The street runs along what was once the edge of the Liffey's tidal foreshore, and the layers beneath the modern surface contain a compressed record of medieval Dubliners gradually pushing their city outward into the river. It is that incremental process of reclamation, rather than any single dramatic event, that makes the archaeology here quietly interesting.

Test excavations carried out in 1995 uncovered evidence of two distinct phases of activity along this part of the riverfront, stretching from the early thirteenth century through to the early fourteenth century. The sequence documented by Gowen in 1996 shows the site being reclaimed and then developed in stages, a pattern familiar from other parts of Viking and medieval Dublin, where soft, waterlogged ground was progressively consolidated to extend the usable urban area. On the Fishamble Street frontage specifically, the excavation brought to light a clay floor and the foundations of masonry walls, the kind of modest domestic or commercial infrastructure that rarely survives in visible form but which represents the ordinary fabric of a medieval neighbourhood taking shape over several generations.

The site itself is not marked or publicly interpreted in any formal way, and there is nothing on the street today to indicate what lies beneath. Fishamble Street runs steeply down toward the river from Christ Church Cathedral, and its cramped, slightly awkward character gives some sense of how tightly the medieval city was organised. Those interested in following up the archaeology more fully will find the relevant report referenced in the National Monuments Service records; the 1995 excavations form part of a broader body of work on the development of Dublin's medieval waterfront that has accumulated considerably since Wood Quay first brought the area to public attention in the late 1970s.