2015:323 - Dominick Street Lower, Dominick Street Upper and Constitution Hill, Dublin, Dublin

Monitoring and excavation was undertaken at Dominick Street Lower, Dominick Street Upper and Constitution Hill, Dublin 1 between March 2014 and July 2015 for GMC (Ireland) Ltd on behalf of the Railway Procurement Agency (RPA), now Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII). Monitoring of excavations for Utilities Works was carried out along the route of the planned Luas Cross City (LCC) light rail system at Dominick Street Lower, Dominick Street Upper and Constitution Hill.

During monitoring, features relating to cellars and insulating passages were discovered along the length of Dominick Street. The majority of these had been recorded and filled as part of a previous programme of works—Investigation and Treatment of Cellars for Luas Cross City—but there were instances, particularly on Dominick Street Upper, where they had not been previously excavated. Most of these features were associated with buildings that had been demolished and as such they provide us with a clearer view of the original layout of the street.

Culverts and features associated with drainage discovered along the extent of Dominick Street, as well as road surfaces, reflect the historic civic infrastructure of the street. The western pedestrian walkway of the Foster Aqueduct was uncovered during the course of excavations at Constitution Hill. The aqueduct was originally built to allow the Broadstone Branch of the Royal Canal pass over Constitution Hill to access the Broadstone Harbour. After the canal branch went out of use the former aqueduct facilitated access to the MGWR terminus at Broadstone until it was demolished during road realignment in the 1950s.

The artefacts (ceramics, glass and metal) and soil samples retained during the investigations will be processed and analysed by appropriate specialists.