2010:284 - MONKSTOWN: Carrickbrennan Graveyard, Dublin

Repair works to the western wall of Carrickbrennan Graveyard were necessary as the wall was collapsing and had become unsafe. These repair works involved the demolition of the presumed modern outer wall of the graveyard, and the repair of the presumed older inner wall. The works were carried out by Dún Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council.

The Carrickbrennan ecclesiastical complex comprises the western gable of a medieval church or chapel that has been incorporated into a 17th-century charnel house surrounded by a graveyard with 18th- and 19th-century memorials. The medieval chapel (which still stands on the site) was constructed in the 12th or 13th century, and it occupies an earlier ecclesiastical site associated with the 6th-century St Mochanna.

Monitoring of the required works took place during the summer of 2010. No archaeological material was impacted upon. The monitoring programme revealed that both walls were relatively modern in date: the outer wall dating to the middle third of the 19th century, and the inner wall dating to the 18th or early 19th century. No trace of pre-18th-century materials was recovered to the west of the cemetery, despite the antiquity of the site.