1996:118 - DUBLIN: Whitefriar Street, Dublin

A preliminary archaeological assessment was carried out on the Carmelite monastery and church complex at Whitefriars, Aungier Street, Dublin, on 29 and 30 March 1996 to establish the nature of the archaeology on site. The site is bounded on the west by Whitefriar Street, on the north by Longford Street, on the east by the rear of the present monastery buildings, and on the south by the church on Whitefriar Place. The assessment is based on the excavation of four slit-trenches in two areas, referred to as the Whitefriar Street site and the Longford Street site.

Two of the trenches opened were long slit-trenches, while an additional two were opened as auxiliary trenches to confirm the results in the longer cuttings.

Whitefriar Street
The site has no surviving archaeologically enriched soils, with sterile boulder clay 0.6m below present ground level. The presence of limestone blocks, however, within the rubble overburden in Trench 2 suggests that structural remains may once have survived on the site; the construction of the recently demolished building involved the reduction in the old ground level noted, and the presence of several service runs to the south of the area tested indicated that it too has been extensively disturbed.

Longford Street
The Longford Street site was tested along its north-south axis and possessed a marginal archaeologically enriched clay soil lying below an apparent buried old ground level. This is thought to be a lightly cultivated soil that was raised in level at a later stage with redeposited clay (north end of Trench 3) while basements were cut into the old ground level elsewhere.

The preliminary test-trenches indicated that, on the two portions tested, there was no significant build-up of archaeological deposits, and no structural remains of medieval buildings were encountered.

Additional archaeological testing took place on 7 November 1996. Two machine-excavated test-trenches and two ‘mini’ machine-excavated test-pits were opened. The profiles revealed in the additional trenches were similar to those exposed in the preliminary assessment. The clay soil revealed a marginal archaeological nature. Again, no evidence for in situ accumulation of deposits was revealed, nor were any structures revealed apart from the remains of recently demolished buildings and their associated services. A stone-lined well, revealed in Trench 3 of the preliminary assessment, was not dated.

It would appear that the focus of archaeological activity related to the medieval foundations on the site must lie to the south of the proposed development area. Despite the lack of archaeological evidence on the site, further archaeological monitoring is ongoing.

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