The Welsh Chapel on Talbot St

While it is perhaps not surprising that cities such as London, Birmingham and Liverpool saw a surge in Welsh chapels – chapels where the faithful could worship in Welsh – I was surprised to learn that a Welsh Methodist chapel was built in Dublin in 1838. The intended congregation were mostly sailors from Holyhead, with the intention that encouragement to spend an hour in prayer was an hour less in the public house. Other members of the congregation drew from the 300 Welsh soldiers billeted in the city, patients coming on the boat from Holyhead for treatment at the Adelaide Hospital, and Welsh people who had taken up residence in the city to work as maids, nurses, and other professionals. Encouraged or not, before the chapel was built, those wishing to worship in Welsh had to use a Dutch Lutheran chapel on Poolbeg St, although all collections had to go to “the Dutch”.

Capel Bethel, as illustrated in Wrth Angor yn Nulyn (Caernarfon, 1968) © Gwasg y Bwthyn, Caernarfon, taken from Roberts (2018)

The chapel’s foundation stone was laid in 1838 on land secured by John Roberts, a Holyhead business man, thanks mostly to the efforts of the first pastor, Rev Robert Williams. The church was named “Bethel Church”. It was 40 ft x 27 ft, built of brick and cornerstone of Whitland granite from south-west Wales, at a cost of £500. The chapel appears to be just too late for noting on the OSi map of about 1840, but does appear in the 1842 Pettigrew and Oulton’s Directory and in the 25” maps from later in the century. The 1862 City Street guide proclaims a “WELCH METHODIST PREACHING HO.” at the junction between Talbot and Lower Gardiner Streets, with the chaplain named as Rev. Evan Lloyd. Lloyd was a popular preacher but perhaps more than that; another city chaplain remarked that he was “the father of all the Welsh girls in Dublin”!

OSi map (25″) showing church highlighed on Talbot St

The chapel’s capacity was reported to be regularly full in the 1840s, and with the onset of railway and ferries, capacity of 300 needed to be expanded in the 1860s, when a new gallery added 60 more spaces (nicknamed the quarterdeck by maritime patrons). In fact only sailors were allowed on this quarterdeck, and an account of a captain visiting with his wife is reported, with the good lady being told on seeking to enter the gallery: “main deck for you my girl!”. Further building work in 1894 was supported by money from Methodists across Wales, a ‘Wesleyan nobleman’, as well as a member of the Moravian cause, and “even received help from the Papists”.

In the 1901 Census, the chaplain John Lewis is recorded aged 42, and living at 77 Talbot St with his wife Elizabeth and their one year old Alun. 10 years later they were joined by a daughter, Olwen, and were living behind the church in Moland Place. John was by all accounts a character, and was known as the “Welsh bishop”, wearing a wide, flat hat on his missions around the city. The hat reportedly took a bullet in the Civil War.

William Griffith’s Shoes and Ladies’ Fashions. Photo: 1968. © Gwasg y Bwthyn, Caernarfon. Taken from Roberts (2018). The house on Moland Place is just visible behind the church.

However declining congregation meant that the Church’s days were numbered. It was likely that it was severely damaged in the War of Independence; the National Archives are full of requests for compensation for building damage in this area during the War, including one from William Griffith a boot merchant, at 78 Talbot St. There was an explosion outside Moran’s Hotel in July 1922, and several houses and businesses on the street claimed compensation.

Griffith the bootmaker comes back into our story when the church finally closed in 1938. He took over the building and had a shop there. The doorway moved to the corner and tiling added advertising “Griffiths”, still there to this day. The building was last used as an internet café, looking seriously worse for the wear, but thanks to the effort of the Welsh Society in Ireland is now on Dublin City Council’s protected structure list. They are petitioning for a plaque.

A clip from the RTÉ programme Capital D, including a remarkable interview with the 103 year old Howell Evans is available on YouTube at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpFHYO-DNZ4

Updates, as they may come in the future, can be sent to your email address by subscribing below. 

Image from Google Street View (2018). The tiling, announcing “Griffith’s” is visible at the entranceway

Notes

• Evans, H. (1981). A Short History of Dublin’s Welsh Church, 1831 – 1939, available at the Welsh Society in Ireland’s website: http://www.welshsociety.ie/features/
• McLean, E. (2013). The extent of Welshness amongst the exiled Welsh living in England, Scotland and Ireland, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, page 36.
• Roberts, D. (2018). ‘Two hands over two sands’: Capel Bethel, Dulyn: the Welsh chapel in Dublin. Folk Life, 56(2), 65-76.

Dublin’s Cow Pock Institution

And, now after all, let me mention a great discovery that has lately been made for the benefit and good of mankind in general, I mean the Vaccine Inoculation or Cow Pock, which is uniformly mild, inoffensive, free from pain or danger, either in old or young, and an infallible preventative of the small pox, it is never fatal nor yet contagious. The Small Pox has for 12 centuries, been destroying in every year, an immense proportion of the world. [Dublin Time-Piece, 1804]

Outbreaks of small pox in a district could result in fatalities of 20% of the population. It was known that dairymaids were immune due to their exposure to Cow Pox, a much milder disease. After Edward Jenner conducted an experiment where he exposed an eight year old boy to the cow pox pustules on the dairy maid Sarah Nelmes’ hand, and then deliberately exposed him to small pox, he published the results that the boy did not contract small pox, and thus cow pox was an effective vaccination. From the time of its publication in 1798, Jenner’s work became hugely influential in establishing national vaccination programmes. (The word vaccination comes from the Latin for cow, vacca.)

In Dublin, vaccination was available to children of the city in the Dispensary for the Infant Poor soon after Jenner’s publication. Following some extensive vaccination work in Cork, demand in Dublin quickly surged, and in January 1804 the Dublin Cow Pock Institution was opened on North Cope St (now Talbot St) to focus solely on vaccination for small pox. Children of the poor could attend on Tuesdays and Fridays from 11 – 3 pm.  Some archives for the Cow Pock Institution are held by the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, including a subscription book dating from 16^th March 1804. The process of securing “cow pock matter” for the purposes of vaccination needed funding, and as well as vaccinating children in the city, packets of fresh lymph were circulated to local dispensaries around the country as part of a nationwide vaccination effort. While vaccination was free for the poor, it otherwise incurred a charge, something which later became contentious. Medical practitioners and other dispensaries could apply to be supplied with packets of infection for half a guinea per annum, and Union Workhouses for a guinea per annum. All post relating to the Cow Pock Institution was free thanks to an agreement with the General Post Office; a letter exists in the National Archives from Dr Hugh Ferguson, apothecary at the Cow-Pock Institution to the government acknowledging the support that is “essential to the existence of their Institution“. The Cow Pock Institution relocated to beside the GPO in the 1860s.

