West of Church St. and the Finglas Road.

CHAPTER I.

West of Church Street and the Finglas Road

Up to the end of the 17th century the portion of the City of Dublin, lying to the north of the river Liffey, was very small. It consisted mainly of Church Street, then the principal thoroughfare, and a few streets to the east and west of it: from the east side out to the sea was a stretch of open country in which lay the suppressed Abbey of St. Mary, and the Dominican Priory nearer to the river (The aspect of the north side of Dublin was greatly changed in the 18th century by the construction of the Circular Road in 1768, and of the Royal Canal in 1791).

The sea then came in much farther to the westward than it does now, the coastline at that time running from Clontarf by Ballybough to where are now the North Strand Road and Amiens Street, and, turning round by what is now Beresford Place, it reached by Strand Street to the site of Essex Bridge.

Nothing to the east of this line had yet been recovered from the sea. The tidal waters of the river flowed considerably north of the present line of quays, and on retiring left exposed at ebb a large slob land. Up to the last quarter of the 17th century there was only one bridge over the Liffey in Dublin, that is the bridge called Dublin Bridge or the Old Bridge, connecting Church Street with Bridge Street. On the older maps it is called emphatically The Bridge.

This was the only bridge existing because it was the only one needed. It was built by King John in 1210, and rebuilt by the Dominicans in 1385. They had their convent on the site of the Four Courts and received toll through one of their lay brothers from those who crossed the bridge. From the dissolution of the monasteries until 1582 the Inns of Court were on the site of this Convent, from 1582 to ‘695 the Courts, and the Inns of Court again until the end of the 18th century. The present Four Courts were completed by James Gandon in 1796 at a cost of £200,000.

The Four Courts absorbed Arch Lane, which seems to have been called Purfictor Alley afterwards. Morgan Place is of the same age as the Four Courts. King James II’s. Irish Parliament was held in the old Four Courts in 1689.)

During the construction of the present Whitworth Bridge here, traces were discovered of the foundations of the bridge before that of King John, constructed by the ancient Irish, or by the Scandinavians. In pursuing our exploration of North Dublin it will be convenient then to start from this very ancient thoroughfare, Church Street, and, having glanced at the city’s westward progress, follow its growth eastward till it reaches the sea. We shall also travel along the principal road running northward through the county as we meet them issuing from the great thoroughfares of the city.

Before beginning a detailed description of the streets it may be well to refer to the bridges that now span the river which forms the southern limit of the district we propose to describe, and must be our Rubicon. They number twelve, and, beginning with the most western, are in the order of their occurrence as follows

In the county; Leixlip Bridge (southern half), the northern half being in the County of Kildare; Lucan Bridge and Chapelizod Bridge (southern half).

Within the city boundary, Chapelizod Bridge (northern half). Sarah Bridge, built in 1791 on the site of Island Bridge. The King’s Bridge, built in 1828. Victoria Bridge, built in 1863, occupies the site of the old wooden bridge called Bloody Bridge; the latter derived its sanguinary name from a fatal affray in 1671, the year after its erection, in which the partisans of a formerly existing ferry figured largely; it was rebuilt of stone in 1704 and named Barrack Bridge.

The fine gate of the Royal Hospital was erected at Barrack Bridge by Francis Johnston in 1812, and removed to its present position in 1846. The Queen’s Bridge, built in 1776, (the oldest existing Dublin bridge over the Liffey), preceded by Arran Bridge; built in 1683, appears as Bridewell Bridge, 1756, called after the Bridewell in Smithfield; and Ellis’s Bridge, 1766. Whitworth Bridge built in i8iS, occupies the site of the Old Bridge built by the ancient Irish or Scandinavians; afterwards, as stated above, by King John in 1210, and rebuilt by the Dominicans in 1385. Little John, standing on this bridge in 1189, is said to have discharged from his bow an arrow which reached a hillock on Oxmantown Green, a very long distance. Richmond Bridge built in 1813, formerly Ormond Bridge, which was built in 1683 and swept away in 1806. Grattan Bridge, built in 1874, on the site of Essex Bridge which was originally built in 1676, and rebuilt in 1755. Wellington, or The Metal, Bridge, built in 1816. O’Connell Bridge, built in 1880 on the site of Carlisle Bridge which was erected in 1794. Butt Bridge, built in 1879.

