County: Dublin Site name: FINGLAS: Patrickswell Lane
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 14:06608 Licence number: 98E0180
Author: Noel Dunne, Arch-Tech Ltd.
Site type: Town defences
Period/Dating: Post Medieval (AD 1600-AD 1750)
ITM: E 712683m, N 738730m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.386705, -6.306046
This small, triangular development site for fifteen houses lies a short distance to the west-south-west of Finglas village. Immediately to the north-east of the site is an earthen bank known as King William’s Rampart. A previous archaeological assessment by Eoin Halpin (Excavations 1995, 25, 95E215) showed evidence of a continuation of the rampart along the northern boundary of the development area. In order to investigate this feature further a condition of planning permission issued by Dublin Corporation required the hand-excavation of two 5m x 5m squares immediately inside the northern perimeter. This excavation was undertaken between 6 and 24 April 1998.
Excavation revealed evidence of a mortared stone wall, buttressed on its south side, that extended parallel to the northern boundary, a distance of 2m–3.5m from it. The remainder of this feature was exposed mechanically, between 22 and 26 May 1998, under archaeological supervision.
The wall was mostly evident as a robbed-out foundation trench or with only the bottom course or courses surviving immediately under the sod. However, at the north-east side of the site it had a surviving height of up to 1.7m, where it acted as revetting for higher ground to the north. At the north-east perimeter the feature emerges on the surface and is visible in places as revetting extending along the southern slope of the rampart. No evidence was uncovered to show that the wall is contemporary with the earthen bank, and it is more likely to be a later 18th- or 19th-century property boundary that included the line of the rampart.
The wall acted as revetting for higher ground to the north. No evidence was uncovered to show that the rampart continued along the northern edge of the site or that this higher ground is the remains of the base of an earthen bank. On the contrary, soils to the north of the wall appear to be the result of cultivation over a quite long period of time.
Most of the artefacts uncovered are modern and include glass, delftware and metal objects. Early brick, bellarmine and gravel-tempered sherds and an early clay pipe bowl indicate activity on the site during the 17th century. These finds, however, cannot date the features precisely, as none is from a totally sealed context.
32 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin 2
