1996:121 - SPANISH CONVENT, Finglas, Dublin

The site is located just south-east of Finglas village and just south of the Early Christian monastery and the later medieval church of St Canice.

An eight-week excavation was carried out during the summer of 1996 on the site of the recently demolished Spanish Convent. Three trenches, covering an area of some 1,125m2, were hand-excavated. The two trenches opened up along the southern area of the site produced very little significant archaeological activity other than evidence for post-medieval cultivation, which had continued in sorts until the demise of the convent, and it would appear that medieval Finglas had not extended this far south of the medieval church.

The northern trench produced three distinct blocks of archaeological activity. The earliest block was medieval in date- preliminary dating suggests the thirteenth/fourteenth century. This activity was represented by a series of insubstantial pits, a fosse and an apparently associated gully, both of which ran diagonally east-west across the site, demarcating an area. The fosse was 2m wide and up to 1.36m deep, and while it is unlikely that on its own it would have been the enclosing ditch surrounding the ecclesiastical precinct, it was not unlike the outer ditch revealed during recent excavations at St Maelruan’s medieval church in Tallaght (Excavations 1995, 30), and may possibly indicate either a second, outer enclosure or mirror the line of the said enclosure.

The second block of activity was represented by the basal remains of the post-medieval stone walls that had once formed the outbuildings of Farnham House and the associated stone drains, all of which date to the middle of the eighteenth century.

The third and last phase of activity had substantially disturbed the medieval activity and had in places severely cut into and removed this first phase of archaeological activity.

Power House, Pigeon House Harbour, Dublin 4