2007:478 - DUBLIN: Criminal Courts Complex, Infirmary Road, Dublin

Prior to development works taking place, an outline assessment of the structures surviving on the site was undertaken, which identified several standing remains including a wall constructed along the line of the parliamentary boundary of the city (effectively the boundary of the medieval grant and the route of the Riding of the Franchises) and the precinct wall of the site (itself notionally the precinct wall of Phoenix Park), which incorporated the original formal entrance to the Royal Infirmary complex. In addition, a drinking fountain (1860–61) designed by Thomas Deane and Benjamin Woodward was noted on the southern exterior boundary. Also extant were the Matron’s House, a red-brick Arts and Crafts residence and the derelict Porter’s Lodge, half of which was under tarmac. The possibility of there being subsurface archaeological deposits surviving on site was addressed and a licence was issued to monitor all ground-reduction works.

A second site visit immediately prior to the commencement of the development identified under heavy undergrowth the remains of an industrial structure dating to the Emergency (1939–1945). The structure was associated with the activities of the Emergency Scientific Research Bureau, a body charged with several tasks during that period, among them conducting research into the manufacture of potassium chlorate, sesquisulphide of phosphorus (phosphorus sulphide) and amorphous phosphorus. The initial research, undertaken on site by chemists given army commissions, appears to have been successful and a facility was constructed at Parkgate Street utilising an existing 19th-century laundry building.

Research undertaken in the Military and the National Archives and subsequent fieldwork identified the function of the first structure noted, a reinforced concrete building in the north-western corner of the site (the Cell Building), along with at least two other associated structures: a kiln to the north of a 19th-century laundry and an extension to the laundry building which incorporated evidence for the rebuilding of an existing chimney stack.

The initial research was undertaken ostensibly to produce white phosphorus for hand grenades; by the end of the war, however, production was solely maintained for Maguire and Patterson, with a variation in the formula necessary to produce amorphous phosphorus, or red phosphorus, for matches. The facility was closed down in 1946 due in part to pressure exerted by local residents and complaints from the OPW, charged with the maintenance of the adjacent People’s Garden. Operations appear to have been transferred to an industrial alcohol factory in the Cooley peninsula; further research has, however, been arrested by official obfuscation.

27 Merrion Square, Dublin 2