2009:314 - IRISH FILM INSTITUTE, 6 EUSTACE STREET, DUBLIN, Dublin

A small-scale programme of monitoring of works relating to the insertion of a lift shaft was undertaken at the Irish Film Institute. The IFI is a protected structure and a recorded monument, and parts of it belonged to a Quaker meeting-house (DU018–020345) and possibly an inn (DU018–020239). The area of the lift-shaft excavation would have been located in the rear garden of a property fronting on to Eustace Street, perhaps the inn, called the Eagle Tavern, which is referred to in 1735. A plaque at No. 6 Eustace Street notes that this was the location of the tavern, though it may also have been located at Nos 4 and/or 5. The Quakers established their meeting-house off Sycamore Street in 1692, and over time they gradually increased their holdings in the direction of Eustace Street, building up the rear gardens of the Eustace Street properties over the late 18th to the early 19th centuries and buying the Eagle Tavern itself in 1815.
The lift shaft was excavated by hand to a depth of 2.05m below ground/street level. A number of dumped deposits and layers of demolition rubble were encountered, as well as a late 19th/early 20thcentury brick-lined drain and associated floor, and an 18th/19th-century masonry wall and floor. Boreholes to insert four piles, one at each of the corners of the lift shaft, were drilled down into the ground and identified natural bedrock at 5.3–6.3m below ground/street level. This would imply that up to 4m of archaeological deposits might survive beneath the level excavated for the lift shaft. The results of the bore drilling suggested that the natural bedrock sloped down gently towards the west, as was expected, since the Poddle River passed west of here. The differences in the level (of 1m) of the bedrock below one corner of the lift shaft, however, was such that it appeared to be 1m deeper than the others, suggesting a possible cut feature. This has been tentatively interpreted as forming part of a 14thcentury mill-race, running to a mill some 400m to the north (see reports by Margaret Gowan and Martin Reid in Excavations 1993, Nos 75 and 76; DU018–020604 and DU–020734) that belonged to the religious foundation of St Andrew’s or the Augustinian friary. It is possible that a system of medieval mill-races carved into the ground on the eastern side of the Poddle passed through the site of the IFI, which would explain the differences in the levels of the bedrock.