2010:277 - Mount Jerome Crematorium, Haroldscross, Dublin

A new cremator and filtration unit was being built to the west of the chapel in the area of existing stables and carriage sheds at Mount Jerome Cemetery. A new carriage shed was also being constructed. The site of the proposed development was situated directly adjacent to the existing 18th/19th-century house at Mount Jerome and development will take place within the former stable yards of the house.
Mount Jerome cemetery was developed on an estate called Mount Jerome in 1836 when it was purchased by the General Cemetery Company of Dublin. The cemetery was not developed on an earlier graveyard site, ecclesiastical site or site with any history prior to the 18th century, when it was a demesne enclosing a large house (DU018–049). It was deliberately purchased in 1836 to provide a need for the growing population of Dublin and its suburbs. The present mortuary chapel within the cemetery (by the former house and stables) was completed in 1847. The former Church of Ireland church (now a Russian Orthodox church) at the entrance to Mount Jerome was built in 1836. Therefore, though the site has the appearance of a church and cemetery of some antiquity, it is in fact relatively recent as a site of significance.
The origin of the name ‘Mount Jerome’ can be traced to the Reverend Stephen Jerome, a well-known preacher, who served as vicar of St Kevin’s parish from 1639 and who leased the lands from the Brabazon family. The estate of Mount Jerome was originally part of lands belonging to St Thomas’s Abbey in Dublin. On the Dissolution by Henry VIII, the lands were granted to the Brabazon family, who later acquired the title of the Earl of Meath. The lands remained in the family of the Earl of Meath until the 19th century and were leased to a number of leading Dublin families from 1706. The date of the construction of the present house at Mount Jerome is not fully known but it is likely that it was built by the early 18th century. Mount Jerome is adjacent to present-day Harold’s Cross village and is also close to the site of DU018–050, an 18th- or 19th-century inn.
Mount Jerome is in the present townland of Haroldscross (Harold’s Cross village). Little is known about the area of Harold’s Cross, much of which stood within the medieval manor of St Sepulchre. Its name is said to have originated in a cross which marked the boundary of the land of the Archbishop of Dublin at the border of the Pale, separating this land from that of the originally Danish Harold family. A gallows also stood at this boundary. That it was a natural boundary is suggested by the confluence of watercourses (DU018–043002–4).
Monitoring took place for the construction of the new crematorium and carriage shed within and around the courtyard of the house in phases between May 2010 and August 2010. No finds or features of archaeological significance came to light.