County: Dublin Site name: Clonliffe Road, Drumcondra
Sites and Monuments Record No.: environs of DU018-019---- Licence number: 23E1025 & ext
Author: Eoin Halpin
Site type: Testing
Period/Dating: Modern (AD 1750-AD 2000)
ITM: E 716363m, N 736175m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.362953, -6.251703
Permission was granted after an An Bord Pleanala (ABP) appeal for a hotel development on lands off Clonliffe Road (formerly part of the Holy Cross College Lands), Drumcondra, Dublin.
The archaeological impact assessment undertaken in 2020 by IAC under license 20E0286, recommended additional archaeological investigations. This recommendation was echoed in the 2021 ABP ruling, specifically in condition 17 and by Dublin City Council in their permission of 2020, condition 18 (a-j) requiring a pre-development archaeological impact assessment.
In order to address the conditions laid out by Dublin City Council and ABP, it was proposed to assess the development site by means of No 7 machine-dug archaeological test trenches, evenly spaced out across the footprint of the development. On this basis an archaeological license was received, with the testing taking place on 13 December 2023.
Nothing of archaeological interest was uncovered in six of the seven trenches opened. However in the trench closest to Clonliffe Road, potential evidence for the 19th-century gate lodge was uncovered, recorded as The Lodge on the Ordnance Survey maps of c.1830 and c.1930. Follow-up archaeological investigations carried out on 12 February 2024 under license 23E1025 ext., revealed that the foundation walls of the western half of the lodge survived, with the entire eastern half having been disturbed, probably when the lodge was demolished in the middle of the 20th century in advance of the construction of the new entrance gates to the college.
AHC Ltd 36 Ballywillwill Road, Castlewellan Co Down BT31 9LF
