A series of excavations carried out in 1989 uncovered evidence that, by the thirteenth century, people here were not simply occupying land but actively reshaping it, draining and reclaiming ground while simultaneously installing what appears to have been a piped water supply. That last detail is easy to pass over, but it points to a level of civic or domestic engineering that many people do not associate with medieval urban life in Ireland.

The 1989 excavations, documented by Mc Mahon in 1990, identified three walls constructed using the post and wattle technique, a method common in medieval Irish and Anglo-Norman settlements in which upright timber posts are woven through with flexible branches or rods and sometimes finished with a daub of clay or mud. These walls were read as the remains of a building set within a defined boundary, suggesting a structured, purposeful occupation of the site rather than casual or temporary use. The broader picture that emerged from the dig was one of coordinated activity: habitation, land reclamation, and water infrastructure appearing together as part of what seems to have been a deliberate effort to make a marshy or marginal area of the city usable. Thirteenth-century Dublin was expanding rapidly under Anglo-Norman influence, and the pressure to open up new ground within and around the city walls was considerable.

The site sits within the south city area of Dublin, though the precise street location is not specified in the available record. For anyone with an interest in urban archaeology, the broader south city district rewards slow walking, since much of what was found in 1989 lies beneath later construction and is not visible at street level. The National Museum of Ireland's archaeology collections, and published excavation reports from the late 1980s and early 1990s, remain the most reliable way to understand what was uncovered here. The Mc Mahon report of 1990 is the key primary reference for anyone wanting the technical detail of the finds and their interpretation.