(North) Cope St is hard to pin down. Its southside namesake in Temple Bar still exists, which can confuse searches. (North) Cope St is not on Rocque’s 1756 map of the city, nor Bernard Scalé’s update in 1773, but does appear on the 1798 plan of the city, now running along the north of Marlborough Bowling Green, extending from Earl St. By the time the Ordnance Survey men were mapping the city, a Dispensary is marked in the location, but by this stage it is now Talbot St, named after 2^nd Earl Talbot, who was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1817 – 1821. Thus (North) Cope St must be one of the contenders for street names with the shortest lifespan!

Cope St: Top left – Rocque (1756) shows Marlborough Green but no street; top right (1798) shows Cope St running on the north edge of Marlborough Green; bottom OS map (~1840) shows Dispensary marked but now Talbot St; Marlborough Green now gone

Reports of the progress of the Institution were published each year, and in its first year 1000 vaccinations were carried out, rising to 4000 by the end of the decade, along with 3500 packets distributed nationally. Vaccination capacity increased after 1815, when rural dispensaries/hospitals offered vaccination to poor people locally.  While the upper and middle classes generally engaged with the vaccination programme – infections among those classes became very low – it was more difficult to engage the working class and the poor. There was an uneasiness about being exposed to vaccination and a lot of misinformation about the dangers of vaccination, captured in a famous satirical cartoon of the time. Repeated publications and statistics were used to reassure the public about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine, and steadily more people became vaccinated. While there were continued outbreaks – 1500 people died from smallpox in an outbreak Dublin in 1878– their number and extent was much less thanks to ongoing vaccination.

Concern over the safety of vaccination was captured in this satirical cartoon by James Gilray, showing people morphing into cows

The Dublin Cow Pock Institution closed in 1877 when its duties were continued by hospitals. Ireland reported its last case of smallpox in 1907, and the World Health Organisation declared the complete eradication of the disease in 1980.

Updates, as they may come in the future, can be sent to your email address by subscribing below. 

Notes

• Elizabeth Malcolm and Greta Jones (1999) Medicine, Disease and the State in Ireland 1650-1940, Cork University Press.
• Samuel B Labatt (1809), “The Cow Pock Institution”, The Belfast Monthly Magazine, 2(8), 183-185.
• Archives area available at the RCPI, NAI, NLI, and the Wellcome Library.

A postcard from Dublin Street

The process of getting used to a new city has several stages and, 18 months on, I feel that I am slowly becoming familiar with Edinburgh. Taking buses was a challenge; as they all went to strange-sounding places like Penicuik or Prestonpans, or to familiar names but in a new situation, like Portobello (unlike Dublin, this one is by the sea). But you learn first your well-travelled routes, and with weekend perambulations, more and more aspects and peculiarities of the city’s streetscape. Finding coffee shops is one incentive (the baristas here are impressed with Dublin’s “scene”). But Edinburgh rewards at every turn, and of course by too much to summarise in one article. So here, I’ll write about one street, and an obvious selection for this blog is Dublin Street.

Dublin St, Edinburgh looking North toward Drummond Place (bogdantapu on Flickr)

Welcome to New Town

Dublin St is on the north side of the city. That is to say it is in New Town. Edinburgh’s New Town began in the mid-eighteenth century and was developed in response to the overcrowded medieval streetscape of Old Town, to the south. The Act of Union (Scotland’s Union was a century earlier than Ireland, in 1707) meant that London was becoming a more attractive option to live. Building an appealing place for the city’s middle and upper classes to take up residence became of paramount importance to Edinburgh’s Town Council. James Craig’s plan for New Town was adopted and the agreed form that was executed is shown.

James Craig’s plan of New Town, Edinburgh, 1767

Craig’s plan envisions a New Town that is everything Old Town wasn’t. Arranged along an ordered grid with lots of space, there are three thoroughfares running East-West named Queen St, George St as the principal axis, and Princes St on the southern edge, and five North-South streets. George St is book-ended by two grand squares: St Andrew’s Square to the east and what was proposed as George Square at the west, but became Charlotte Square, after Queen Charlotte, George III’s wife. There’s no doubt that Craig wished to dedicate this New Town to the Royal family; two of the North-South streets are called Frederick St and Hanover St and Princes’ St itself was named on request of the King in honour of his two sons. (The text of the dedication of his plans to the King also make Craig’s loyalty clear!)

As a project, New Town was enormously successful. So much so that a second New Town was built further to the North of Craig’s original plans, shown above, extending his grid by many more streets, east-west, and north-south. It’s time now to meet Dublin St.

An Act of Union

Extract of John Ainslie’s 1804 map of Edinburgh, showing the junction between Hibernia, Anglia, and Caledonia Streets at Drummond place. Duke St, to the south, links directly to St Andrew St and the square. (NLS)

Dublin St was part of this second phase of the development of New Town, and it continues the line north of Andrew St, itself stemming from St Andrew’s Square on Craig’s map. A map coincident with, or perhaps published just in advance of actual building captures the plans.

This map shows “Hibernia Street” meeting Anglia Street and Caledonia Street. The intention was that these street names would celebrate the recent Act of Union between Ireland and Great Britain in Jan 1801. There are several layers of irony in this accolade, and one is left pondering about the fact that Scotland’s union led to the development of Edinburgh’s great Georgian city, while Ireland’s led to Dublin’s demise.

In any case Hibernia, Anglia, and Caledonia streets were actually named Dublin, London, and Scotland St; the latter now of course is very famous (note: there is no No. 44 – I’ve looked, several times).

Intersection of Dublin St and Drummond Place; old and new street signs

It’s perhaps a mark of how much there is to say about this city that Dublin St barely manages a paragraph in my Pevsner Guide to Edinburgh. And the wonder of the city is that it is indeed a very ordinary street. A difference between Georgian architecture here and in Dublin is that tenement buildings are a feature of design, rather than retrospectively imposed on a building as they are in Dublin. A common approach is that the building looks like a single-house from the outside, but the door actually leads immediately to a stairwell, with tenement flats at each storey. In some cases the ground floor have own door access, so that the streetscape from the front looks on casual glance to be a series of doorways into individual houses; closer inspection means one has to solve the puzzle the tenement design imposes. It’s all very clever, and means there is a substantial capacity for accommodation. Dublin St has just one house in its own right; the rest being tenements. Of course in the grander parts of the city, Adams designed building fronts as if they were all part of one very grand palace, whereupon closer inspection, one finds entries to a series of individual houses. It’s all very organised.

