2007:477 - DUBLIN: Granby Lane/Dominick Place, Dublin

Testing was carried out at a development site located at the rear of 30 Parnell Square West and on the site of the former Matt Talbot Hall, Granby Lane/Dominick Place, Dublin 1. The site is located in an area that cartographic sources (Speed 1610, Rocque 1756) suggest was open agricultural land until the late 18th century. Four test-trenches were opened at the site, two in the southern half formerly occupied by the Matt Talbot Hall and two in the carpark area to the north. These revealed that the site was covered in deep deposits of made ground (1.2–2m), largely composed of redeposited garden soils and layers of builders’ rubble. Finds recovered from these soils suggest that they were mainly 19th/20th-century in date. Structural features identified included three masonry walls, a red-brick drain and a two-room red-brick latrine structure. These structures correspond to buildings illustrated on the first-edition OS map (1837). A small north–south-orientated ditch was also identified during the testing programme. The ditch cut natural boulder clay and had a concave profile. It measured 1.2m in width, 0.6m in depth and extended beyond the sides of the trench in both directions. It was filled by light-brown/green silty clay that contained occasional inclusions of animal bone, cockleshell and snail shell. This ditch probably functioned as an agricultural drain or field boundary prior to the late 18th-century development of the area.

27 Merrion Square, Dublin 2