2008:430 - 139 Parnell Street, Dublin, Dublin

Limited test excavation and an assessment of standing building remains were undertaken in advance of the development of a site located on the north side of Parnell Street between George’s Street and Hill Street. The work was done in August 2008, prior to the renovation of the existing street frontage building there. At the commencement of archaeological work, the site consisted of a street-frontage row building (occupying approximately half of the site, with no basement), behind which was a yard (walled on all sides). The concrete flooring had been removed prior to the commissioning of archaeological work, and three test-trenches were excavated by a mechanical digger within what was at the time a rear yard behind, and also within the ground floor of the existing street-frontage structure (intended for alterations in the development).
The site lies along what was formerly called Great Britain Street, and then Summer Hill, in a neighbourhood that was predominantly laid out in the early 18th century, following Luke Gardiner’s acquisition of lands around what is today O’Connell Street. Rutland (later Parnell) Square was developed around 1751 and became, for a time, a fashionable address, and it is possible that other structures along what is now Parnell Street were developed around that time or soon thereafter. The development site is represented as developed in Charles Brooking’s 1728 map, but that map is famously ‘inspirational’ and inaccurate in depicting the extent of genuine building in Dublin at the time. John Rocque’s 1756 map also represents the site as having been developed as a very narrow plot with an urban row building at the street frontage. In the map, the land immediately to the east of the plot is undeveloped. Rocque’s accuracy of dimensions and building shape along primary and secondary thoroughfares, and in locations where access or visibility were not hindered by adjacent structures, is typically quite good (Frazer 2004). The site in question appears to have satisfied these parameters at the time, suggesting that the building represented on it is reasonably accurate. Subsequent historical mapping (e.g. the 1847 OS) indicates that the site continued as a narrow plot after the 18th century. However, the building present in 1847 is different enough from that of 1756 to suggest that it was rebuilt at some time during the intervening era.
The existing site boundary preserves the front, southern part of the early narrow property plot facing what was Great Britain (Parnell) Street as depicted on the historical maps. The existing brick row building occupying the site is now four storeys, but was formerly a gable-fronted loft-over-three-storey structure.
Trenches at the back of the site were excavated to sterile, natural subsoil (at c. 5.55m OD). No intact archaeological deposits were unearthed in either of the trenches. It was not possible to excavate the third trench, within the standing building footprint, to natural subsoil due to the presence of an active sewer. Nevertheless, no intact archaeological deposits were unearthed in the trench, and a variety of different evidence combines to indicate that the survival of archaeological deposits within the remainder of the footprint of the existing street-frontage building is unlikely.
The testing indicates that the oldest surviving fabric in the standing building and standing rear eastern boundary wall is probably from the original development of the site and is likely to date from the third quarter of the 18th century. This date for the initial development of the plot accords well both with the historical information about the vicinity, with the archaeological evidence from the neighbourhood and with the historical map evidence. Surviving original wall fabric identified on the site along both the rear ground floor wall of the building and part of the rear yard eastern ground level boundary wall may correspond to the eastern wall of the building depicted at the site on Rocque’s 1756 map. This surviving mid-late 18th-century standing building fabric is highly incomplete, piecemeal and lacks contemporary subsurface archaeology. Most of the earliest building is likely to have been rebuilt/replaced from the late 18th/early 19th century on, prior to c. 1847. Some of the standing building may date from this rebuilding, but the ground-floor street frontage and the entire ground-floor western wall are modern renovations.
Reference
Frazer, B. 2004. Cracking Rocque? Archaeology Ireland Summer 2004, 10–13.