County: Dublin Site name: DUBLIN: National Library, Kildare Street
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 03E1203
Author: Eoin Halpin, Archaeological Development Services
Site type: No archaeology found
Period/Dating: N/A
ITM: E 716256m, N 733727m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.340991, -6.254196
Monitoring was undertaken at the rear of the National Library of Ireland (NLI), Kildare Street, Dublin. The site development is located east of the main portico of the National Library, in the east wing of that building, beside the former National College of Art and Design building. The site works are enabling works to facilitate a proposed James Joyce Exhibition in the former National College of Art and Design (NCAD) building. The works involve the partial demolition of the 1920s extension to the NLI and construction of a public lobby with a new lift shaft to serve the three floors of the former NCAD building, including the exhibition floor and the basement ground and Main Reading Room floor (first floor of the 1890s NLI structure). These works also specifically involve the removal of a concrete basement floor in the Library’s Newspaper Storeroom and the reduction of the exposed ground. This ground-reduction work was monitored between August and October 2003.
The concrete floor (0.15m thick) of the basement was removed with machine tools. The bases of cast-iron support columns and service pipes were uncovered during the excavation of the floor deposits. The exposed basement foundation walls were found to be red brick over rough coursed stone along the east and south sides, and coursed, roughly dressed granite along the west side. These foundation walls were approximately 1m deep, beneath the level of the former concrete floor. Pits were dug through subsoil at points along the sides of the basement in order to underpin these walls.
The ground immediately below the concrete floor was a mid-grey gritty clay containing mortar, coal, red-brick and ceramic-pipe fragments. This clay is made-up ground, probably dating to the early 20th century, when the east wing of the National Library was completed. This made-up ground, which was removed from within the basement, was approximately 1.1m thick and directly overlay the subsoil. The subsoil was found to be a mid-grey, sandy clay subsoil.
Later works at the site involved the removal of the support columns, the floors and roof directly above the basement, as well as the digging of a lift shaft, through subsoil, in the south-east corner to an approximate depth of 5.5m below the former floor level.
Nothing of archaeological significance was found within the site development.
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