County: Dublin Site name: The Passionist Congregation, St Paul’s Retreat, Mount Argus, Kimmage Road Lower, Harold’s Cross
Sites and Monuments Record No.: DU018–0434 Licence number: 08E0738
Author: James Hession and Peter Kerins, Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd, 27 Merrion Square, Dublin 2.
Site type: Urban
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 714696m, N 732556m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.330814, -6.278044
An assessment was carried out at a proposed development site located in the grounds of St Paul’s Retreat, Mount Argus, Harold’s Cross, Dublin 6W, on the 8 and 9 of September 2008.
The proposed development (a new monastery) involves a two-storey development consisting of seventeen bedrooms, an infirmary, a chapel, dining and living rooms, an archive, associated office areas, a reception area, and associated service, storage and utility rooms and outbuildings. The site is bounded by Mount Argus Avenue to the west and by Tiernan Park to the south. The southernmost part of the site contains the constraint area for DU018–0434, the city watercourse.
Six test-trenches were excavated across the site using a 13-tonne machine excavator fitted with a toothless bucket. The testing programme concentrated on the footprint of the proposed development in order to assess the impact of the proposed structure on any surviving archaeological remains and specifically whether the proposed development would impact on any section of the city watercourse. The results yielded no evidence for the city watercourse within the footprint of the proposed development. Due to extensive tree cover, the eastern and south-eastern part of the proposed development could not be accessed. This area is demarcated as the location of the city watercourse on the 1882 and 1935 OS maps and the likelihood that the city watercourse survives in this corner of the site remains a possibility. However, the footprint of the proposed development will not impact this area as it is to be retained as green space. The results indicated that a number of 19th–20th-century linear drainage features or landscaped garden features were present on-site located at the north-west corner of the proposed development and it was recommended that monitoring be carried out as required during the groundworks phase for the proposed development.
Monitoring was carried out on-site as necessary from 8 October 2008. Between 0.2m and 0.4m of topsoil was stripped across the full extent of the site. Excavations in the south-easternmost corner of the site closest to the city watercourse, which was inaccessible during the testing programme, yielded no evidence of archaeological structures, soils or artefacts.
