County: Dublin Site name: DUBLIN: 36–37 South Earl Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 97E0078
Author: Claire Walsh, Archaeological Projects Ltd.
Site type: Cultivation ridges
Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)
ITM: E 714580m, N 733736m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.341437, -6.279358
The site occupies an L-shaped area measuring a maximum of 15.4m east-west by 28m north-south on the south side of South Earl Street. It lies outside the area of the medieval town but close to the medieval abbey of St Thomas the Martyr.
Two trenches were excavated under archaeological supervision by a mechanical excavator with a 1m-wide toothed bucket on 21 March 1997.
Subsoil occurred at between 2.3m and 2.6m below modern ground level and was overlain by a layer of cultivation soil whose surface occurred at between 1.7m and 2.1m below modern ground level. It was overlain by modern material.
The cultivated soil is likely to date from the 12th to the 17th century, and, although no finds were recovered from the soil, the indications are that the area was probably farmland until the post-medieval period. There was no evidence of the substantial enclosing ditch and later wall of St Thomas's Abbey, part of which was excavated in a development site at South Earl Street to the west of the site. It appears, therefore, that the ditch turns and extends northwards to the west of the site.
25a Eaton Square, Terenure, Dublin 6W
