2006:601 - DUBLIN: 15a Bishop Street, Dublin

An 18th-century Moravian meeting house formed the southern boundary of the assessment area. However, the site itself extends back to the south and is fronted by the early 20th-century Moravian church at Nos 40/40A and 41 Kevin Street. The former church and meeting house are protected structures, listed on the Dublin City Development Plan 2005–2011 (Ref. 4260).

The reformation in Bohemia and Moravia possibly began with Jan Hus’s popular reform movement, which was stymied somewhat by his being burned at the stake for heresy in 1414. The United Brethren movement survived, however, and by 1467 the Moravian Church had established its own ministry. The 18th century saw the renewal of the Church through the patronage of count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf, a pietist nobleman in Saxony. Some Moravian families fleeing persecution in Bohemia and Moravia found refuge on Zinzendorf’s estate in 1722 and built the community of Herrnhut. The new community became the haven for many more Moravian refugees. Count Zinzendorf encouraged them to keep the discipline of the Unitas Fratrum, and he encouraged them to proselytise in North America and the Caribbean. The date 13 August 1727 marked the culmination of a great spiritual renewal for the Moravian Church in Herrnhut, and in 1732 the first missionaries were sent to the West Indies.

The sect was introduced into Ireland by John Cennick, who arrived in Dublin in 1746 and founded the first Moravian church there. By 1748 there were churches in Antrim, Armagh, Cavan, Derry, Down and Monaghan. The Moravian Church of the United Brethren, the protected structure in the centre of the site, was constructed in 1754. The interior has been subject to some unsympathetic subdivisions but overall the main features have been left untouched, including the original timber staircase. The building was closed for public worship some years ago and until recently was used for commercial purposes.

The former Moravian meeting house and adjacent vestry, both designed by architects O’Callaghan and Webb in 1905, are located along the south side of the proposed development site, fronting on to Kevin Street Lower. The front pediment of the meeting house encloses a carving of the Paschal Lamb with a flag. These later structures mask the earlier church/meeting house, and functioned as a church hall and vestry. Closed in c. 1959, the meeting hall is now occupied by offices. An issue with the proposed development was the location of the Moravian graveyard. It is presently located on Whitechurch Road, Edmondstown, near Ballinteer, and there was no indication that the Bishop Street site had ever been used as a graveyard.

The assessment was carried out in May, in the yard between the street frontage and the earlier meeting house. Two trenches were mechanically excavated and three trial pits and a trial bore were also examined. The site was the subject of a previous assessment undertaken by Helen Kehoe (Excavations 1998, No. 139, 98E0441).

Trench C (where Kehoe had excavated Trenches A and B) was excavated 0.6m parallel to the northern side of the meeting house over a distance of 11m. The clays recorded at the western end of the trench appear to have been cultivated, with the upper deposit clearly post-medieval in date on the basis of a pit cut from the upper level. A single sherd of medieval pottery from the deposit below does not indicate that the deposit is necessarily medieval in date, although it is quite likely that the area north of St Kevin’s Church would have been cultivated during the medieval period. The diagnostic material from the pit would suggest it was cut around the turn of the 18th century.

The presence in the trench of a wall with brick may indicate an earlier version of the present porch structure or an earlier structure on the site. There appears to have been some building in the locality as depicted on Speed (c. 1610), but, in the years following the Restoration, it is likely that the area developed rapidly. By the middle of the 18th century the southern limit of urban expansion was along the back plots on the southern side of Kevin Street and it is quite likely that the plot containing the Moravian church may have had earlier structures, especially on the Bishop Street side.

The results from Trench D confirm the evidence for cultivation recorded in Trench C. It was not possible to date this activity, as no finds were recovered, but it would appear possible that the earliest deposit is medieval, with subsequent layers indicating later activity over the site.

A wall recorded in section is presumably the western wall of the structure fronting Bishop Street. On Rocque’s map (1756), the adjacent laneway was depicted as being open, whereas on the first-edition OS (c. 1838) it had been built over. The passageway however is depicted on the subsequent revisions.

In any case, the assessment demonstrated that agricultural activities were taking place in the area probably from the 14th century through to the period immediately prior to the area’s urban development, with up to 1m of cultivated soils present across the areas tested.

The site will be developed in 2007, with a planning condition that the bulk ground reduction be monitored under licence.

27 Merrion Square, Dublin 2