2002:0275 - CORK: St Nicholas’s Church, Cove Street, Cork

Planning permission was granted to convert St Nicholas’s Church, Cove Street, Cork, to office use. This site lies within the zone of archaeological potential of Cork city, and the present St Nicholas’s Church, built in 1849–50, stands on the site of an earlier, 12th-century church. The medieval walled city of Cork (SMR 74:34(01, 02) lies across the river, c. 200m to the north. It was proposed to retain the church and to erect a structure within it to accommodate a second floor level.

Sixteen roughly square trenches were manually excavated for the construction of pads to support concrete columns in the church. Each trench was excavated to 0.65–0.9m below ground level. Four of the trenches impinged on east–west inhumations that pre-dated the existing church building and were probably associated with the graveyard of the 18th-century or the medieval church. These were left in situ and covered with heavy-duty plastic. The depth of the remainder of the trenches was reduced, and no further burials were exposed. Three walls of a vault or tomb were exposed; the tomb had been disturbed and was filled with rubble. No other finds, features or levels that could be associated with the earlier churches were identified.

AE House, Monahan Road, Cork