County: Dublin Site name: DUBLIN: Old Distillery Site, Church Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 96E0384
Author: Rosanne Meenan, for ADS Ltd.
Site type: Burial ground
Period/Dating: Late Medieval (AD 1100-AD 1599)
ITM: E 714826m, N 734426m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.347581, -6.275416
Excavations were carried out in advance of the construction of accommodation for the Bar Council.
The earliest phase of activity for which evidence was recovered was a ditch cut into the underlying sand and gravel. This ran in a north-north-east/south-south-west direction. The side of the ditch was shelved in places; the base was 300–600mm wide and was square in profile in some places and U- or V-shaped in profile elsewhere. It was approx. 4m wide at the top and approx. 1.5m in depth. Six complete intact burials and nine other truncated or disarticulated burials were laid into the sides of the ditch. There was also a suggestion of a smaller, shallower trench feeding into the main ditch at the west end of the excavation.
The ditch was sealed by a redeposited layer of orange clay which was quite consistent throughout and which covered all the excavated area. It contained 13th/14th-century pottery and animal bones. It was overlain by a grey silty clay which also contained medieval pottery of approx. the same period; several pits and other features were cut through from this level. Post-medieval activity was represented by an oven or kiln-type feature which was probably associated with the occupation of houses fronting onto Church Street. There were also pits dating to the 18th century, one of which produced vast quantities of creamware and locally produced black-glazed wares.
The most likely explanation for the presence of the ditch here is that it was the enclosing ditch around St Michan's Church, which, traditionally, was founded in the 1090s. However, the presence of burials in the ditch itself is most unusual.
Roestown, Drumree, Co. Meath
