2024:319 - Butchersarms, Ballyfermot Lower, Dublin

The archaeological site at Butchersarms has been under archaeological testing and excavation from March 2023 to December 2024, and works are projected to continue into 2025. The preliminary archaeological results of the archaeological excavations in 2024 are set out below.

Approximately 50% of the eastern half of the De La Salle development site has currently been excavated, with the western half not yet begun. Following discussion with Dublin City Council and National Monuments Service it was decided to preserve a portion of the eastern end of the site in situ under a road and park. That preserved the eastern portions of two concentric enclosures and the densest area of burial ground.

The excavated evidence dates broadly to the early medieval period/first millennium AD, though Late Bronze Age activity is also present. Two concentric enclosures 50m and 115m diameter in the eastern portion of the site contain a burial mound with c. 300 inhumations and a possible rectangular structure with rounded corners. This is in turn enclosed by a sub-circular enclosure c. 450m forming the parish boundary of Kilmainham dating to at least the late medieval period, which encompasses a large number of pits filled with animal bone.

The three concentric enclosures may represent a non-ecclesiastical cemetery/assembly site dating approximately to the fourth to ninth centuries AD, possibly pre-dating the nearby ecclesiastical site of Cell Maighnean. The site was occupied by a Viking camp in the mid-ninth century and there are numerous artefacts from this phase, including the only two Northumbrian styca (coins) found on the island of Ireland, three lead weights, two Viking-type spearheads, keys, and decorated copper alloy objects. Of particular interest is the evidence that the pre-existing burial ground was reused for burial by the Vikings in the ninth century.