2000:0266 - DUBLIN: Phase 1/H, St James's Hospital, James's Street, Dublin

NMI Burial Excavation Records

County: Dublin Site name: DUBLIN: Phase 1/H, St James's Hospital, James's Street

Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 99E0682

Author: Rosanne Meenan

Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous

Period/Dating: Modern (AD 1750-AD 2000)

ITM: E 713558m, N 733474m

Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.339304, -6.294788

The site is located on part of the grounds of the South Dublin Union workhouse. The earliest part of the workhouse, dating to 1703, was situated north of the development site, between it and James’s Street. Later buildings linked with the workhouse were built in the 18th and 19th centuries, south of the 1703 building. The development site is located on the site of Hospital 3 and part of Hospital 6, the former dating to 1876 and the latter to 1968. Hospitals 3 and 6 were demolished within the last four or five years. There was a basement in Hospital 3, and the demolition rubble was pushed into the basement.

Eight trenches of varying length tested the development area in February 2000. Five of them were placed within the footprint of the demolished hospital. This was indicated by the nature of the modern building rubble deposit, which contained modern material down to the lowest level. Archaeological material was not observed underneath the rubble, and it is very likely that, if such material existed, it was destroyed during the construction and/or demolition of the hospital building.

The other three trenches were located outside the limits of the demolished hospital. The fill consisted of lenses of compressed dumped material of 19th-century date. These may have been deposited in order to raise the existing ground level in the 19th century. The underlying material comprised a yellow/grey, mottled, silty clay, except at the north end of the site, where the natural material comprised a brown, gritty, coarse, sandy material.

Roestown, Drumree, Co. Meath