St Anne’s Park Archaeology
PROJECT: The St Anne’s Park Community Archaeology Programme was launched in 2021, and aims to connect local communities with archaeology, heritage, and social history, and the 19th-century designed landscape of St Anne’s Park. The programme has established the park as a city hub for people to try archaeology first hand and for training students in archaeological methods and techniques. It is an interdepartmental collaboration between Dublin City Council’s Planning, Property and Economic Development Department (Heritage and Archaeology Sections) and Parks, Biodiversity, and Landscape Services and has received grant support from the Heritage Council and Creative Ireland each year since 2021.
CLIENT: Dublin City Council Heritage Officer
LINKS: https://www.dublincity.ie/archaeology-conservation-and-heritage/archaeology-dublin/st-annes-park-community-archaeology-programme
What they needed
Dublin City Council, with the support of the Heritage Council and Creative Ireland, delivered a Community Archaeology Programme in St. Anne’s Park. The programme included a range of in-person and online events for both adults and children and was coordinated by a team of professional archaeologists from Archaeology and Built Heritage Ltd. It was steered by Dublin City Council’s Heritage, Archaeology, and Parks teams.
Dublin City Council wanted a film that documented the full scope of the programme while also celebrating the participation of the local community. A key element of the 2022 programme was Dublin City’s first community excavation, undertaken to uncover part of the former St. Anne’s mansion, and this formed a central focus of the documentation.
What we did
To properly reflect the scale and progression of the programme, we spent extended time in St. Anne’s Park, documenting a wide range of activities alongside the unfolding community excavation. Being present throughout was essential, both to capture the rhythm of the work and to ensure that key moments and discoveries were not missed.
Drone and aerial filming played an important role in the project, allowing us to show the physical scale of the excavation and its development over time, as well as situating the dig within the wider landscape of the park.
The project was both compelling to witness and rewarding to document. As the Community Archaeology Programme has evolved over three consecutive years — much of which we have documented — it was important for us to avoid repetition and instead focus on how the project had grown and changed. Our approach emphasised the cumulative nature of the work, highlighting the ongoing relationship between place, archaeology, and community involvement.