2019:682 - Begley's Fruit Market 14-20 Little Mary Street, 28-32 Arran Street East, Dublin, Dublin

Testing took place in the north-west corner of an urban block on the north side of the river Liffey. Begley’s Fruit Market (14-20 Little Mary Street, 28-32 Arran Street East) is located within the known environs of the medieval abbey of St Mary’s, which is a National Monument and is probably the most important ecclesiastical foundation in pre-Norman Dublin. The Fruit Market warehouse is located in the north-west corner of the abbey precinct in an area thought to contain the graveyard of the abbey.
A total of 9 test-pits were opened up in the modern concrete warehouse, along with 2 bore-holes at the northern end of the building. Testing located the late remains of 17th/early 18th-century limestone and brick cellars associated with terraced houses that originally ran along the Arran Street East frontage. These crude and badly built limestone and brick cellars extended to depths of between 1.6m and 1.8m, cut into the boulder clay. Two bore-holes (Bore-holes 1 and 2) were positioned along the northern side of the site and these also located cellars of terraced houses fronting onto Mary Street Little. The cellars on this side, however, appear to be deeper than the western range (fronting onto Arran Street West), perhaps as deep as 3m below present ground level. Boulder clay was not reached but is unlikely to have been much deeper than 3m.
On the western side of the site, in the area originally occupied by the yards and gardens associated with the houses, the test-pits located truncated clays and two possible medieval wall foundations at the southern end, lying between 1.5m and 1.6m below present ground level. These only survived as small areas of mortared masonry, the mortar an off-white lime mortar. Two of the test-pits also produced the remains of very truncated human burials, located in the southern half of the building, cut into the boulder clay, a distinctive reddish orange colour, and lying at approximately between 1.6m and 1.9m below present ground level. That these burials were part of much a wider area of burial was indicated by the fact that skeletons were found previously in the adjacent areas, to the immediate east in and around the Meeting House, directly north at Nos 16-20 Capel Street, and as far east as No. 126 Capel Street. With such a large area producing evidence of burials the probability is that the northern end of this urban block must represent the graveyard of the abbey, referred to in the documentary sources. These sources reveal the graveyard was enclosed by a wall and had a gate.

28 Cabinteely Close, Old Bray Road, Cabinteely, Dublin 18