2023:878 - North Wall Power Generation Station, Alexandra Road, Dublin 11, Dublin

A programme of Archaeological Monitoring was undertaken of site enabling/preparation and general ground reduction works associated with the development of an Emergency Power Generating Plant at the existing North Wall Power Generating Station, Alexandra Road, Dublin 1. The works were undertaken in compliance with the Grant of Planning from An Bord Pleanála

The development site occupied an estuarine location until the early 20th century, when the immediate area was subject to reclamation works but remained undeveloped until the late 1940s, when the ESB opened its first thermal power plant on the site in 1949, and has continually occupied the site since then.

There are no previously identified monuments recorded by the Archaeological Survey of Ireland/National Monuments Service within the extent of the site; likewise the Dublin City Industrial Heritage Record (DCIHR) does not contain any industrial heritage sites within the site boundary.

The former Boiler House in the south-western area of the site is included in the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (NIAH; Ref: 50060592) and described as  a detached multiple-bay multi-storey industrial building, with narrow wing to west; pitched roofs with replacement steel sheeting and raised central section with timber louvres to sides; redbrick walls laid in stretcher bond on riveted iron frame; randomly placed tripartite timber framed windows inserted at later date and abutted by two-storey red brick building to east. The survey entry records that the building “may be one of the earliest of its type in the port” and is “a good example of early steel-frame construction, contributing to the architectural history of Dublin Port and its rich industrial heritage.”

Raft-type foundations for the new equipment required the placing of a layer of new formation stone capping to a depth of up to 800mm below existing ground level. Existing foundations or buried structures were removed to a depth of 800mm, where required and existing below ground service (surface water drains) were rerouted around areas where foundations were to be constructed. In most cases, new electrical cables will be routed over ground on racks and all services connect into existing.

The excavations were generally undertaken by machine fitted with a wide toothless ditching/grading bucket, with a toothed bucked utilised to remove the hard-surfaces and existing buried foundations, where required.

In general, removal of the existing surfaces revealed a layer of gravel fill, up to 0.4m in depth/thickness, overlying moderately compact sandy or stony gravel fills/made-ground and which were removed to achieve the overall required depth of 0.8m. In some areas the excavated fill/made ground consisted of a matrix of sand and slightly stony clay soils.

Where required, existing foundations to demolished structures and below ground services in conflict with the new foundations were removed/demolished and the areas backfilled with inert stone fill.

No subsurface features of archaeological/historical interest/potential were uncovered, and no artefacts of archaeological interest/potential were recovered.