2009:351 - MERRYFALLS, Dublin

The proposed scheme involves the construction of a depot in the townlands of Merryfalls and Sillogue, Ballymun, Co. Dublin, to serve the proposed Metro West. Three targeted test-trenches were excavated across the site of a now demolished late 18th/early 19th-century structure annotated on Taylor’s 1815 map of Dublin as ‘the Mad House’. The testing programme revealed the demolished remains of a small structure to the south of a field boundary also depicted on cartographic sources. The structure was at most a two-room dwelling, with 9-inch-wide running bond red brick walls delineating a series of cobbled and slabbed surfaces, both interior and exterior to the walls. The lack of masonry on the site suggests that the structure was extensively robbed-out, leaving only the broken fragments of red ceramic roof tiles and building material such as lime mortar and red brick fragments. The structure would be more consistent with a private enterprise, possibly a single patient with nurse or carer in residence. The design process and mitigating strategy of the proposed development will take the results of the testing programme into consideration.