2007:556 - Warrenmount Convent, Warrenmount, Dublin

The site is to be developed as a modern convent building for the Presentation community still resident at Warrenmount. Located south of the River Liffey, the development site lies partially within the zone of archaeological potential for the medieval city of Dublin but beyond the precinct of the medieval walled town and at some distance from the medieval core. The development lies within the area of post-medieval expansion of the city and excavations within this area have revealed extensive evidence of post-medieval habitation and industry.
The evidence from the test-trenches is conclusive and would support the historical evidence. Warrenmount seems to have always been peripheral to the industrial centre of the ‘Liberties’. It may have been used as a ‘tenter’ field or as pure agricultural land prior to its occupancy by Nathaniel Warren in the 18th century. The trenches have shown that the original landscape was open agricultural land and possibly later gardens as demonstrated by the rich humic buried soil strata. The landscape sloped naturally to the banks of the Poddle. The landscape was altered at the time of the occupation of the site either by Warren in the 18th century or by the Presentation Sisters following their arrival there in 1896. The dumped, unstratified post-medieval material served to raise the level of the area to form a basis for a semi-formal garden. The nature of the post-medieval debris would suggest that its origin was the clearance of derelict sites following the demolition of the post-medieval fabric of the area. This would suggest that this material is more likely to have arrived on this site in the late 19th or early 20th century. The trenching revealed nothing of particular archaeological significance.