At Dubin St looking west towards Abercromby Place – a very typical Edinburgh view

New Town’s Pleasure Grounds

Drummond Place Gardens from Bartholomew map (1891) Dublin St runs south from the Place (NLS)

At the intersection of the “union streets” is Drummond Place. The spacious nature of Craig’s design and the subsequent developments to the north lead to another characteristic of the city: pleasure grounds. These gardens were associated with the wealthier squares and crescents, and offered a green space upon which the windows of a Georgian dining room on the ground floor and drawing room on the first floor could overlook.The areas of the gardens make up 10% of New Town, considerably ahead of other comparable cities. Most are still private for the residents that live around them and access and use was strictly guarded. Rules for Drummond Place from the 1820s for example go to great lengths to specify exactly who could and couldn’t use the garden. House owners could use them of course, but if they let out to a tenant, only one or other could have the key. Servants were not allowed under any circumstances, save for nannies tending to young children who lives on the Place. These children were required to stay on the gravel paths and grass, and boys couldn’t bring in companions who weren’t also residents. If any house on the place was used as a boarding house, guests there were not welcome; unless it was a boarding school for young ladies.

In reality the rules were probably not strictly adhered to, but the point about servant access has been used to raise an interesting point about Edinburgh generally. New Town was first conceived as a place for particular classes to get away from the filth and chaos of Old Town, and was spectacularly successful in its goal. But it introduced a social divide into the city that is arguably still present. It is home to both the highest concentration of affluence in Scotland and the third highest level of income deprivation.

A city of layers

Edinburgh is a city that isn’t afraid to go underground. Of course we didn’t live in caves!, our fantastic guide at the Real Mary King’s Close told us. Perhaps not, but this is a city where basement flats and indeed double basement flats are common. Another sign of their willingness to go down runs under Dublin St. The North-South line running from Scotland St through Dublin St and St Andrew’s Square has a subterranean layer, being home to a now disused railway tunnel. The “Scotland St tunnel” ran from Waverley Station along this line emerging at the north end of Scotland St, continuing north to the Port of Leith. Construction began in 1842 and the line opened completely 1847. It is an outstanding piece of engineering. One learns very quickly in Edinburgh about its hills, and the incline of Scotland St, and especially Dublin St is very steep. The Scotland St tunnel had a permanent mechanism in place to shift trains up the steep hill and into Waverley. The tunnel closed in the 1868 after an alternative overground line meant there was no longer any need for it, but the entry and exit points are still visible. The tunnel itself has since been home to mushroom farms and an outdoor laboratory for University of Edinburgh Physics Department.

This is a city with many layers, and many things yet to discover. I am looking forward to it.

Notes

On the buses (links to source)

• Connie Byrom (1995) The Pleasure Grounds of Edinburgh New Town, Garden History, 23(1), 67-90.
• Anna Feintuck (2017) Urban History, 44(1), 162-163.
• Christopher Fleet and Daniel MacCannell (2014) Edinburgh: Mapping the city, Birlinn: Edinburgh.
• John Gifford, Colin McWilliam, and David Walker (2003) The Buildings of Scotland: Edinburgh, Yale: London.
• National Library of Scotland Maps website: http://maps.nls.uk/. Maps shown here are CC-BY-NC-SA.
  • Old and New Town of Edinburgh and Leith with the proposed docks (1804)
  • Plan of Edinburgh and Leith with Suburbs Constructed for the Post Office Directory by John Bartholomew (1891-1892)
• P. J. G. Ransom (2007) Iron Road: The Railway in Scotland, Birlinn: Edinburgh.

Nighttown: Dublin’s Monto

The Mabbot street entrance of nighttown, before which stretches an uncobbled transiding set with skeleton tracks, red and green will-o’-the-wisps and danger signals. Rows of flimsy houses with gaping doors.

Ulysses, James Joyce

Entry under occupation for Maud Hamilton, 1911 Census (National Archives of Ireland)

In the 1911 Census, the occupation of two Dublin women is entered as prostitute. One was Maggie Boylan living as a boarder on Faithful Place, the other—whose original entry of “unfortunate” was amended by a clerk—was Maud Hamilton on Elliott Place. Both Faithful Place and Elliott Place were off Purdon St, now completely disappeared. At the time of the Census, it was a street running parallel to, and north of, Foley St.

Purdon St with Elliot Place and Faithful Place highlighted (OSi)

Foley St was called Montgomery St, and this gave the name to the small area just west of Connolly Station that was once one of Europe’s largest red-light districts: the Monto. The Monto came to prominence in the late nineteenth century, and lasted well into the twentieth century, until the new State, prompted by the Legion of Mary, effectively shut it down.

There is no specific boundary for the Monto, but it is considered to be within the boundaries of Gardiner St (to the left/west), Talbot St (to the south), Amiens St (to the east) and Gloucester St to the north. This map ca. 1840 shows many street names before they were changed. The red cross marks Montgomery St.

Oddly, my awareness of the Monto came about through a gift of the book Science and Technology in Nineteenth Century Ireland, which contains an essay by Tadhg O’Keeffe and Patrick Ryan. They write that there is little surviving of the Monto today, with streets, houses, and street names cleared away. They have used the Ordnance Survey maps of the city to trace the growth and decline of prostitution in this small area.

Why did the Monto come about? Early nineteenth century records suggest that prostitution was more prevalent on the south side of the city; with one of the city’s better known Madames, Margaret Leeson, setting up shop in Pitt St, now Balfe St, site of the Westbury Hotel (and the subject of this blog’s first post). In a second essay, O’Keeffe and Ryan propose three reasons why this small part of the north inner city became one of Europe’s most notorious red-light districts. Firstly, the area was far enough from respectable eyes to enable the containment of prostitution away from upper and middle-class residential districts. From the 1870s, there was no shortage of powers  available to the police to shut down brothels and arrest their occupants. But they were not used, and the area was openly acknowledged to have ‘open houses’ in a publication of high repute as Encyclopaedia Britannica. Ths is not to say arrests didn’t take place. Luddy reports the Dublin Metropolitan Police records: 2,849 arrests in 1838, 4,784 in 1856; and running at about 1,000 per year from the 1870s. A low of 494 was recorded in 1899.

Secondly, the area was a slum, meaning rents were low. And thirdly, and most likely crucially, the area was perfectly positioned next to Amiens St station, Dublin port, and Aldborough House. Amiens St likely provided plenty of young women from the country looking for work. The port and Aldborough house—converted from a school to a military barracks during the period of the Crimean war—provided plenty of clientèle along with the demand of locals.

Elliot Place, 1930s, from the Frank Murphy Collection (Old Dublin Society). Reporduced in Luddy and O’Keeffe and Ryan.

Keeping track of street names in the area is no mean feat. Looking at Rocque’s map from 1756, the area is mostly undeveloped. The extract from Rocque shows Mabbot St running roughly N-S, with “Worlds End Lane” running east-west along what became Montgomery St. O’Keeffe and Ryan suggest that this name indicates that even then, the area “had a long-standing reputation for the darker side of life.”

