1986:22 - GRANGE ABBEY, Grange, Dublin

Excavations were undertaken at the request of the Office of Public Works, National Monuments Branch, in whose care the church ruins have been placed. As part of its programme for conservation, the Office of Public Works planned to lay flooring slabs on the interior of the church, requiring the removal of 15-20cm of interior fill to allow for levelling of the surface.The purposes of the excavation were:
(a) To determine the nature of the deposits in the upper levels of the interior of the church.
(b) To determine the intensity of recent burial and other activity, and consequent likelihood of disturbance of archaeologically significant material.
The upper 30cm of deposits within the church are of extremely disturbed material. A considerable amount of burial has taken place here, but, as a result of intensive disturbance, only fragmented and disarticulated bone survives at this level. The original levels of the doorways would appear to have been located at least 35cm below the present levels. The present doorstones are not in their original positions, and neither is likely to have been an original doorstone. Any work undertaken in connection with the reflooring of the church interior would therefore be very unlikely to interfere with undisturbed strata of archaeological significance. Overall, the excavations have added somewhat to our meagre knowledge of the church known as Grange Abbey. Early references to the church are insignificant prior to the 17th century, but the recovery of a few sherds of 13th-century pottery, probably of local manufacture, establishes some form of activity here for that period. The stratigraphical evidence at the east end of cutting 2 hints at the possibility of two phases of construction and of burial prior to the erection of the present east wall. A comprehensive account of this excavation was published in Here Lyeth.... (ed. Swan 1986), a report on the survey of the burial grounds of four north Dublin parishes.

746 Howth Rd. Dublin