2007:490 - DUBLIN: St Luke’s Church, Newmarket, Dublin

Test excavation was carried out at the site in advance of proposals to convert the early 18th-century roofless church to offices, and to landscape the graveyard to provide a city park. The work was funded by Dublin City Council.

A series of trenches, cleared by mechanical excavator due to contamination and then hand-dug, determined the level and extent of burials at both the south and north graveyards of the church. None were removed.

A structure known as the Anabaptist church at the north-west of the church was investigated. Substantial remains of this building are present.

An enigmatic red-brick graveyard structure was part excavated and found to be an early 19th-century tomb, latterly used as a charnel pit.

An unrecorded vault beneath the vestry building at the south side of the church was discovered. It had been blocked up in the 19th century and sealed by almost 1m of soil. The remains of a minimum of 22 individuals were present, several of them in decayed coffins. The bodies were exhumed under the direction of pathologist Laureen Buckley.

The plans for the reuse of the church and graveyard will not disturb any burials.