County: Dublin Site name: DUBLIN: Thomas Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 18:20(32, 133, 373, 494, 620) Licence number: 02E0819
Author: Tim Coughlan, IAC Ltd.
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Multi-period
ITM: E 714293m, N 734025m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.344095, -6.283560
An assessment was carried out at the site of the proposed Digital Hub Development, at Thomas Street, Dublin 8. The development comprises two areas, the Windmill site and the Crane Street site, on either side of Thomas Street, a traditional shopping and market street that effectively forms a spine running parallel to the River Liffey, linking the area to the city centre.
The two proposed areas of the development site are surrounded by the buildings of the Guinness Brewery and are within the Liberties/Coombe area of Dublin’s south inner city. The core development is of c. 3.5ha.
The Digital Hub is a government strategy for a new cluster of digital media activities in the historical core of Dublin city. The Digital Hub will be delivered through a phased development approach, with the first phase of implementation in 2002 and 2003.
Testing place took from 19 to 27 June 2002 using a mechanical excavator fitted with a flat, toothless bucket. Eleven trenches were excavated: four at the Windmill site and seven at the Crane Street site.
The testing revealed a wide variety of walls, structures, services and deposits across both sites. Potential medieval garden soils were identified in the trenches nearest to the Thomas Street frontage of both sites at 1.3m below present ground level. This suggests that, in the absence of post-medieval or modern cellars, there is a likelihood that medieval deposits survive at this depth, with more significant medieval deposits likely adjacent to the street. Deep cellars and service trenches have disturbed large areas of the site, and there are unlikely to be significant archaeological remains in those areas.
The depth of post-medieval silts to the rear of the Brewery Hostel may be associated with the watercourse that flowed along the present Thomas Court, acting as a boundary for St Thomas’s Abbey and St Catherine’s Church to the east. No evidence of material associated with either of these establishments was identified.
Deposits that may represent natural subsoil were exposed in Trenches 2, 3 and 7, suggesting that away from the Thomas Street frontage there is a shallower stratigraphy, and the archaeology here is dominated by post-medieval walls and structures.
The testing indicated that the proposed development has the potential to impinge on in situ archaeological deposits in specific parts of the site.
8 Dungar Terrace, Dún Laoghaire, Co. Dublin