Rocque’s Map, 1756, showing Worlds End Lane and Great Martin’s Lane, which would become Montgomery St and Mecklinburgh St.

As the area began to be laid out in the mid-Georgian era, Great Martin’s Lane became Mecklinburgh St in 1765. Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburgh had married George III a few years earlier. This street ran through and beyond the Monto’s (loose) boundaries. Residents on the Upper part of the street, describing themselves as “respectable working classes”, lobbied to have the name changed so as to lose the association with the area, and this part of the street became Tyrone St in 1886. But just two years later, the residents in the Lower part had their street name changed to Lower Tyrone St. A medical student walking down Tyrone St in 1904 observed that “in no other European capital have I seen its equal. It was a street of Georgian houses and each one was a brothel”. The Upper and Lower Tyrone streets subsequently became Waterford St and Railway St in 1911, the latter name survives today.  Montgomery St had substantial slum clearances in 1905 and the street’s name was changed to Foley St, albeit with the same reputation. Mabbot St—immortalised by Joyce as the entrance to “Nighttown”—is now called James Joyce St. Are you keeping up?

The “other-worldliness” of the Monto, captured by Joyce in his expression of Nighttown is elaborated on by O’Keeffe and Ryan. This area of the city was the inverse of its surroundings; coming to life when Dublin slept, being run by women rather than men; public expressions in the most intimate of places.

Magdalen asylum in the Monto (OSi)

While the growth of the Monto may have been due to the turning of the cheek by the law, religious groups were not so unobservant. The all-male and Protestant White Cross Vigilance Association organised patrols from 1885, keeping watch outside “evil houses”. Bizarrely, the neighbours of brothel owners and prostitutes in the Monto were the nuns: the Sisters of Charity, who took over the Magdalen Asylum established on Mecklinburgh St in 1822.But it was the Association of Our Lady of Mercy (Legion of Mary), founded by Frank Duff in 1921 which had the greatest impact on shutting down prostitution in the Monto. Their actions included the persuading of women to leave brothels and take up paid employment elsewhere. The new State’s police force could no longer turn a blind eye and in the Spring of 1925, a large raid resulted in significant numbers of arrests. While this did not shut it down completely, activity petered out over the following years. Street clearances and renamings means that there are no physical marks on the landscape recording this district’s history; the only thing that remains is a white tiled cross on the back of a Magdalen building awaiting demolition and reconstruction.

White tile cross over a gateway on the back of the former Magdalen Laundry on Railway St (Google, 2014)

Notes

Updates, as they may come in the future, can be sent to your email address by subscribing below. 

• Tadhg O’Keeffe and Patrick Ryan (2009) At the World’s End: The Lost Landscape of Monto, Dublin’s Notorious Red-light District, Landscapes, I, 21-38.
• Tadhg O’Keeffe and Patrick Ryan (2011) Representing the imagination: a topographical history of Dublin’s Monto from Ordnance Survey maps and related materials, in Science and Technology in Nineteenth Century Ireland, Julia Adelman and Éadaoin Agnew (eds), Four Courts Press: Dublin.
• Maria Luddy (2007) Prostitution and Irish Society: 1800-1940, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

The end of the line

This is the final post for the foreseeable future. Thank you to the many subscribers and visitors to the blog. I leave for now with a note on Heuston Station.

The King’s Bridge, Dublin (West View) by George Petrie (1832). (Crawford Art Gallery, Cork. Click on image to go to source)

Although the establishment of a Commission for the development of a railway network in Ireland in 1836 was motivated by military needs, the subsequent lines built saw the end of canal passenger transport in 1852 and crushed the long distance coach business. With the establishment of The Great Southern and Western Railway Company in 1844, there was a need for a site to act as a terminus for all lines from the south and west parts of the country converging in Dublin. The site at Heuston, selected by Sir John MacNeill, was attractive given that it approached the centre of the city; a contemporary pamphlet advocating this site remarked that the Liffey “divides [the city] into two nearly parts. The terminus at King’s Bridge, will therefore be on the centre line of the city.” It was also convenient to the Royal (now Collins) Barracks, and thus allowed for easy deployment of troops by rail.

Heuston Station (thanks to B)

The first sod was cut in a field near King’s Bridge (named after George IV in 1828) in January 1845 in a ceremony attended by among others, the Duke of Leinster. According the the Irish Railway Gazette report that month: 

His Grace, amid the loud cheers of the assembled crowd, took off his coat and in his shirtsleeves, with the skill and goodwill of an able workman dug up six sods which he threw into a wheel-barrow, and rolled off to some distance. The bonhomie the Duke of Leinster displayed elicited the utmost enthusiasm, and a country fellow turning to one of his companions said with the utmost glee, that he would now die happy, as he had seen a duke work like any common man.

The ceremony was concluded with a very elegant dejuner.  

Kingsbridge Station, by Sancton Wood (1848). Reproduced in Craig.

The station terminus itself was designed by Sancton Wood and built by Cockburn and Williams of 179 Great Brunswick St (now Pearse St) using native stone. Completed in 1848, it was Dublin’s third railway terminus, following Westland Row (1834) and Amiens Street (1844). It is a substantial building, 107 feet wide, with wings projecting 53 feet each. Two panels on the front, “VIII VIC” and “1844” indicate the Act of Parliament under which the railway company operated. Between these are the three coats of arms of the cities served by the railway: Dublin, Cork, and Limerick. Descriptions of the architectural significance of the building abound, but I like Craig’s best:

…a delightful building, a renaissance palazzo, gay and full-blooded, with fruity swags and little domed towers on the wings, a thoroughgoing formal composition, excellently articulated. It is the fashion nowadays to sniff slightly because it is not as good as Broadstone: but by these standards few buildings would escape whipping.

In what sounds like a familiar tale, after the terminus of the Dublin and Wicklow Railway was built at Harcourt St in 1859, there was a desire to link up the termini at Kingsbridge, Westland Row, and Harcourt St. In 1867, the City of Dublin Tramways Co. was empowered to develop such a link. The proposed track was to run from Kingsbridge along the South Quays to Westland Row, and on to Earlsfort Terrace. Although work began on Aston Quay, it was quickly abandoned after a row caused by track being used, which left a depression in the roadway between the rails.

Map of Dublin (1847) showing the (unfinished) station terminus at Kingsbridge. (From Cullen, 2015)

The first trip from the station was made in August 1846—they didn’t hang about in those days. A train left Dublin for Carlow at 9 am with carriages of all classes densely crowded with passengers. A trial run had been made the day before to the Curragh, with among others Sir John MacNeil, the man responsible for the enormous railway sheds at the rear of the building terminus, Peter La Touche, Mr Brooke (Governor of the Bank of Ireland), and the Chairmen of both the Paris and Rouen Railway and the Orleans Railway. A dejuner was again served at the Curragh; railway travel clearly being an activity that requires food. Although Independence brought a name change for King’s Bridge, to Sarsfield Bridge in 1923 and Seán Heuston Bridge in 1941, Heuston Station had to wait until 1966 to follow the name of the bridge. A tram now links the station to Amiens St (Connolly) and the missing link to Harcourt St is imminent. All change!   If you’d like to follow my street adventures in a new city, keep an eye out for my new blog later in the summer. In the mean time, enjoy this great song from Boy and Bear: End of the Line.  

