County: Dublin Site name: 40–42 O’CONNELL STREET, DUBLIN
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 09E0118
Author: Linzi Simpson, Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd, Margaret Gowen & Co. Ltd, 27 Merrion Square, Dublin 2.
Site type: Post-medieval
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 715733m, N 734927m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.351882, -6.261605
Monitoring was carried out at Nos 40–42 O’Connell Street, on the northern side of the River Liffey. The site lies within the O’Connell Street Conservation Area and includes No. 42, which is a Georgian building and protected structure; Nos 40 and 41 (the Royal Dublin Hotel), however, were modern buildings and were demolished. The development also lies close to the site of a possibly Viking cemetery (DU018–495) and, as a result, a planning condition was attached to the grant of permission. During this phase of site works, the Royal Dublin hotel was completely demolished to basement floor level and a series of enabling works were carried out. These included the excavation of a temporary steel footing trench to prop the existing building and these are the works that were monitored.
The monitoring programme established that the existing original basement of Nos 40–41 was cut into deep gravel and silt deposits, presumably originally mudflats associated with the River Liffey before it was reclaimed in the 18th century. Thus this area was within the river originally, which can be supported cartographically as this area was only reclaimed between 1678 and 1728. There were no archaeological features or artefacts found during the monitoring programme.
