County: Dublin Site name: Wolfe Tone Park, Dublin
Sites and Monuments Record No.: DU018 - 020322 Licence number: 17E0307
Author: Aisling Collins, ACAS
Site type: Urban post-medieval graveyard
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 715402m, N 734474m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.347884, -6.266754
Testing was carried out at this site. Approximately 128 gravestones dating from the 18th to 19th century are aligned along the southern boundary of Wolfe Tone Park, formerly the graveyard of St Mary’s church.
The gravestones are set vertically (up to 4 rows) against the boundary walls of the adjoining property known as Twilfit House. The width of the graveyard is 40m. It is proposed to demolish Twilfit House to make way for a new hotel development.
The gravestones are lying against the property boundary line of Twilfit House and may have to be moved temporarily or permanently in order to facilitate the demolition and construction of the proposed hotel development. A total of 4 test trenches were excavated by hand over 3 days from 3-5 July 2017.
Generally, it appears that the gravestone bases lie at between 0.5-1.6m below present ground level. A slot trench may have been dug for the stones but if so they are set tight against its edges and it is no wider than the width of the gravestone alignment (c 1m maximum). Many of the inner row of stones abutting the boundary wall are damaged with fractures and cracks visible. Some of these stones are over 2m in length (height) with only the lower 0.5m buried. Moving these gravestones would have to done very carefully and some will possibly break when lifted. Also as the boundary wall supports most of them, demolition of the wall will also undermine them.
No burials were encountered In Trenches 1-3 and the deposits were mostly modern stone infilling to depths of between 0.3-0.5m. In Trench 4 a single burial was encountered at 0.4-0.5m below ground level. Modern live services are also present at 0.3m depth.
Annesley Mews, Brighton Ave, Monkstown, Co. Dublin