Plaques for Sancton Wood and John MacNeill are at the entrance to Heuston Station

Notes

• Cullen (2015) also shows Petrie’s East View of King’s Bridge, which shows the Royal Barracks in the background.
• Maurice Craig (1952, reprinted 2006) Dublin 1660-1860: The Shaping of a City, Liberties Press (Dublin).
• Frank Cullen (2015) Dublin 1847: City of the Ordnance Survey, RIA (Dublin).
• William J Jacob (1944) Kingsbridge Terminus, Dublin Historical Record, 6(3), 107-120.
• Francis J Murphy (1979) Dublin Trams 1872-1959, Dublin Historical Record, 33(1), 2-9.
• Michael J Tutty (1981) Bridges over the Liffey, Dublin Historical Record, 35(1), 23-33.

In Nicholas’ Shadow

In the shadow of Saint Nicholas of Myra,

Where salt waits, oil in its cruse.

You will find your own way out of this maze.

Harry Clifton, A Son! A Son!

Parish School of the Parish of St Nicholas Without, on New St.

In the Protestant parish of St Nicholas Without, a small complex of schools existed on New St, a short street linking what is now Clanbrassil and Patrick Sts. The early Ordnance Survey map marks the school’s location and Sir John Gilbert lists details of schools in the city, most likely gathered from one of the many, many Irish Education Inquiries the Government established to try to decide what to do with education provision. He states that the school on New St had a yard and playground that was spacious. This was not common – compare, for example with St Nicholas Within, which had no yard, and a “dirt hole and necessary” on the ground floor. The school had dormitories which were airy and clean, but the school room itself was “small, dark, and inconvenient”. There were 20 boys boarding; the parish had a population of over 12,000 at the time.

1842 Petigrew and Olsen Street Directory

We can trace the school pretty easily using street directories. By 1834, there were Male, Female, and Infant Schools on the site, with the children taught by James Farrell, Miss Moore, and Miss Macnamara. By 1842, the male and female schools were run by Jenkinson Hudson and his wife. Now I should say that Jenkinson is something of an old friend, as he cropped up in my study of Wicklow schoolhouses during the Georgian era. There we find him teaching in a school in Calary, aged 20 in 1823. Calary is as remote as you get in Wicklow, on upper plains between Kilmanacogue and Roundwood. It must have been quite a change for him and his wife to move to the city. Jenkinson was replaced at Calary by John Nelson Darby, so it is likely that he conformed with the evangelical ethos of that school, and perhaps this made him a suitable candidate for the school at New Street. This is further confirmed by the fact that while the school received support from the (secular) Kildare Place Society, it was not formally associated with it (see An Education at Kildare Place). Jenkinson had received training from the Society in 1823.

A little walk

Of course, following the relaxation of penal laws in 1785, most Catholic children were openly educated by Catholics, either in hedge and pay schools, or schools established on church lands. A short walk away from New St, the Roman Catholic schools for the parish were on Francis St. This walk is different today, with New St leading directly onto Patrick St. Then, a Wide Street Commissioners map informs us, New St fed into Kevin St, with a small alley named Three Stone Alley linking New St with Patrick St. The triangle now occupied by a large junction and abandoned subterranean toilets was once a compact cluster of houses.

Three Stone Alley, linking Patrick St to New St (from Dublin City Library collection – click to go to source)

On Francis St

St Nicholas of Myra Church and schools (OSi)

St Nicholas of Myra Roman Catholic Church was built in the years following Emancipation in 1829. While there is a substantial amount of information on the church, very little appears to exist on the schools that were built on the church grounds. We know of the existence of these schools from the Ordnance Survey map which shows that by the end of the nineteenth century, at least two schools were present just north of the church.

The provision of education in early nineteenth century Ireland resembled a chaotic auction where various religious societies tried to outbid each other offering support to nascent schoolhouses. Support came with the obligations that a school would operate under the moral guidelines of a particular society, use their textbooks, and crucially, follow their interpretation of the Bible. Amid this chaos, the Kildare Place Society emerged, and became the major supporter of secular education in Ireland (see An Education at Kildare Place). The Society was formed in 1811, and from the 1820s, was the dominant Irish educational society, receiving £30,000 from Government to support schools.However, the Kildare Place Society was under attack from the Catholic bishops, and after a Parliamentary Inquiry in 1826 and Emancipation in 1829, the money previously directed to Kildare Place was used to establish the Board of National Education in 1831. Ireland had a National School system.

The Commissioners of Education offices and Training School were at Malboro’ Street (National Archives of Ireland)

Having petitioned for its formation, the Roman Catholic church quickly began to associate schools it currently supported as well as new schools with the National Board. This involved applying to be connected with the Board, through support of teacher salary, request for desks, books, etc. These applications are now kept in the National Archives of Ireland, and they are a rich source of information on localities. The earliest record for St Nicholas Without is an application in 1842 for a Female School. In this, the correspondent Fr Matthew Flanagan reported that the school house, consisting of two rooms, each thirty by forty feet, had just been completed, having been built by private subscription. Later documents make it clear that this building was in fact a school for boys and girls, with a room for each. The application was approved, and the school became popular. An application for further assistant in 1868, from Fr E McCabe, requested a salary for Eliza Saunders, aged 18. Her qualifications included a “Certificate of Professors”. She would join Mary Ledwidge, principal teacher, Julia Shalvey, Margaret Dowling, Kate Macken and M. A. Shalvey (both junior monitors). There were at that time 190 boys and 190 girls on the rolls, with average attendance of 116 boys and 116 girls.

Application for St Nicholas Without Infant School Assistant Teacher Salary, 1862 (National Archives of Ireland)

The complex grew, and as well as girls and boys, the parish applied for assistance with an infant schoolhouse in 1853. The application by Fr Flanagan requested money for payment of teacher’s salary and for supply of books. He stated that the schoolhouse was newly built, with brick and slate in the cottage style, 65 feet long and 18 feet wide, standing close to the church on Francis St. It was furnished with a gallery and capable of accommodating 170 children, who were taught by Elizabeth Murphy, aged 44. Daily hours were 10 to 3, with hours devoted to religious instruction 12 to 12.30. Books used were those of the National Board. A salary of £10 was granted to Elizabeth and books for 150 children provided.Again this school was successful.Several applications for further assistance followed; within a decade there were 234 boys and 131 girls on the roll, with an average daily attendance of 138 boys and 60 girls.

