kingdom of Osraige or close to its borders. Great examples of this tradition include the fine crosses still preserved at Kinitty, Ahenny and Killamery, amongst other sites. Some historians have asserted that a pre-Norman fortification existed at the site upon which Kilkenny Castle is built; likely the ancient capital of the kingdom. St. Ciarán is said to have founded the influential monastery of Seirkieran, in present-day Clareen. Saighir was the first episcopal seat within the kingdom and was the burial site of the Kings of Osraige. There, the ruins of a monastic site, earthworks, a holy well, the ruined base of an Irish round tower, a medieval defensive motte, numerous early Christian cross-slabs, bases and gravestones can be found, next to a 19th-century Church of Ireland parish. St. Canice founded two important churches in the kingdom, at Aghaboe and Kilkenny, each, in turn, becoming the capital of the diocese after Saighir. Aghaboe Abbey served as Osraige's second ecclesiastical seat, before it was again later relocated to Kilkenny sometime in the twelfth century. St Canice's Cathedral in Kilkenny city exhibits a well-preserved ninth-century round tower which can be climbed to the top. In April 2004, a geophysical survey using ground-penetrating radar discovered what were likely the original foundations of the twelfth-century cathedral of the diocese of Ossory and another very large structure which was possibly a royal Mac Giolla Phádraig palace; noting that the site bears a strong resemblance to contemporaneous structures at the Rock of Cashel. Jerpoint Abbey, was founded near present-day Thomastown in 1160 by king Domnall Mac Goilla Phádraig. There is some debate as to whether Jerpoint was either Benedictine or Cistercian during its first twenty years, however by 1180, king Domnall Mac Goilla Phádraig brought Cistercian monks from nearby Baltinglass Abbey and it remained such thereafter. A well-preserved 30-meter, capless round tower can be seen at Grangefertagh. In 1999, a hoard of 43 silver and bronze items dated to 970 AD was discovered in a rocky cleft deep in Dunmore Cave, containing silver ingots and conical buttons woven from fine silver. The cave was the site of a recorded Viking massacre in 928. In 1984, a series of commemorative cast stone panels sculpted by Joan Smith were installed as a facade on the buttress walls of Ossory Bridge which forms part of the Ring Road over the River Nore connecting the N10 from Carlow to Waterford. The