County: Dublin Site name: KILMAINHAM: Eircom Site, St John’s Road
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 02E0067
Author: Claire Walsh
Site type: Pit-burial
Period/Dating: Bronze Age (2200 BC-801 BC)
ITM: E 713426m, N 733626m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.340698, -6.296714
Test excavation was carried out from 23 January to 8 February 2002 on this large development site immediately north of the Royal Hospital. An additional trench was excavated in the grounds of the former Infirmary of the Royal Hospital. The site is in an area of high sensitivity, close to the early medieval foundation of Kilmainham and the later Knights’ Hospitaller foundation.
All trenches were excavated with a 1.8m grading bucket. Where boulder clay was encountered, the machine graded through it to a depth of up to 1m. The conditions of visibility were generally excellent, with well-defined, yellow/brown gravel, sand or boulder subsoil revealed.
No deposits of early medieval or medieval date were uncovered in the trenches. However, a tripartite Food Vessel cremation was revealed at the eastern side of the Eircom depot. The pot sat in an unprotected pit measuring 0.59m east–west by 0.5m. There was no evidence of a cist or mound. The vessel was set into the north-eastern part of the pit and was angled slightly to the west. Large fragments of cremated bone were evident in the fill of the pit, but most were contained in the inverted vessel. The fill of the pit was a heavily charcoal-stained silt. The top of the pit was a mere 1.08m below present ground level, which is at c. 10.8m OD at this point, and the machine had extended c. 0.2m into subsoil. The pit was excavated in a manner that allowed the vessel to be removed in one piece by a conservator. It was encased in plaster of Paris in situ and was cleaned and stabilised under laboratory conditions. It is quite small (c. 0.2m high) and has extensive decoration on the exterior and the rim.
27 Coulson Avenue, Rathgar, Dublin 6
