County: Dublin Site name: DUBLIN CASTLE – DUBH LINN GARDENS
Sites and Monuments Record No.: DU018–020; DU018–020004 Licence number: —
Author: Linzi Simpson, Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd, 27 Merrion Square, Dublin 2.
Site type: Post-medieval
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 715825m, N 734698m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.349805, -6.260308
Non-licenced monitoring was carried out in the northeastern corner of the Dubh linn garden, Dublin Castle. The garden lies within the precinct of Dublin Castle, to the south of the main castle complex, and is thought to be the site of the ancient ^Dubh-linn’ or Black Pool of Dublin. The presence of a pool in this location was suggested by the discovery of an inlet on the southern side where the remains of a 9th-century Viking settlement and burial-ground was found, the earliest Viking settlement in Dublin (Simpson 2005). The tidal River Poddle fed the pool and a series of mills are recorded along the course, south of the castle and further to the north-east. This area was never developed, probably because it was wet and marshy, and it was formally laid out as a garden in 1633 by the Lord Deputy, Sir Thomas Wentworth. This garden is depicted on de Gomme’s map of Dublin of 1678.
The new development was confined to the northeast corner of the present garden, which was redeveloped as a new memorial space by the Office of Public Works. This work involved the removal of an original terraced garden with pond, which was constructed in 1994; a set of photographs from this work are included in the report as an appendix (provided by Ana Dolan, OPW). The monitoring programme established that there was significant disturbance to the ground-movement works in the 1990s but that this was confined to the upper 1m only. Below this level the infill layers of the pool were identified and consist of black silty clays. The upper levels of silts were mixed with brick and mortar, the type suggesting this activity can be dated to the 18th century.
What is clear is that there was no attempt to backfill with dry rubble in the north-east corner of the garden as one might expect if the ground was to be used for building. This, and the complete absence of earlier walls or drains, etc., helps confirm the cartographic evidence that there were no buildings in this location, which formed the core of the original garden as depicted by Rocque. No medieval features or artefacts were uncovered during the works and there was no evidence of any landscape features that could be associated with the 17th-century garden laid out by Wentworth.
Reference
Simpson, L. 2005 Viking warrior burials: is this the
Longphort. In Se$n Duffy (ed.), Medieval Dublin
VI, 11–62.
