Skeletons found on Rathdowney building site

THE skeletal remains of a mother and baby, believed to be 1,500 years old, were unearthed during excavation work for a new house near Rathdowney last week.

A man, who was operating a digger on the site for the house at Johnstown Glebe, close to Bealady cross roads on the Rathdowney to Donaghmore road, on Tuesday, September 11, was shocked when he spotted bones where he was digging.

The site-owner acted very responsibly and immediately stopped work on the site. The gardaí were alerted and the Deputy State Pathologist, Dr Michael Curtis was called to the scene.

Similarly the Department of the Environment were contacted and informed of the find. Following this an archaeologist was dispatched to the site.

Close examination of the site determined the remains were those of a woman and a baby who appeared to have died from natural causes some 1,500 years ago. It has since emerged that the site was a recorded monument based on earthworks which had indicated that there was some archaeological significance to the area.

When contacted no one in the archaeological section of the Department of the Environment was available for comment. Wwhen skeletal remains such as these are discovered they immediately become the property of the National Museum and are treated with the greatest respect.

An austio-archaeologist will clean up the remains and gather and record any information attached to them. The remains are then usually re-interred. Archaeologists from the Department of the Environment are due to meet with the site owner this week to discuss what next will happen the site.

The site is about seven miles from where up to 500 skeletal remains were unearthed at Parknahown close to Collahill in the course of excavation work on the new M7/M8 motorway in December 2005 Tests on sites from Portlaoise to Borris-in- Ossory in the west and extending as far south as Cullahill were carried out. The sites dated from the Neolithic period and extend through the Bronze age and Iron age, spanning a period between 4,000BC to 500AD.

One of the main differences between this find and the latest in Rathdowney is that the motorway site was not a recorded site.

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