While the Roman Catholic schools of the parish embraced the National School system, there is no record of the schools at New Street joining the system.Initially schools with a Protestant ethos were reluctant to join the National School system, and they continued with the support of the Kildare Place Society, which later became the Church Education Society. However, by the 1850s, money began to run out, and schools tended to drift into the National system. It is likely therefore that in the absence of any application, the schools at New Street closed.

Roman Catholic schools clearly continued on with some success, and in the 1930s, a new schoolhouse was built at Carman’s Hall, a narrow lane linking Meath and Francis Streets, just in front of St Nicholas of Myra church. Casey describes it as a simple modernist building by Robinson and Keefe, with statues of the Virgin, St Nicholas, and original Irish signage. Like its predecessors, it is now closed. The footprint of the schools around the church at Francis St is now occupied by a modern building housing Francis St CBS.
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St Nicholas of Myra National School, Carman’s Hall

 Notes

• The records of the National Board of Education are available in the National Archives of Ireland. There is a card index. The files accessed for this article included: ED1-29-136, ED1-29-118, ED1-29-1. Those eager to follow up the schools’ histories are encouraged to examine the ED2 records.
• A contemporary image of the intended elevation of St Nicholas of Myra Church is available in Dublin Penny Journal, reproduced at Dublin City Library. Meanwhile, I enjoyed this letter from Sgt. Brace in 1977 to The Irish Times…
• Christine Casey (2005) The Buildings of Dublin, Yale University Press.
• Michael Seery, Education in Wicklow; From Parish Schools to National Schools, 2014.This book is free to read on Google Books.

St Nicholas of Myra School and Church, from Carman’s Hall

The First Baronet

Sitting in the winter sun on the south side of St Patrick’s Cathedral is a statue of Benjamin Lee Guinness. Named after his maternal grandfather, he was the third son of Arthur Guinness Jr and Anne Lee, after William, a clergyman, and Arthur Lee. After the latter’s death in 1839, Benjamin Lee assumed control of the family business from his father in 1840. He transformed the brewery from the largest in the city to the largest brewery of porter in the world.

Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness Bt (Photo: B)

As his fortune amassed, Benjamin Lee moved the family home from Number One, Thomas St (now marked with a plaque) to Stephen’s Green. Here he combined two houses in what Dickson calls a “kind of opulent Victorian palace not otherwise seen in in the city”. The transfer can be observed in street directories: in 1832, No. 1 was home of Arthur Guinness, Esq., in 1862 it was listed as a Brewer’s house, as the original brewery stood behind it. The family had lived in No. 1 since its construction in the 1750s-1760s. Casey describes the now seven bay building as much extended.

Guinnes Plaque, No 1 Thomas St

While philanthropy to varying degrees was common among the gentlemen of the early nineteenth century, Benjamin Lee brought this to new levels, spending £110,000 on the restoration of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, with the aim of restoring it to its “medieval magnificence”. The aim was to create a national cathedral. The building, like its neighbour at Christchurch had fallen into disrepair, and according to Cullen, demolition was considered in 1805. As the century progressed, some work was completed, but as disestablishment of the Church of Ireland was imminent, any significant state investment was unlikely. One could consider that the cathedral would not have survived but for his investment. The work was not without controversy—no architect was hired, and Guinness himself directed the project. A view of the Cathedral from 1739 demonstrates how much work was done subsequently.

St Patrick’s Cathedral, 1739, by J Blaymires. Reproduced in Stalley.

He also began the restoration of Archbishop Marsh’s library. For this work and more, Benjamin Lee Guinness was created 1st Baronet Guinness of Ashford Castle in 1867. It was evidently a popular decision. A book of memorials from the citizens of Dublin ran to two volumes. As mentioned previously in the article on St Sepulchre’s Palace, the street in front of Benjamin Lee’s statue was for some time called Guinness St, before reverting to St Patrick’s Close. What a pity the name changed back!

St Patrick’s Close on the OSi 25″ map – part of the street is called Guinness St

Benjamin Lee Guinness died in 1868, a few months before his 70th birthday. His worth was put at £1.1 M at the time. An astute businessman, his will declared that the company could not be split, a decision which perhaps prevented his two sons with remaining interest from doing so. The Guinness empire continued to grow. His son Arthur, 2nd Baronet Guinness, and was later created 1st Baron Ardilaun, completed the work on Marsh’s Library, opened Stephen’s Green to the public (commemorated by a statue of Lord Ardilaun in the Green, facing the Royal College of Surgeons), and rebuilt the Coombe Hospital in 1880. He also initiated interest in the Dublin Artisan’s Dwelling Company (see article on Reginald St), that his brother would later take up in the form of the Iveagh Trust.

In 1876, Arthur sold his share to his brother Edward Cecil, a man who did much to transform the city of Dublin. He was created 1st Baron Iveagh in 1891, and the Viscountcy and the Earldom soon followed. There is plenty more to write about him of course, but for now we can say that a good claim to fame is that the two “cunning brothers” appear in Ulysses: 

“a crystal cup full of the foamy ebon ale which the noble twin brothers Bungiveagh and Bungardilaun brew ever in their divine alevats, cunning as the sons of deathless Leda. For they garner the succulent berries of the hop and mass and sift and bruise and brew them and they mix therewith sour juices and bring the must to the sacred fire and cease not night or day from their toil, those cunning brothers, lords of the vat.”

No. 1 Thomas St, to the left of the entrance of St James Gate Brewery (Photo: July 2012 by informatique on Flickr)

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Notes

The amount spent on St Patrick’s Cathedral varies with the source. Dickson quotes £110,000.

• Christine Casey (2005) The Buildings of Dublin, Yale University Press.
• Frank Cullen (2015) Dublin 1847: City of the Ordnance Survey, RIA (Dublin).
• David Dickson (2014) Dublin – The Making of a Capital City, Lilliput (Dublin).
• Roger Stalley (2009) St Patrick’s Cathedral Dublin, Irish Arts Review 26(3), 116-119.

Last Post on James’ St

Having served the area since 1891, James’ St post office recently closed and is currently for lease. It was one of several post offices designed by “the always interesting” J. Howard Pentland. Others in Dublin include Ballsbridge, Phibsborough (demolished and rebuilt in 1960), and Blackrock in 1909.  Maire Crean’s magnificent book “Lost Post” provides substantial detail on James’ St post office, including the original proposal of the floor plan, now kept in the National Archives.

James’s Street Former P.O.; Part Original Ground Floor Plan (National Archives of Ireland, reproduced in Crean).

James’s Street P.O.; Original Elevation (National Archives of Ireland, reproduced in Crean).

The public office is visible to the left of the plan, and the sorting office to the right. Crean also treats us to the original elevation – clearly it was originally intended to be a Gothic affair. The door to the public office is on the left on the plans, but from the existing building, we can see it is on the right.

