County: Dublin Site name: St Mary’s Community Nursing Unit, Phoenix Park, Dublin
Sites and Monuments Record No.: DU018–007 Licence number: 08E0292
Author: Dave Bayley, Irish Archaeological Consultancy Ltd, 120b Greenpark Road, Bray, Co. Wicklow.
Site type: No archaeological significance
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 710652m, N 734676m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.350715, -6.337990
The area of proposed development is located within the grounds of St Mary’s Hospital, within the Phoenix Park (DU018–007), Dublin 8. The main hospital building and surrounding grounds at St Mary’s functioned as The Hibernian School between 1769 and 1806, changing to the Royal Hibernian Military School from 1806 to 1924. The main building, ancillary buildings and grounds were used as a military hospital by the Irish army from 1948 and later in the 20th century it became a civilian hospital. The complex now functions as St Mary’s Geriatric Hospital with additional care nursing units constructed within the grounds. The nearest designated site of importance to the area of development is a Neolithic burial mound (DU018–
007(11)). This site is located c. 100m to the west of the proposed development area.
As part of the pre-development works on-site a ground-penetrating radar survey was carried out to identify existing services. In addition to this the survey identified ten linear anomalies within the green lawn that forms part of the area of proposed development. These anomalies had an approximate north-east/south-west trend; they were recorded at a constant depth of 0.8m and were evenly spaced at intervals of 8m. It is possible that the linear anomalies represent the remnants of recent land drainage features in the grounds, the location of which was not marked on utility maps.
Testing of the proposed development area revealed nothing of archaeological significance in any of the nineteen test-trenches. The north–south-oriented linear anomalies identified during a GPR Survey were shown to be post-medieval field drains.
