County: Dublin Site name: DUBLIN: St Patrick’s Cathedral
Sites and Monuments Record No.: DU018-020086- Licence number: 01E0695 ext.
Author: Helen Kehoe
Site type: Burial
Period/Dating: Modern (AD 1750-AD 2000)
ITM: E 715111m, N 733537m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.339535, -6.271462
Monitoring of a trench excavation for a tank insertion in 2002 (street-level dimensions 2m north–south by 1.7, located 7m west of the south-west corner of the Cathedral) partially revealed the articulated leg bones of one individual in the south-east corner of the base of the trench (Excavations 2002, No. 572). No further excavation was required, as information supplied at the time indicated that the depth at 2.75m was sufficient. However, subsequent drainage problems with the system required the tank to be lowered further into the trench by 0.75m to render the new sewerage system effective.
The tank was removed and the left leg bones revealed in the initial excavation were uncovered. Subsequent excavation by hand (at a depth of 2.8m) revealed the poorly preserved articulated upper torso of an adult (SK1) extending east–west. The leg bones (above) revealed at a depth of 2.7m formed part of this skeleton. The bones were not in situ and had been moved slightly out of position. The partial remains of two additional skullcaps were laid on the ribcage of this individual.
The partly articulated remains of a second individual (SK2) lay to the right of SK1. The rib bones and left arm were slightly disturbed. The pelvic bones were in situ and the legs extended into the section. Only half of the skull remained; it was detached from the spinal column. These remains were also in a poor state of preservation.
Waterlogged soft grey silt, from which a large, possible penny, coin was retrieved in the east section face, overlay the remains. Both surfaces of the coin were severely worn and no precise date could be ascertained
The base of the trench measured 1.45m by 1.5m, with the bone deposits at a depth of 2.75m from the present footpath level. By agreement, the bones were reburied into the side of the trench, within the grey silt which had originally overlain the deposits.
The skeletal remains were in a poor state of preservation and were evidently partially moved out of their original position at an earlier stage. The disturbance of the bones most likely took place during the construction of the earlier culvert under Benjamin Lee Guinness’s restoration programme between 1860 and 1865. It would appear that the bones possibly date to a period just prior to the culvert insertion, with the penny coin found in the same deposit which overlay the skeletal material, and from which a clay-pipe fragment was retrieved in the initial excavation.
11 Norseman Place, Stoneybatter, Dublin 7
