The burials came to light in two separate phases of archaeological excavation, and what they revealed was a medieval cemetery that had been forgotten, built over, and quietly erased long before anyone thought to look for it.

The story begins with the Priory of Ss Mary and Edward, founded in 1211 or 1212 and run by an order known as the Fratres Cruciferi, or Crutched Friars, a community of regular canons who wore a cross on their habit. The priory no longer stands; it was dissolved in 1538 following the suppression of the monasteries and demolished in the later eighteenth century, leaving almost nothing visible above ground. The cemetery associated with it lay pressed between two significant structures: Limerick's medieval town wall, a limestone rubble construction up to three metres wide with a basal plinth, built in 1237 and running east to west along the northern edge of the site, and a later post-medieval quay wall running parallel to the south. The burials post-date the town wall, suggesting the cemetery came into formal use sometime in the 1230s or 1240s and continued in use until at least the sixteenth century. Excavations led first by Frank Coyne of Aegis Archaeology in 2003 and 2004, and then by Linda G Lynch in 2005, identified up to four distinct phases of burial. Particularly telling was a double row of stakes that cut through the earliest burials, indicating the site had been temporarily abandoned as a place of interment before being pressed back into use. One late prone burial, meaning a body laid face down rather than in the conventional supine position, points to clandestine use of the ground after it had officially ceased to function as a cemetery. Prone burial in medieval and post-medieval contexts is often interpreted as deliberate marginalisation of the deceased, sometimes associated with individuals considered unworthy of a sanctified grave.

The site today sits along Sir Harry's Mall near Baal's Bridge, in a part of Limerick city that has seen considerable development over the years. There is nothing to mark the cemetery at street level, and the excavated remains are not on public display. The medieval town wall, sections of which were exposed during the digs, is itself largely invisible in this stretch. Anyone with an interest in the archaeology of the area would do well to consult the published excavation reports on excavations.ie, where the findings of both Coyne and Lynch are summarised in detail. The site is most meaningfully understood as an absence, a place whose layers of occupation, burial, and erasure only became legible when development work finally gave archaeologists a reason to dig.