County: Dublin Site name: DUBLIN: St Patrick’s Cathedral
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 01E0695
Author: Helen Kehoe
Site type: Cathedral
Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)
ITM: E 715111m, N 733537m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.339535, -6.271462
Monitoring was carried out in Minot’s Tower at St Patrick’s Cathedral during the installation of visitor toilet facilities and the upgrading of associated underground sewage pipework outlets.
There was no archaeological impact on the floor of Minot’s Tower; all new pipework was inserted in an existing concrete slab. There was minimal intervention on the walls of the tower, which required small drill holes into sections of the wall joints. Exposure of the tower stonework revealed the original internal bar-bolt of the tower, which remains exposed, along with the initial entrance area.
Externally the trenches that were opened to give access to existing services revealed some disarticulated human bone remains. These may have been in situ burials, disturbed during the original excavations for the existing pipework and the insertion of the drainage culverts and redeposited in the fill that then covered these services. The articulated remains recorded in the new tank trench were left in situ and undisturbed.
Research indicates that the smaller culvert was built as part of Benjamin Lee Guinness’s restoration programme between 1860 and 1865. However, this drainage system proved inadequate, and in 1881 his son, Edward Guinness, built the larger drain, which also proved inadequate for drainage purposes. Both drain culverts had fallen into disuse.
11 Norseman Place, Stoneybatter, Dublin 7
