2012:222 - TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN, Dublin

Monitoring took place during the replacement of services, in College Park, Trinity College, Dublin Two parallel trenches, measuring approximately 160m in length, were excavated along the main pedestrian route, which links the eastern and western end of college, and is bordered by the cricket pitch on the south and the rugby playing fields on the north. The two trenches were 0.5m apart and were 0.7m in width but the southern trench was 0.6m in depth while the northern trench was deeper, at 1m.

The monitoring programme established that the modern path has been artificially raised and is founded on two main deposits: rubble/demolition debris along the western half, and organic refuse or cellar fill along the eastern side. Thus there is a distinct archaeological horizon along the path formed from 18^th- and 19^th-century refuse and demolition material and this is reflected in Campbell’s map of Dublin, dated 1811, in which the alignment of the later path can be traced (it is not on Rocque, dated 1756).  At the western end, a consistent dump of mortar is likely to have originated in the demolition of at least one specific building, which must have had soft yellow sandstone mouldings as a number of cut fragments were found.

There was evidence that other buildings were also demolished and used as infill, and this is suggested by the discovery of a second cache of architectural stone fragments (between 58m and 68m from the western end), mostly of granite, some of which may have been rough-outs rather than finished worked stone. Several granite stones were also retrieved from along the route of the pipe, possibly from a third building. The rubble from the infill is likely to be related to the great clearances from the mid-to-late 18^th century, when the old college quadrangle was demolished in Front Square (Parliament Square) and the resultant rubble was used to infill the entire college precinct, as demonstrated by previous archaeological investigations in Trinity.

.The              The excavation also revealed a significant drop in boulder clay level at the eastern end of the trench, perhaps a reflection of wet and marshy ground as suggested by the cartographic sources and previous investigations.  From this point on, the low-lying ground was in-filled with general domestic refuse from the college creating an archaeological horizon which is at least 1m in depth (if not deeper) and rich in artefactual evidence.

28 Cabinteely Close, Cabinteely, Dublin 18