1993:076 - DUBLIN: Meeting House Sq., 10–14 Sycamore St./31–32 Essex St., Dublin

The site is located in an area to the east of the underground river Poddle, whose culvert now runs along the west side of Sycamore St., before joining the river Liffey. There was no known occupation of this area prior to the land reclamation which took place from the early 17th century onwards. The dimensions of the site were roughly 40m north-south x 55m east-west.

Two long test trenches were excavated east-west across the site in order to get an idea of the original topography of the site. In the lower levels of these, there were waterlogged deposits of medieval origin, containing medieval pottery. Also at the east end of these two trenches and also in a third, smaller test trench a deep water-channel was uncovered. This channel was roughly 2m deeper than the level of the medieval levels, although it was not sealed by them. A number of large timbers were encountered on the west bank of the channel, and it has been suggested that these could have formed a part of a previously unknown mill on the side of a millrace. One of the timbers was sampled for dendrochronological dating, and the result : 1349 + 9 years.

As a result of the testing, when the insertion of two basements was proposed, one on the south side of the site, and one on the north side, excavation was carried out mostly by hand. The southern trench, or Cutting 1, turned out to be located right in the path of the water channel which had been observed in the two test trenches, and which unexpectedly curved around to the west. No structural remains were found.

The northern trench or Cutting 2 was located beside Essex St. Once c. 2.5m of overburden had been removed from this site, the remains of a timber structure was found. This structure consisted of a line of three large ash uprights joined together with horizontal planks which themselves held a series of upright planks in place in the form of a kind of fence. On the evidence of pottery and clay pipes that were found in the post pits, it was probably a 17th-century structure and it may possibly be identifiable with the south wall of a wood yard which was shown on a map of 1673.

The underlying deposits were mostly dumping deposits some of which were probably for land reclamation, and some of which were simply dumps of domestic refuse in an area convenient to the expanding city to the west of this area. There was a marked drop or slope of deposition from south-east to north-west and the natural shale was at its highest in the south-east of the site. This has been seen as possibly the point of confluence in between the Poddle and the Liffey on its east bank in medieval times. There was no evidence of revetments or other structures in this part of the riverbank.

32 Rathgar Ave., Dublin 6