The existing building is part of a trio of red-bricked buildings on the site: two at the pavement, and one in between; a three-storey building recessed from the road. Casey seems doubtful that such a grand building could be for a postmaster, and I can’t find anything in the 1901 Census to counter her opinion. The Post Office in that Census was given number 106, and was of course uninhabited. Using that numbering system, 105 and 104 are the adjoining buildings, and they too were unoccupied in 1901. By 1911, the numbering had shifted to what we currently have: the post office at no. 109, and the large house at 108 was a boarding house for four brewers from England and four domestic servants. 107 remained unoccupied.

Stafford Johnson gained a substantial amount of information from two pieces of paper found in a bin. Most other remaining archives were destroyed.

Postal history can be traced back to James’ St much earlier than 1892. Dublin had an innovative and efficient postal system known as the “Penny Post”, which was established in 1773. The city joined London to be unique in the world with such a system, although according to Stafford Johnson—who has provided us with one of the rare monographs on this topic—Dublin “has some matter for pride in the fact that it maintained the general character of the Penny Post unaltered until the end.”

The Penny Post operated in parallel to the pre-existing General Post system. From 11th October 1773, letters not exceeding four ounces could be delivered from the Penny Post Office in the GPO yard or any of eighteen Receiving Houses around the city, at a cost of one penny. The receiving houses were named in the original correspondence and included Mr. Charles Wren, Hosier, at the Sign of the Stocking, Francis-street near the Combe, Mr. Bredberry, Grocer, at the Sign of the three Swedish Crowns, George’s Quay and Mr. Bourke, Grocer at the Black Boy and Sugar Loaf, Capel-street near Essex-bridge. By 1810, there were 54 receiving houses in the city, and 29 country receiving houses, the extra distance to the country (suburban areas) costing 2 pence.

Doorway, James’ St Post Office (Photo: B)

The original system involved a pre-payment of one penny which was given in to the Penny Post Office or receiving houses. Letters that did not have the accompanying penny were opened and returned to the sender. A plea was made to be as precise as possible with the address, and those intended for lodgers were to name the landlord or the sign (on the building) to assist the post men.These men wore a distinctive uniform from 1810, and like their colleagues in the General Post system, rang a bell when on collection duty.

In 1810, the pre-payment system was abandoned. The official reason isn’t known, but Stafford Johnson offers with some confidence his theory that pre-payment ran counter to the public sentiments of the time. Payment on delivery would be preferred as it secured a safer delivery, and poorer people could take advantage of the system by refusing to accept delivery (and hence avoid the charge) while learning who the letter was from. Apparently secret codes were used so that the recipient could interpret the message with accepting the letter. Nonetheless, the system was a successful and efficient means of communication in the city. The post-masters general were eager to highlight the benefit of their system and regularly published the notice:

So expeditious and regular is the dispatch and delivery of letters by this Office that two persons residing in the most distant parts of the City from each other, may write four letters and receive three answers in the day for the trifling expense of one penny on each.

James’ St Post Office (Photo: B)

Back at James’ St, a receiving house opened on the street in 1809/10, and we can propose that this house is a precursor to the post office mentioned at the head of the article. The listing of a receiving house at No. 75 in the 1862 street directory adds some weight to this proposal. Here, William Madden, M.D. operated his medical practice, and acted as a Post Office Receiver. In addition to the house on James’ St, a second receiving house opened on Echlin Lane (now Echlin St) after 1810. The latter joined receiving houses at Broadstone Hotel and Portobello Hotel linking the city system with the Royal and Grand canal harbours (see In the fields off James’ St).

The Penny Post system ended in 1840, because of a combination of factors, not least the duplication with the General Post system. Stafford Johnson closes his article with the following:

Looked at as a whole, the Penny Post was worthy of the City and fulfilled its functions truly and well. For 66 years it gave a service which for cheapness and quickness has never been equalled. All this was done by men on foot, and to-day, in spite of the advantages of modern science, there is nothing to come up to that old system of which all that remains is a memory and some faded old letters.

Letter Box on No 107 James’ St (Photo: B)

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Notes

• Christine Casey (2005) The Buildings of Dublin, Yale University Press.
• Maire Crean (2012) Lost Post : A Selection of Ireland’s Post Office Buildings. See also Dublin Institute of Technology repository for Crean’s thesis on this topic.
• J. Stafford Johnson (1942) The Dublin Penny Post: 1773-1840, Dublin Historical Record, 4(3), 81-95.

In the fields off James’ St

Grand Canal Place
at the second hour.
Live lights on oiled water
in the terminus harbor.

Thomas Kinsella, St Catherine’s Clock

Walking around between the Guinness Storehouse and St James’ Hospital, there are some aqueously named streets: Grand Canal Place, Basin View, Basin Lane Upper. Water, water, everywhere. But neither eyes nor satellite show any sight of a drop.

Rocque to the rescue, as always. Tucked away in the south-western corner of his 1756 plan of the city is “City Bason”. The Bason, or Basin was a reservoir supplying this area of the city-especially the ever growing number of breweries and distilleries-with water. It was also a place for local residents to escape the confines of the city’s streets.

Rocque’s map of the city – the “city bason” is just on the southern edge of the extract shown.

With the aid of your monocle, it can be seen that a tree-lined walkway is shown around the basin, and the area was popular as a promenade, so much so that it had already been included as a panel of interest in Brooking’s map of 1728. In addition, it was a venue for musical performances. A concert in aid of the Meath Hospital advertised for August 1756, the date of Rocque’s map, promised a performance of Ellen-a-Roon by Mr Pockrich, playing musical glasses:

Mr. Pockrich hath, (in consideration of so useful a Charity) condescended to exhibit a NEW and CURIOUS Musical Instrument, invented by him very lately, the Effects of which it is impossible to describe, as being entirely different from all either Wind or String Instruments …

It would appear on this particular occasion, that Mr Pockrich’s performance didn’t go well. A subsequent apology appeared from the man himself in the following week’s newspaper: the cause of disappointment was his adding a Glass too much to his instrument. 

Ordnance Survey of Ireland map of area south of James’ St. (Map: OSi)

We digress. The City Basin, Frank Cullen tells us in his fantastic new book was built in 1724, and indeed by the date of the Ordnance Survey map over a century later, the tree lined promenade was still present. A guide to the city in 1835 reported that:

The City Bason is the pleasantest, most elegant and sequestered place of relaxation the citizens can boast of; the reservoir, which in part supplies the city with water, is mounded and terraced all round, and planted with quickset hedges, limes and elms, having beautiful green walks between, in a situation which commands a most satisfactory prospect of a vast extent of fine country to the south. The entrance is elegant, by a lofty iron gate, and the water that supplies it, is conveyed from the neighbouring mountains.

