Carlow landmark approved for new research funding to try find evidence long lost village

A new research archaeological research was announced by the Carlow County Council on Wednesday the 27th of March.

The research project is aiming to find evidence of possible long last village that once surrounded the Ballymoon Castle in Bagalstown, County Carlow.

The research project is led by archeologist and Carlow native Nial O'Neill.

Talking about the project Nial had this to say:

"I grew up near here, I remember playing in this castle as a child, I always found it interesting. It was always the speculation around it, people would say it was never used. Which to me seems kind of, a little bit crazy in a way."

"From the early aerial photographs that I looked at it was clear that there was a lot of features in the fields around the castle."

"We got the fields around the castle surveyed and it was clear there was a lot of activity around the castle. We got a grant from the Royal Irish academy to try prove physical that there was something here."

"We're at the very start, we've just desodded and got rid of the last of the topsoil to where we feel the archeological features will start showing up".

The full video of Nial explaining the process and challenges of the dig can be seen below.