The whole complex was dated to the late seventeenth century, placing it in a period of considerable upheaval and rebuilding across Ireland following the Cromwellian settlements and the turbulence of the 1690s.

The excavation, carried out under licence in 1994, was modest in scope but specific in what it found. Cobbled lanes of this kind were a practical response to the mud and instability of unpaved routes through settled areas, and their survival, even in fragmentary form beneath later ground levels, is relatively uncommon. The metal-working activity at the northern end adds a further layer of interest, suggesting that this was not simply a passage between buildings but part of a working neighbourhood, the kind of small-scale industrial activity that rarely makes it into written records of the period but shows up clearly enough in the soil.