County: Dublin Site name: DUBLIN: St Michael's Holy Faith Convent, Wellmount Road
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 98E0123
Author: Eoghan Moore for Arch-Tech Ltd.
Site type: Structure
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 713182m, N 739145m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.390325, -6.298401
An assessment was carried out on the site of proposed development (an oratory) at St Michael's Holy Faith Convent, Wellmount Road, Finglas, Dublin 11. The site was within the zone of archaeological potential for Finglas, as identified by the Urban Archaeological Survey. One trial-trench was excavated on 9 and 10 March 1998. Before excavation the site had been a lawn.
The test-trench was 8m long and 2m wide on the north-west/south-east axis. Excavation was halted at a depth of c. 0.9m when the uppermost remains of a wall were exposed. This wall was c. 0.6m wide and survived to a height of c. 0.5m. It consisted of three courses, and its exposed top was heavily mortared. It was recommended that the wall remains not be interfered with.
On 30 June and 1 July 1998 the foundation trenches for the proposed oratory were dug. As expected the wall was again uncovered; contrary to expectation, however, it did not run in a north-south direction but rather east-west, thereby running at right angles to the remains of the wall uncovered during the testing. Once the remains of the wall had been uncovered the developer requested that the foundation trench for the oratory be dug to a further depth of 0.5m on each side of the stone wall remains. This was considered necessary in order to consolidate the foundations and was agreed.
As advised in the archaeological testing programme the stone wall remains were covered with terram in order to protect them from the development work.
32 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin 2
