2000:0257 - DUBLIN: Davis Place (Off Francis Street), Dublin

Davis Place is a small street to the south of Thomas Davis Street, which joins on to the eastern side of Francis Street. This streetscape developed outside and to the south of the medieval city defences. The Davis Place site is located immediately north of the Church of St Nicholas of Myra, Francis Street, and had been previously occupied by a rectangular stone school building, which dated from the mid-19th century. This schoolhouse site was purchased from the archdiocese of Dublin by the developers, who intend constructing a single block of four apartments with an overall ground area of c. 170m2. The site is bounded to the west by the back of Francis Street (properties numbered 39–42), to the north by Davis Place, and to the east by the Christian Brothers School.

Davis Place is on, or close to, the site of St Francis’s Abbey, founded by Ralph le Porter c. 1233. Following the Dissolution, the friars abandoned the site and the buildings were put to secular use. In 1994, at numbers 34–36 Francis Street, 84 burials were excavated by Alan Hayden. These were associated with medieval pottery and floor tiles, and the excavator suggested that the cemetery represented that of the Franciscan friary (Excavations 1994, 26, 94E0019).

During the 17th-century Penal period the Franciscans re-established their Dublin chapel in Cook Street, close to Merchant’s Quay, where the present friary stands (known as Adam and Eve’s). However, there appears to be a lingering tradition that they regained possession of the Francis Street site of their former friary in the 17th century. According to this tradition, the friars held onto the site until the late 17th century when the property was handed over to the archdiocese of Dublin. The regular clergy of the archdiocese continue to the present day to use the church of St Nicholas of Myra as a parish church.

Excavations at the Davis Place site followed earlier testing by Malachy Conway (Excavations 1997, 40, 96E0374) and Helen Kehoe (Excavations 1999, 66, 99E0452). Work by Ms Kehoe revealed that human remains were present on site. The initial foundation design for the apartment complex required 27 piles. Owing to archaeological issues, this design was subsequently rejected in favour of a raft foundation, and therefore complete excavation was not required.

The earliest feature revealed was a layer of crushed mortar and masonry, which may represent the debris from construction or demolition. A single sherd of Dublin-type medieval pottery was retrieved from this layer. This layer was sealed by a moderately compact, dark greyish-brown clay with frequent inclusions of charcoal, occasional small stones and animal bone, patches of ash and fragments of slate. This extended throughout the area. Finds from this layer included coffin fittings/nails, shroud-pins, sherds of 17th-century pottery, clay pipe fragments and two pieces of glazed floor tile, one of which was line-impressed. The excavated burials cut this layer. Other than disarticulated human remains, some three grave orientations were apparent from the small number that were excavated. These include a north–south orientation (two individuals), a south-west/north-east orientation (ten individuals) and an east–west orientation (four individuals).

Based on stratigraphic relationships, it can be suggested that the north–south-orientated burials are the earliest of the excavated examples. The group of inhumations orientated south-west/north-east is proposed as a second phase of burial. The conventional east–west alignment is argued as a final phase of burial. This latter burial group may be associated with the historically known churches of St Nicholas of Myra. Thus, it is suggested that inhumations from Burial Phases I and II, which were mainly coffin burials, are likely to date from the 17th century at the latest. These may have been aligned on a standing element of, or a tradition of, the medieval friary of St Francis. Alternatively, a structure built by the friars after their reoccupation of the site, prior to the construction of the church depicted by Rocque, may have acted as a focus for burial. There is little difference between the alignment of the church depicted on Rocque’s map of 1756 and that which replaced it (built in 1829–34). Therefore, it is difficult to attribute divergent burial alignments to the cartographically visible church structures.

The building of the schoolhouse during the mid-19th century provides a terminus ante quem for the cemetery. The 1863 edition of the OS map depicts the walls of this school building. The southern wall of this schoolhouse cut several of the burials. At the barest level, the cemetery ceased to be in use at the point when the schoolhouse was constructed. Before this an open space, not marked with any cartographic convention as a cemetery, had been preserved within the area subsequently excavated.

Approximately 120 clay pipe fragments were recovered, and a dump of kiln waste material with small amounts of malleable unfired white clay was found. A small assemblage of post-medieval pottery was retrieved. Copper-alloy shroud-pins, a possible lace tag and a belt-buckle were found in association with the burials.

Analysis of the human remains by Laureen Buckley has found that the burials consist of six juveniles, one adolescent, four young adults (17–25 years) and four middle adults (26–45 years). The adults included five males and two females.

2 Killiney View, Albert Road Lower, Glenageary, Co. Dublin