1999:216 - DUBLIN: Department of Education, Marlborough Street, Dublin

Planning permission was granted for the erection of office buildings with basements and underground carparking. An assessment was required before the development, and a number of trial-trenches were excavated. Test-pits dug for engineering purposes were also monitored. Subsequently, a condition that monitoring of all subsurface clearance to the naturally occurring gravels should take place was included in the planning permission.

Evidence of activity on the north-east bank of the River Liffey is scarce before the 18th century. A reference to a possible Viking grave and a stray find of a decorated medieval ring brooch are all that are known from the vicinity. There is little evidence from Speed's map of 1610 that the north-eastern neighbourhood had undergone any urban development, the site probably being mud-flats at this time. Charles Brooking's map shows that considerable reclamation had taken place along both banks of the Liffey by 1728, and Great Marlborough Street is shown running between Great Britain Street and Abbey Street. In 1740 Tyrone House, now a listed building on the development site, was designed by Richard Cassels for Marcus Beresford, viscount (later earl) of Tyrone. By 1837 Tyrone House was just one of a complex of buildings called the National Model Schools. This complex was further added to during the latter half of the 19th century and again at the beginning of the 20th century. Some of these buildings were demolished to facilitate the new development.

There was no evidence from either the trial-trenches or the test-pits for any activity earlier than the 18th century, and, other than garden clays, no structures were found associated with this period. Basements of the 19th-century buildings had occupied a large proportion of the site, and these overlay natural gravels. In the remainder of the site garden-type clays with a mix of modern pottery sherds, including some blackware sherds of possible 18th-century date, occurred at c. 0.6–1m below present ground level and overlay the gravels. The shaft of a stone-lined well, which appeared to be associated with the 19th-century building development on the site, was revealed. Approximately 1m of the shaft was removed by machine before it was noticed, but the remainder of the well was left in situ.

77 Brian Road, Marino, Dublin 3