2015:211 - Kilmainham Gaol, Inchicore Road, Dublin 8, Dublin

Kilmainham Gaol is a National Monument (National Monument No. 675, Ownership) in the Ownership of the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. The Commissioners of Public Works applied for ministerial consent for works involving internal and external alterations to the Museum Building within the gaol. Development works were located in the north-east corner of the gaol, and involved mechanical excavation for trenching, ducting, drainage works with associated draw chambers and manholes and laying of granite paving. Monitoring was undertaken with the assistance of Colm Flynn.
On-going monitoring has revealed the presence of a wall located in the eastern courtyard of the gaol, nearest the courthouse, situated at a depth of 0.15m below existing ground level. The wall is an east-west oriented mortar-bonded limestone structure, consisting of at least 2 courses of roughly faced, squared and parallelogram limestone and a heavily-mortared rubble core. The wall measures 0.25m high x 0.55m wide and extends for 2.2m east-west, although it may continue further to the east. The western extent has been truncated by modern services. A possible compacted floor surface consisting of stone and dark brown clay abuts the northern elevation of the wall and possibly represents an internal floor level. The soil abutting the southern elevation of the wall consists of whitish brown mortar-rich silt, and is truncated by a modern drainage service trench and pipe.

From examination of a mid-19th-century plan of the gaol extension, it appears that the above-mentioned feature is the southern east-west wall of a building depicted on that drawing. Monitoring is on-going at the time of writing.

36 Fingal Street, Dublin 8