In 1992, excavations in the area uncovered the roof of a culvert, a brick or stone-lined underground channel built to carry a watercourse below ground level, and archaeologists believed they were looking at part of the Poddle, one of Dublin's most historically significant rivers. A culvert recorded as early as 1673, the structure offered a rare glimpse into the subterranean infrastructure that once shaped how the city was supplied with fresh water.

The River Poddle has a long and layered role in Dublin's development. It once fed the city's water supply and filled the defensive moat around Dublin Castle, before being progressively culverted and buried as the urban fabric expanded around and above it. The 1992 find, documented by Gowen in 1993, placed this particular section of the Poddle's underground course in a recorded context stretching back to at least the seventeenth century. That the culvert's roof survived into the modern period, detectable during archaeological investigation, speaks to the durability of the original construction and to how much of the city's earlier engineering lies just below the surface.

There is nothing visible above ground at this location to mark the find; the culvert was encountered during excavation and is not a site you can walk into or easily observe. For those interested in Dublin's subterranean rivers, the Poddle is periodically the subject of guided tours and public archaeology events organised by various local heritage groups, and these offer the most practical way to engage with its history. Ordnance Survey maps and historical cartography of the area can help trace the approximate line of the river as it runs beneath the south city, making even a surface-level walk along its course a quietly informative exercise in reading urban geography.