An excavation of 325,000sqm of test trenches along the 64km route corridor of the N9/N10 Kilcullen to Waterford Scheme – Phase 4: Knocktopher to Powerstown in Co. Kilkenny. A total of 99 archaeological sites were identified through testing and geophysical survey. These sites were subsequently excavated with a substantial team of 380 archaeologists over a 8 month period.

A significant range of archaeological features were recorded including Neolithic settlements, Bronze Age burnt mounds, field systems and burial sites, Iron Age linear earthworks, early medieval settlement and funerary sites; and medieval/ post-medieval industrial and domestic sites. Highlights included a Bronze Age flat cemetery with six ringditches and 15 cremations at Paulstown, an early medieval multi-ditched enclosure with a timber-lined souterrain at Kilree, a multi-phase double penannular ringditch at Knockadrina and a medieval moated site at Kilree. In the townland of Holdenstown a ritual and funerary landscape was identified spanning the transitionary period between the Iron Age and early medieval period.

A monograph describing the excavations is forthcoming and several individual articles have been published.