County: Dublin Site name: DUBLIN: St James's Hospital, James's Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 00E0647
Author: Linzi Simpson, Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd.
Site type: Workhouse
Period/Dating: Modern (AD 1750-AD 2000)
ITM: E 713586m, N 733767m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.341930, -6.294263
This large site, which fronts onto James’s Street, lies in the western medieval suburb of Dublin, close to the parish church of St James. It forms part of the known site of the ‘poor house’, built in 1703 and depicted in the cartographic sources. In 1727 a foundling hospital for the orphans of Dublin had been added to the main building, which was subsequently rebuilt and enlarged as the ‘South Dublin Union work-house’, sometime in the early 1830s. By the mid- to late 19th century the complex of buildings included an asylum, a church and various infirmaries.
The assessment was carried out in August 2000, in advance of redevelopment, and located a consistent deposit of medieval garden soil that was 0.2–0.6m deep. These deposits produced medieval pottery, shell and charcoal inclusions, as well as animal bone. The fragmented nature of the inclusions suggests that this area was under cultivation from the medieval period until the early 18th century, when the poorhouse was built.
The assessment also located a network of post-medieval walls, which could be related directly to the poorhouse/workhouse complex. These were well preserved at the southern end of the site and were up to 3m deep; more recent excavations by Claire Walsh have confirmed that these walls represented the original poorhouse building. The walls located on the north side of the site, however, were very truncated. Other features included flagstone floors and cobbles, as well as a redbrick cellar and a modern manhole. The site is currently under excavation, on behalf of Trinity College, Dublin.
2 Killiney View, Albert Road, Glenageary Lower, Co. Dublin
