2009:353 - MONKSTOWN CASTLE, CASTLE PARK, MONKSTOWN, Dublin

A programme of monitoring was undertaken during the installation of a new footpath along one side of Monkstown Castle, Monkstown, Co. Dublin. The castle comprises the well-maintained and partially reconstructed ruins of a medieval tower-house, gatehouse and bawn wall situated in a landscaped grassy area.
The findings suggested that a phase of extensive landscaping had taken place in the 19th century to the west of Monkstown Castle. This landscaping involved either the demolition of extant brick buildings or the clearing of previously ruined buildings. Much of the building rubble dates to the 18th or 19th centuries, but some of it appears earlier, belonging perhaps to 17thcentury buildings. The documentary sources suggest that Monkstown Castle was in a continuous state of improvement and rebuilding during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, and much of this rubble may belong to these residential structures that had adjoined the medieval tower-house. This clearance and landscaping appears to have been conducted with the intention of flattening the ground in the location of the excavation, possibly to enhance the presentation of the remaining partially medieval remains. The archaeological remains are consistent with the documentary sources, which record that Monkstown Castle was largely demolished and cleared in the 19th century.
Although no archaeologically significant deposits were noted (or disturbed) during the monitoring programme, the findings may be of interest in terms of the changing ways that Irish monuments have been publicly presented over time. In the case of Monkstown Castle, the excavation revealed material which suggests a conscious intention by undoubtedly well-meaning 19th-century persons to remove and conceal underground the ^modern’ (i.e. red-brick) elements of the castle complex. These interventions should be viewed in light of 19th-century attitudes that aspired to a naturalistic bucolic landscape, and also perhaps in terms of increasing nationalistic sentiment and the romanticisation of a medieval past characterised as a ^land of saints and scholars’. Thus, far from destroying the castle, the 19th-century intervention might more properly be seen as the creation of the monument, and the reinterpretation of the castle complex for contemporary tastes. In this manner, the demolition rubble layer surrounding the castle forms an intrinsic part of its historical development from being a castle and symbol of St Mary’s Abbey during the Middle Ages to being the ^second best’ house in the county by the 18th century, and finally to becoming an attractively presented national monument today.