County: Dublin Site name: KILMAINHAM: 52 Inchicore Road
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR 6:17 Licence number: 02E0705
Author: Franc Myles
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Post Medieval (AD 1600-AD 1750)
ITM: E 712470m, N 733801m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.342473, -6.310998
An assessment was carried out to the rear of a house on the northern side of Inchicore Road. The property is 60m north-west of Kilmainham Gaol, on the opposite side of the street, and is the last in a terrace of houses constructed in the 1870s. The site is within the Kilmainham zone of archaeological potential. A single test-trench was excavated manually across the area to be disturbed by an extension, but no deposits of archaeological significance were recorded.
Betty O’Brien (1988) has dealt with the confusion surrounding the location of the Viking cemetery of Kilmainham. On the basis of her research, it seemed unlikely that any such material would be recorded at this location. The proposed development is on the northern side of Inchicore Road, overlooking the area of the activity described by O’Brien. More recent work, carried out by Ian Doyle to the east of the proposed development site, in the grounds of the former Nestlé factory, has produced nothing of archaeological significance (Excavations 2000, No. 308, 00E0183). Other work in the area has concentrated on the Royal Hospital or farther east down the Camac valley, well away from the proposed development. The site is nonetheless close to the summit of the ridge separating the valleys of the Camac and the Liffey, and thus close to the Slighe Mhór, the great highway that traversed the whole island from at least the early historic period.
The terrace of houses of which No. 52 is the westernmost was apparently constructed to accommodate army officers from the adjacent military installations in Kilmainham. It is likely, therefore, that the property was once administered by the Knights Hospitaller of the Priory of Kilmainham and confiscated and regranted on several occasions after the initial Henrican assault on church properties. The northern side of Inchicore Road is depicted on John Rocque’s 1756 map as being enclosed farmland. Some development had taken place by the time of the publication of the first edition of the OS in the 1840s, including the erection of a ‘Meeting House’ just to the west of the site; No. 52 is depicted on subsequent editions of the OS as it is today.
Reference
O’Brien, E. 1988 A reconsideration of the location and context of Viking burials at Kilmainham/ Islandbridge, Dublin. In C. Manning (ed.), Dublin and beyond the Pale: studies in honour of Paddy Healy, 35–44. Bray.
67 Kickham Road, Inchicore, Dublin 8
