County: Dublin Site name: Grangegorman Lower, Dublin 7
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 22E0944
Author: Muireann Ní Cheallacháin
Site type: 19th-century burial pit
Period/Dating: Modern (AD 1750-AD 2000)
ITM: E 714748m, N 735130m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.353919, -6.276334
IAC Archaeology carried out archaeological monitoring of groundworks related to pre-planning investigations at the site of a mixed-used development located within the Grangegorman Planning Scheme. Works comprised the excavation of five boreholes, 20 trial pits, and two slit trenches, and was carried out within two weeks in late November 2022.
During the excavation of trial pit TP106, archaeological monitoring revealed a quantity of human skeletal remains, representing a previously-unrecorded burial pit, which contained the densely packed remains of multiple individuals. Following preliminary examinations and bibliographic research, it is likely that the burial pit relates to an informal cemetery associated with the North Dublin Union Workhouse. A structural feature was also identified in trial pit TP106, within Site A. This was a surface composed of large angular limestone blocks set into a bedding material of silty gravel.
Three additional structural features were also identified. These were two segments of north–south oriented limestone walls, found in TP207 and TP209 respectively, and a clinker-encrusted probable red brick floor surface was reached in TP206. It appears, based on the historical mapping, that the walls are most likely to belong to the North Dublin Union House of Industry which first appears on Thomas Campbell’s map of 1811. The building’s north-west corner is shown to encroach into Site B of the development area. The red brick floor surface encountered in TP206 most likely relates to external space to the immediate north of the original workhouse building and its industrial activities, possibly associated with the extension of the complex northwards in the mid-19th century. A distinctive M-shaped building appears here on the historic OS map of 1871.
Amongst a considerable amount of refuse, within demolition rubble in TP107, a mechanical iron object was found, probably a component of a piece of machinery, agricultural or possibly relating to the Mid Great Western Railway, which ran just northeast of the site’s boundary.
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