green, floor and ridge tiles, metal objects as well as a collection of painted window glass which has allowed the reconstruction what some of the window patterns may have looked like. The original priory church was a simple cruciform building, but, over time, was extended in almost every possible direction including the fifteenth century second enclosure.