2014:060 - 7 Church Avenue, Irishtown, Dublin 4., Dublin

Groundwork relating to the construction of two semi-detached and one detached two-storey house at 7 Church Avenue, Irishtown, Dublin 4, was monitored between 12 December 2014 and 16 February 2015.
The development site is to the south of the village of Irishtown. The earliest map showing Irishtown was Bernard de Gomme’s ‘The Citty and Suburbs of Dublin’ in 1673. This map shows a small cluster of houses along a single road and labels the settlement as 'The Irish Towne'. The town occupies a point where the dry ground narrows from the south to form a headland or sand bar less than 100m in width and almost 800m in length, running to the north-west. In the early 19th century, the property was situated on a wide crossroads leading through the village and later there was a single cottage on a small irregular plot of land. A building of the same general size, shape and positon as the current cottage appeared between Taylor’s map of 1816 and Duncan’s map of 1821. The cottage that exists today has been added to at some point and may be the early 19th-century building. Another building of similar size was constructed at a later date. To the south of the property was a large land holding which may have included either an inlet from the Dodder or a pool. The site is located 35m south-east of Irishtown Church and graveyard (DU018-054001 and DU018-054002) and 150m to the south of the settlement cluster of Irishtown (DU018-054).

The development was to consist of the demolition of the existing buildings and the construction of three dwellings. Works also included the replacement of the existing perimeter wall and landscaping works.

Engineering test pits were monitored on 12 December. These revealed 0.25-0.4m of hardcore stone above a sheet of terram, below this a layer of black humic clay 0.8–0.95m in depth which overlay natural sand. The black humic layer contained some fragments of brick and mortared stone rubble.
Four test trenches monitored on 19 December revealed similar stratigraphy of hardcore between 0.2m and 0.4m in depth overlying a black humic clay layer 0.6m to 0.9m thick and natural sand at a depth of 0.7m to 1.22m below ground level. Three variations were observed in the trenches. A redeposit of grey silty sand, water-rolled pebbles and shell was found in the south of the site next to a foundation cut for the south building's eastern wall. A layer of mixed pebbles, gravel and sand was found above a redeposit of sand and black humic clay in the centre of northern side of the site.
By 16 February 2015, following the demolition of the upstanding structures, the footprint of the new dwelling was reduced to roughly 1m below ground level and foundation trenches were cut using a tracked mechanical digger. The stratigraphy was the same across the site with the surface of the natural sand exposed between 0.7m and 1.22m below ground level. Above this were very humic layers of soil, indicating deliberate build-up of organic soil on the originally sandy ground. One natural feature exposed in the profile of the foundation trench along the south side of the site was a cobbled surface running north-south. This surface was wholly within the natural sand and must have been deposited and then covered by sea action. This line of cobbles indicates what was once the line of the foreshore. The site is therefore located upon the original sandbar.
Several finds of post-medieval glass and ceramic, including clay pipe stem fragments, were discovered in the black humic clay layer. No finds or features of archaeological significance came to light.

Ballybrack Road, Glencullen, Dublin 18.