Newmarket Square

Project Overview

IAC carried out all pre-construction archaeological services for the 29,570sqm mix-use development of a 151-bed hotel and 413 apartments on the site of the former IDA Ireland Small Business Centre in the heart of the historic Liberties area of the city centre. To facilitate planning compliance a strategy of archaeological mitigation was formulated in consultation with the Dublin City Council Archaeologists Office. This was informed by a programme of pre-development test-trenching and an architectural conservation assessment. The majority of the site footprint was subject to full archaeological excavation (i.e. preservation by record) however the remains of a c. 1702 pub basement was largely preserved in-situ beneath the development.

Archaeological monitoring of the pile-cap installation and ground beams in this area was required to ensure the integrity of the archaeological remains was preserved. Following site works, a comprehensive plan for the integration, interpretation and display of various heritage elements in the final design was proposed and agreed with the Archaeology Office of Dublin City Council.

The site comprised several medieval/late medieval features, including an extensive pattern of late 17th century/early 18th century plots relating to the laying out of Newmarket and Fordham’s Lane, and the remains of a pub cellar and other outbuildings dating from the early 19th to early 20th centuries.

Approximately 250 fragments of Dublin-Type Ware and Saintonge pottery has been recovered from medieval ditches which are thought to delineate the Earl of Meath’s estate and land belonging to the ‘Church’.

Small brick-built kilns or furnaces were identified in many of the 17th century plots.

Numerous copper alloy objects, leather shoes and leather offcuts have also been retrieved from features of a similar date.