The basin is important for the next part of the story. Its location probably directed the choice of the end of the Grand Canal adjacent to it, completed in 1785. The Canal would serve to keep water flowing to the basin, and hence to the city. (It wasn’t until 1790 that the canal was extended along the South Circular Road to the Liffey.)

Thus the terminus in the quote from Kinsella above makes sense. Quite an extensive harbour and dry docks are visible in the Ordnance Survey map, and the whole complex meant that this became an important link between Dublin, especially the Liberties and surrounding area, and the rest of the country via the canal. It’s probably no coincidence that the street running east from the harbour, that which now runs along by the entrance of the Guinness Storehouse, is called Market St. Gloriously, a sketch of the area published in the Illustrated London News and reproduced by Cullen gives us a picture of the locality in 1846.

City Basin and Grand Canal Harbour, Illustrated London News, 1846, and reproduced in Cullen (2015). The South Dublin Union Workhouse is visible to the west.

At this time, the area east of the Basin and south of James’ St had not been assimilated into the Guinness empire and one can see (pass the monocle again dear) on both the map and the etching that the area is primarily residential. In this final part, we’ll consider two developments that emerged in the nineteenth century.

Rocque’s 1757 map showing what became known as “Old James’s Gate Chapel” (marked with a cross) on the corner of Watling St, erected 1749.

The first is Echlin St, dominated on the east by St James’ Church. This is the third incarnation of the church; a Chapel of St James was erected by Canon Matthew Kelly in what was known as Jennet’s Yard. This lasted until 1749, when Richard Fitzsimons PP built a church on the corner of Watling St. (Rocque kindly marks a building with a cross at this location.) In August 1852 the present St James’ Church was opened by Dr, later Cardinal Paul. A notice outside the church says that Daniel O’Connell laid the foundation stone. Echlin St links James St with Grand Canal Place. Previously named Echlin Lane, it sourced its title from Rev Henry Echlin, who was the vicar of St James until his death in 1752.

St James’ Church from Grand Canal Place

Secondly, the large curved building wrapped around Grand Canal Place is not present on the maps or views of the 1840s. This building, which Cullen describes as warehouses and Casey describes as experimental maltings were built by Guinness in 1863; in either case a convenient location on the water’s edge for distribution nationwide.  Facing inwards towards the canal, which like the basin beside it is now filled in, it is the last remnant of the enormous water complex that supported this industrial quarter of the city. One can contemplate Kinsella’s Live lights on oiled water in the Harbour Bar pub just across the road.

At Grand Canal Place. The Harbour Bar is the white building to the right.

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Notes

• There is a photo essay of this area on the Irish Waterways History website.
• Brian Boydell (1991) Mr. Pockrich and the Musical Glasses, Dublin Historical Record, 44(2), 25-33.
• Christine Casey (2005) The Buildings of Dublin, Yale University Press.
• Frank Cullen (2015) Dublin 1847: City of the Ordnance Survey, RIA (Dublin).
• Desmond F. Moore (1960) The Guinness Saga, Dublin Historical Record, 16(2), 50-57.

A little Off

Off Lane, which appears on Rocque’s 1756 map was so named by Henry Moore, 3rd Viscount Moore, 1st Earl of Drogheda who came into possession of lands in this area around what is now the Spire on O’Connell St in 1661 following the Restoration of the Monarchy. Laying out the streets, Henry was clearly a man who wished to leave a legacy. He named some of his new streets Henry St, Moore St, Earl St (now North Earl St), Drogheda St, Mellefont Place (which was Tucker’s Row and became Cathedral St). A small lane, now called Henry Place, linking Moore St to Henry St was called Of or Off Lane. Clearly Henry had used every other combination of his titles, and was left with using the prepositions.

Rocque’s Map of 1756 showing Henry Moore, Earl of Drogheda’s legacy:  Henry St, Moore St, Earl Street, Off Lane, and Drogheda St

This entire development was laid out before 1728 on what was called Ash Park by the monks of St Mary’s Abbey, where the Earl of Drogheda had taken the Abbot’s House as his city residence. After laying out his new streets, the Earl built Drogheda House, a mansion situated between Earl St and the next street north, now called Cathedral St. The Earl, clearly not wanting to waste an opportunity, called this street Mellefont Place (he was also Baron Moore of Mellefont). A fountain was situated at the front of the house, “pouring water into Drogheda St”. Drogheda St, linking Sackville St (northern end) to the river was by then only a narrow lane, and indeed on Rocque’s map, did not continue to the river.

Sackville St and Gardiner’s Mall, c. 1760, by Oliver Grace

Wide Street Commissioners Map of planned alterations to Sackville St – compare the width of Sackville and Drogheda Streets. (Dublin City Library – click image to go to source)

An important map in the Dublin City Library Wide Street Commission archives is shown, outlining the commission’s plans to extend and widen the thoroughfare from the end of Drogheda St through the connection with Abbey St and onto the river. Just 30 years earlier, this was a haphazard cluster of houses. Having widened the section from the river to Abbey St, and the previous widening in 1749 of what became Sackville St, Drogheda’s days were numbered, and the entire length was widened in the 1790s, becoming Sackville St (after a brief time as New Sackville St). This was achieved by Luke Gardiner, later 1st Viscount Mountjoy.

The change from Drogheda to Sackville reflects also the earlier changing land ownership. Drogheda’s reign came to an end following the death of the Earl. The lands passed through the hands of Sir Humphrey Jervis, who sold them to Luke Gardiner around 1714. It was he who laid out Gardiner’s Mall, and the northern stretch of Sackville St; the name coming from Lionel Cranfield Sackville, 1st Duke of Dorset, who was viceroy for the periods 1731-37 and 1751-6.  Gardiner also called his younger son Sackville, so we can assume the families were friendly. As mentioned we had to wait until his grandson Luke continued the street to the river later that century, and Drogheda St disappeared from the map.

Sackville St eventually became O’Connell St, although not as soon as planned. Dublin Corporation, in a rash of apparent nationalism in 1884 (see John Dillon St) opted to rename the street after the Liberator, but was prevented by a court injunction taken by the street’s residents, clearly more loyal to their peers. It wasn’t until independence that O’Connell finally superseded the Viscount and the Earl that preceded him.

Sackville St in the early 19th century (Original image from National Library of Ireland – click to go to source)

Notes

• Christine Casey (2005) The Buildings of Dublin, Yale University Press.
• Mrs. James F. Daly (1957) O’Connell Bridge and Its Environs, Dublin Historical Record, 14(3), 85-93.
• Seamus Scully (1972) Ghosts of Moore Street, Dublin Historical Record, 25(2), 54-63.
• Maura Shaffrey (1988) Sackville Street/O’Connell Street, Irish Arts Review, 144-149.