County: Dublin Site name: DUBLIN: 46–49 Dame Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 96E0074
Author: Margaret Gowen
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 715617m, N 734088m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.344373, -6.263653
An archaeological assessment was carried out on a site at 46–49 Dame Street, Dublin, to fulfill the terms of the planning permission for the site. The site is located within the supposed extent of a thirteenth-century Augustinian friary and forms the south-east corner of the precinct. To the northwest, excavations by Martin Reid at 3–4 Crow Street/23–24 Temple Lane located part of the cemetery associated with the friary (Excavations 1993, 29), while further to the north recent excavations by Linzi Simpson at 5–6 Cecilia Street (see Excavations 1996, No. 78) located the eastern boundary precinct wall. This wall followed the line of Fownes Street Upper, which also forms the eastern boundary of the site.
An archaeological assessment carried out by the writer at 50–52 Dame Street did not reveal any archaeological soils, but later monitoring identified a small post-medieval stone well. Four hand-excavated test-trenches were opened on the site in the basement of the standing building to be refurbished. The site within the building measures 22m east-west and between 10m (at the east) and 14m (at the west) north-south. The material revealed in the trenches was either naturally occurring or associated with the existing building and its foundations.
No soils, features or deposits of archaeological potential were identified in any of the trenches opened, and there was no indication that any activity associated with the medieval friary had extended as far south as this site. Archaeological monitoring of construction works was carried out but no soils or features of archaeological derivation were revealed.
Rath House, Ferndale Rd, Rathmichael, Co. Dublin