1998:168 - DUBLIN: John Dillon Street, Dublin

A test excavation was undertaken on a development site at John Dillon Street, Dublin 7, on 11 May, as part of a planning application to Dublin Corporation for permission to construct dwellings on the site.

This small plot, measuring 12.7–13m north-south by 11.8m, was formerly part of the landholding of the parish church of St Nicholas of Myra on Francis Street. The church in all likelihood occupies the site of the medieval friary of St Francis, founded in c. 1230. The holdings of the friary were never extensive, and the valuation of its property after the dissolution was very low. The house held a two-acre site in Francis Street, which by the 16th century was in a very bad state of repair. Part of the cemetery of the friary has been excavated at 34–36 Francis Street, by Declan Murtagh (Excavations 1994, 26, 94E0069), and this appears to lie on the northern side of the friary complex.

An east-west wall, with some evidence of rebuild, corresponds with the site of the south wall of a structure shown on Rocque's map (1756) as PMH (?Presbyterian Meeting House) and on the 1st edition of the OS map as an Independent Chapel.

The eastern wall is part of the modern precinct wall of the church lands, with a sizeable drop of up to 2.5m on the east side of the wall. A limestone calp wall, corresponding with the south wall of the Independent Chapel marked on the OS 1837 map, bisects the site east-west. A lobby for the chapel is shown on the south side; this corresponds with the southern side of the site. On the south side of the wall the ground level is 1.8m lower than on the north side and is up to 3.14m lower than the ground level outside the western boundary of the development site. This southern area is heavily overgrown.

A single trench was machine-excavated along the northern side of the existing wall that bisects the site. The trench was 1.6m wide, c. 5m long, and 1.8m deep. Topsoil, which was a heavily rooted, black loam, occurred to a depth of 0.3m. Some red brick rubble, limestone and a granite sill occurred in this soil. Over 1m of very loose, mortar-flecked soil, containing much red brick rubble, underlay the topsoil. The lowest level of soil, up to 0.5m deep, was a greenish 'garden soil', which contained mortar flecks and 18th-century pottery. Subsoil occurred at a depth of 1.8m below ground level in this area, which is c. 12.4m OD.

No deposits of medieval date were encountered in the trench, and these are unlikely to occur over the remaining area of the development site. The differing ground levels in this area may be due to a number of factors. When the last remnants of buildings on the south side of the site were demolished the area was evidently cleared to subsoil level. The considerable drop in ground level to either side of the boundary wall of the church land may be partly explained by the natural slope from west to east, which may have resulted in scarping and terracing the ground for the street. This factor, coupled with the build-up of demolition rubble from the mid-18th-century buildings that occupied this site, accounts for the ground difference of 2.5m to either side of the wall in this part of the church grounds.

25a Eaton Square, Terenure, Dublin 6W