Science helps uncover the secrets of a lost Kilkenny village

When the famed Jerpoint Abbey was a thriving religious centre the nearest settlement wasn’t Thomastown but the village of Newtown.
Today, however, where once stood a busy centre of medieval ‘religious tourism’ and commerce, is now green fields.

Sometime in the medieval period Newtown was completely abandoned, disappeared back into the land, and for hundreds of years was forgotten.
Now, a project to further the understanding of land used for agriculture is also revealing more about what lies beneath the land.

As part of his Teagasc Walsh Scholarship, Daniel O’Mahony is looking at improving the understanding of monuments on agricultural land.
Daniel and his colleague Jesko Zimmermann were able to use technology to retrace the old structures without having to take a spade to the site, seeing long lost features such as ridge and furrow, two extended mill complexes, possible land drainage, domestic dwellings, and animal enclosures.

One of the methods they used was LIDAR. Short for Light Detection and Ranging, also referred to as Laser Scanning or 3D scanning, LIDAR is a remote sensing technology which uses laser beams to learn about the properties of far away objects.

QUIZ: Is this place in Kilkenny or Wexford?

LIDAR can be used to both map, and penetrate vegetation, providing unique insight into features otherwise hidden by the canopy.
In archaeology, this allows surveyors and researchers to pick up the many traces left by human interaction with the landscape without the need for excavation, guiding them in their further investigations.
While some of the traces of Newtown are visible in the landscape, LIDAR provides much more clarity.

Another technology the men used was a magnetometer survey. This is another non-invasive scanning method which can detect magnetic anomalies below ground. These can hint at buried structures, and other remnants of human settlement.
The surveys revealed what likely was a mill complex in the south east of the village.

Thanks to these surveys you can now take a virtual tour of the lost village of Newtown Jerpoint. Go to the Teagasc website: https://bit.ly/3IAMPPH

Originally from Waterford, Daniel O’Mahoney now lives in south Kilkenny where he runs a small farm. He is also a Teagasc Research Walsh Scholar. His work at Newtown is looking at how our predecessors interacted with the rural landscape through the course of several centuries amidst changing social, political and economic circumstances.

Recognise any familiar faces from Thyestes Day 2014 in Kilkenny?

Pictures by Pat Moore

South-East search and rescue base that regularly serves Kilkenny to be retained