2003:954 - MAYNOOTH: Court House Square, Kildare

Reconstruction work in Brady’s public house on the corner of Court House Square and Main Street, Maynooth, was monitored at the end of October 2003. The groundwork monitored included the digging of foundation pads and ground-beam trenches in the public bar, an area measuring 11.9m east–west by 13.8m. Digging showed that the existing building was constructed on top of a cobblestone surface. The floor level of the public bar was established by filling in mixed clay and rubble deposits with a combined thickness of 0.7–0.9m directly on top of the cobblestones. John Rocque’s 1757 map of Maynooth shows a wide expansion of the southern side of Main Street, where Court House Square and Brady’s public house were later established. It seems likely that the cobblestone surface exposed at the base of the construction pits and trenches formed part of Main Street from the mid-18th century. A later map of Maynooth shows that Court House Square and Brady’s public house were established some time before 1821. The utilising of the same rock-hard cobblestone surface as support for new foundations in 2003, mirroring techniques adopted by builders two hundred years earlier, maintains an unexpected continuity with the previous building history of the site.

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