2001:435 - KILMAINHAM: Nestlé Factory, 34–38 Inchicore Road, Dublin

A second phase of archaeological test excavation was conducted on the large, former Nestlé factory site at 34–38 Inchicore Road, Kilmainham, Dublin 8. In a preliminary testing of the site during 2000, while the buildings were still occupied, three cuttings were opened (Excavations 2000, No. 308). The second, more comprehensive phase of excavation was undertaken in February 2001 after all the buildings on the site had been vacated and at a point when live services had been disabled. A mix of modern industrial and associated ancillary buildings presently occupies the site. Areas of tarmac, concrete and stone surfacing are present, as are lawns and trees. The mid-19th-century Ordnance Survey maps depict a large gravel extraction pit on the east side of the site.

The Kilmainham–Islandbridge area is noted as a Viking Age cemetery. The greater part of the finds from this cemetery were discovered during gravel extraction and railway construction in the 19th century. Further remains were discovered in the 1930s, when the War Memorial Park was laid out. A sword is recorded in the National Museum of Ireland’s Finds Register as having been found in Bully’s Acre. A Viking Age sword provenanced to ‘Mr Drum’s field near Kilmainham’, which the Royal Irish Academy obtained in 1851, may in all likelihood be from a gravel pit on the eastern part of the Nestlé site.

Six long linear trenches were opened by machine during the 2001 phase of investigations. Trench A was placed to the east of the site in an area formerly used for carparking. This trench revealed a series of backfill deposits directly associated with the gravel extraction pit depicted on 19th-century Ordnance Survey maps. Natural stratigraphy was encountered at a depth of 3.2m below present ground level. Trench B was opened just inside the entrance to the site from the Inchicore Road and measured 70m north–south. Several walls running on east–west axes were exposed. It is likely that these relate to early factory buildings or to a terrace of houses, known as Albert Place, which preceded the factory buildings. Trench C was to the west of the site, running on a north–south axis between two of the existing factory buildings; it ran from the Inchicore Road street frontage (opposite Kilmainham Jail) to the rear of the site at the north. The southern part of this trench, at the Inchicore Road street frontage, revealed the walls of a basement. The basement was represented within the trench by its southern and northern east–west-aligned walls, a brick floor and a brick fireplace. The fill of the basement consisted of a loose rubble containing red brick, collapsed masonry, mortar, modern metal fragments, and timber. Part of a rusted musket was retrieved from the backfill of the basement.

Trench D was the northernmost trench excavated on the property. It was placed in the area lately used for truck-parking but which had previously been the site of earlier factory buildings. Within this trench large-scale disturbance from old factory walls was noted. Trench E was excavated on the northern part of the property but was located to the south of Trench D. In Trench E old factory foundations and associated services had caused considerable reduction to the old ground level. Where visible, natural stratigraphy was detected at 1m below present ground level, sealed by gravel and overburden. This trench was crossed by approximately eleven north–south-orientated modern walls or service ducts (with construction trenches). Trench F was placed at the front of the property, parallel to the Inchicore Road, on an east–west axis. Broadly similar profiles of stratigraphy were recorded at the eastern and western ends of Trench F. However, toward the central part of the trench a second backfilled basement was uncovered. The western, southern and eastern walls of this structure were exposed. This, like the example encountered in Trench C, was filled with rubble, as if the upper stories of the structure had been demolished into the basement. Unlike the Trench C basement, however, the example in Trench F did not show evidence for a floor surface. Natural subsoil was observed at a depth of 1.85m under the basement rubble. This basement can be equated with one of the former houses (No. 28 or No. 26 Inchicore Road) fronting onto Inchicore Road, directly opposite the entrance to Kilmainham Jail.

No features of archaeological importance were detected during the second phase of assessment at the former Nestlé site in Kilmainham. The test-trenching, in long, continuous transects, revealed a range of modern intrusive features which removed or had a significant impact on the old buried ground surface. Given the degree of disturbance and the intensity of modern activity, archaeological features, if any, are most likely to be visible as cut features into subsoil.
Rigorous archaeological monitoring was recommended should the development go ahead.

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