2008:472 - Pensioners’ Graveyard, Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, Dublin

Testing took place at the In-Pensioners’ graveyard (1905–1931) at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin 8, carried out on behalf of the Office of Public Works. The work was carried out following a survey and inventory of the site undertaken in December 2007 (Moraghan and Vedra 2007). It is proposed to restore and rehabilitate the gravestones and the graveyard and as this will involve some limited excavation it was recommended that testing be conducted prior to any restoration work. One of the proposed methods of restoration involves digging below the existing base to a depth of 0.6m to insert a new concrete plinth to which the original base would be attached. This testing was conducted to assess the potential for disturbance to the burials at a depth of 0.6m. Also as part of the testing, the ends of the rows of graves were probed in order to determine whether buried headstone bases existed beyond the ends of the rows.
The In-Pensioners’ graveyard is located in the north-west grounds of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham (RHK). The RHK is a protected structure under Dublin City Council’s Development Plans 2005–2011 (Ref. 4333). The site is bounded to the north by a relatively modern stone wall, the other side of which is St John’s Road. To the west of the graveyard is the South Circular Road and to the east lies the earlier In-Pensioners’ graveyard (1880–1905). To the south of the site is Bully’s Acre. All sides of the graveyard are enclosed by stone walls.
The study area lies within the zone of archaeological potential for the historic city of Dublin (DU018–020). In the grounds of the Royal Hospital there are eight recorded monuments.
Testing took place over two days in March 2008 and consisted of the excavation of fifteen test-pits and the probing of the ends of the rows of burials. These were excavated by hand. Each of the pits was excavated through topsoil to a depth of 0.6m. The topsoil across the site consisted of mid-brown loam with stones.
Of the fifteen excavated test-pits only two encountered any grave-cuts at or within the 0.6m depth. These were at 0.6m and 0.4m depth. Any restoration project will have to take into account the potential for the burials to vary quite substantially in depth and ideally no excavation should occur below 0.3m in depth. The probing showed that in some cases the rows of burials continue beyond the currently visible extent.