Kiln, Kilmacanoge, Co. Wicklow

Co. Wicklow |

Kilns

Kiln, Kilmacanoge, Co. Wicklow

Road construction is not usually the occasion for archaeological discovery, but when work began on the N11 in County Wicklow in 2000, what emerged from the ground at Kilmacanoge was something older and more ambiguous: a series of pits and a structure tentatively identified as a kiln, measuring roughly 1.76 metres by 1 metre.

Kilns of this kind were used historically for a range of purposes, from drying grain to burning lime for agricultural use, and the uncertainty around this example, described only as a possible kiln, gives it a quietly unresolved quality that more confidently labelled sites tend to lack.

The excavation was carried out under licence in 2000, with findings subsequently published by Russell in 2002. Beyond the basic dimensions and the presence of associated pits, the record is spare. That sparseness is itself telling: this was not a site anyone was looking for. It came to light because the ground was being disturbed for a modern road, and what the excavators found was duly recorded, measured, and noted before the work continued. The site sits somewhere in the background of Wicklow's longer human story, neither dramatic nor easy to place, but part of the accumulated evidence that ordinary activity, industry, and perhaps agriculture, has been happening in this landscape for a very long time.

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