1994:093 - FINGLAS BY-PASS, Dublin

The excavation, which took place over an eight-week season starting at the end of April 1994, consisted of two areas located to the east and west of Watery Lane. The western area measured some 20m sq. with the supposed line of the enclosure running through the middle, the area to the east measured roughly 30m by 20m with the long axis running parallel to the line of Watery Lane. Due to the depth of overburden noted during pre-development testing (Excavations, 1994, No. 92), the soil was mechanically removed down to archaeological levels. This revealed on the east side a number of features summarised as follows:

A low wall was uncovered running parallel to and some 5m from the present line of the watercourse. This was interpreted as a formalised bank to the river on this eastern side. Beyond, a small rectangular mortared stone structure was noted, probably a house, which overlay the cut for what was at first thought to be evidence for the enclosure ditch. The ditch feature was rock-cut on the north side but no definitive southern limit was observed. The pottery retrieved from the fills suggested a post-medieval date for the upper layers. However, similar dated material was obtained from layers which were recorded as primary. As a last resort a long trench was hand excavated to the base of the rock-cut edge in an attempt to find the limits of the feature. This suggested that the cut was some 1.2m deep with a rock-cut base sloping gradually downwards to the south. A piece of post-medieval pottery was uncovered from the layer immediately overlying the bed-rock. Despite extensive excavation over a 13m length of section, no southern limit to the feature was uncovered. It became clear that the excavated feature was not a ditch but rather the remains of a probable quarry.

To the west of the Watery Lane the 30m by 30m area was mechanically stripped down to archaeological levels, which entailed the removal of some 3–5m of modern over-burden. A trench 27m long and 2m wide was hand-excavated across the line to the proposed enclosure ditch. It revealed, as noted in the test trench, a rock-cut southern edge, 2m deep, with a mortared wall positioned some 5m to the north and set into the primary fills of the feature. The area to the north of the wall, however, had been badly disturbed by large-scale excavations, which the pottery suggests were post-medieval in date.

The wall, standing some 0.3m wide and 1m high, ran from west to east for a distance of some 2.5m before it abutted the western return of a rectangular building. This building was very poorly preserved, truncated by later, large-scale diggings and erosion caused by Watery Lane on its northern and western extents respectively. The function of this building is still a matter of analysis. As with the area to the east of the river, the pottery suggests that the rock-cut feature, revealed on the west side, is at least in part a product of post-medieval quarrying which has all but obliterated the evidence for the enclosure. However, it should be noted that to the south of the rock-cut face evidence for a substantial bank was noted. This feature was some 5m wide and at best 0.4m high, covering the remains of a skeletal soil profile suggesting that some earlier archaeological features were present prior to the episode of quarrying.

The excavations therefore revealed evidence for extensive post-medieval stone quarrying on either side of the Watery Lane which all but destroyed the evidence for an earlier enclosure. The bank, uncovered to the south of the rock-cut face on the west side, may be the last remnants of the enclosure, which originally consisted of a large ditch and associated internal bank. It is possible that the original excavation of the enclosure ditch in the area would have involved cutting into rock, thereby exposing a rock face which in the later post-medieval period proved an easily accessible source of stone.

Powerhouse, Pigeon House Harbour, Dublin 2