Students uncover long-lost artefacts in excavation of former Guinness family mansion in Dublin
Transition year students have uncovered a raft of artefacts including carved stone, decorative plasterwork and ornate floor tiles, as part of Dublin City Council’s (DCC) annual archaeology programme in St Anne’s Park.
The five-week dig at the long-lost 19th century Guinness mansion in the city’s second-largest park wraps this Saturday, September 20, after the involvement of the students through a ‘Transition Year Tuesdays’ initiative.
Students, like other volunteers through the programme, are mentored and overseen by professional archaeologists from Archaeology and Built Heritage, a company contracted by DCC to carry out the programme.
James Kyle, excavation director from Archaeology and Built Heritage, said it was “fantastic” to have the students.
“Hopefully there’s a few budding archaeologists amongst them,” he said.
The house was commissioned by the wealthy Guinness family in 1837, but was gutted by a fire in 1943 when it was in Dublin Corporation ownership. The ruins were demolished in 1968.
Mr Kyle said the dig was a way to bring young people closer to the park and the striking mansion that once sat at the end of its main thoroughfare.
For many older members of the community, it was a reminder of their once strong connections to the house.
“I’ve been lucky enough to meet a couple of gentlemen in their 90s who remember the house before it burnt down,” Mr Kyle said.
“One gentleman in particular was here when the house was in flames on Christmas Eve 1943.
“He remembers himself and his friends were sad because the house was burning down, but he didn’t mind so much because Santa still came that year.
“The following generation had wedding pictures taken on the steps of the ruined house, and communion pictures.
“Or if they were of an age and a mind, they’d climb in and explore the rooms.”
DCC’s excavations of the ruins have been ongoing since 2021, beginning in the midst of the pandemic when the authority was looking for ways to expand park services to residents.
Mr Kyle reckons that if funding and buy-in is secured into the future, there could be another 20 years in the excavation programme, bearing in mind the size of the site and that it runs for five weeks a year.
Charles Duggan, DCC heritage officer, said the project was a multi-faceted one.
“Not only do we have students and adult volunteers working on this exhibition, we have school tours,” he said.
“We also have an exhibition there every day during the excavation for people to interact with a tour guide and one of the archaeologists.”
Mr Duggan said 11,000 people visited the site last year, drawn by the “romance” of the Guinness family and the “exotic” nature of their lives.
Fergus O’Carroll, DCC senior executive parks superintendent, said the excavation project was kicking around in people’s minds for a number of years.
“We had a 1.3km driveway and it came down to a mound,” he said.
“There was always this assumption that everybody knew the house was here, and to a particular generation, everybody did. But it’s amazing how quickly generations change.”