Starting from the ancient thoroughfare of Church Street, we pass on the west the old Church of St. Michan, founded in 1095, from which the street derives its name. It is the oldest building on the north side of the city, and the oldest in Dublin, except one, Christ Church, which exceeds it in age by but a few years. It was rebuilt in the 17th century, but the tower may be as old as the 11th century. Some portions of the edifice, too, date from the time of its original foundation. The vaults are celebrated for the antiseptic quality of the air, which has preserved bodies for centuries. This property has been ascribed by some writers to the dryness arising from the yellow limestone of the walls, but assigned by others to various causes. Henry and John Sheares, the United Irishmen, were buried here, and Charles Lucas, Oliver Bond and the Rev. William Jackson in the adjoining churchyard. The present fine Capuchin Church of St. Mary of the Angels was erected in 1864. Earlier Capuchin Churches had been erected here in 1720 and 1796.

To the west of this very old road at its Dublin extremity, lie Arbour Hill, famous for its memories of Robin Hood’s gigantic lieutenant, humorously called Little John; and Montpelier Hill, which contained the residence of a Royal Duke for a short time some sixty years ago. This was the late Duke of Cambridge, then Prince George of Cambridge, grandson of George III, and first cousin of Queen Victoria. He was in Dublin as an officer of the army and member of the Dublin garrison. He afterwards commanded the Dublin District, and a few years later served in the Crimea, and was Commander-in-Chief of the British Army for many years. He lived here for a very short time, his residence for the greater part of his stay in Dublin being at his quarters in the adjoining ‘Royal Barracks. While quartered here he was married in Arbour Hill Garrison Church to Miss Louisa Farebrother, an actress. As this marriage was contracted without the consent of the then sovereign, Queen Victoria, it was contrary to the Royal Marriage Act, passed in the reign, and at the wish, of George III, and was always regarded as morganatic. The eldest son, the late Colonel Fitzgeorge, did not succeed to the title of Duke of Cambridge. The Royal Barrack here was built in the year of Blenheim, 1704. Here also are found Barrack Street, now Benburb Street, called by D’Alton “the ‘Suburra of Dublin,” and the short street leading to Bloody Bridge,’ first called Cuffe Street, then Silver Street for a hundred years, and now Ellis Street since 1872. Under the name of Silver Street it has been made known to thousands who have never seen Dublin, as the scene of the military street fight in ‘Belts’, one of the ‘Barrack-room Ballads’.

There are also the King’s Hospital, Oxmantown, a famous old Protestant School, founded in 1670 in what is now Queen Street. The present building was begun in 1773, and was never quite finished. Both the old and new Bluecoat Schools, as they are called, were built on what was formerly Oxmantown Green, of which the school field is the last surviving portion. (A very interesting History of the King’s Hospital was published by the late Sir Frederick Falkiner, many years Recorder of Dublin.)

Oxmantown Green was once covered by a wood. In 1098 William Rufus had the roof of Westminster Hall constructed of Oxmantown timber. Dermot O’Hurley, Archbishop of Cashel, was martyred on Oxmantown Green on the 19th of June, I584. (Another account says on St. Stephen’s Green)

Oxmantown was once a village separate from Dublin. It occupied the district where now stand Church Street (southern end), Smithfield, Bow Street, Queen Street, Blackhall Street, Hendrick Street, the western half of North King Street, and, as said above, the King’s Hospital. The name is derived from the Ostmen or Eastmen, a name given to the Scandinavians, who lived east of Ireland and England. The Scandinavians seem to have made Oxmantown their residence after the Norman conquest. Nowadays we should consider Scandinavia the very near East. The name Oxmantown recalls not only the heroic memory of Clontarf, but also those earlier days when Dublin was a Scandinavian kingdom whose kings had such hibernicized names as Sitric MacAuliffe and Hasculph MacTorkill. The latter was King of Dublin when the city surrendered to Strongbow and Milo de Cogan on the 21st of September, 1170. (The earlier Scandinavian Kings of Dublin were addicted to piracy and, like their fellow countryman, Godred Crovan, King of Man, who captured Dublin on one occasion, used to go on Viking expeditions. Those who are interested in this period of the history of our city cannot do better than consult. Haliday’s History of the Scandinavian Kingdom of Dublin).

These Danish names have been appropriately commemorated lately by bestowing them on a number of new roads between Arbour Hill and the North Circular Road near old Oxmantown, The postal address, “King’s Hospital, Oxmantown ” still preserves the name of this ancient district.

To the west of Church Street we also find the Hay-market; Smithfield, where the Earl of Bective, ancestor of the Marquess of Headfort had his town residence in the 18th century; Queen Street and Thundercut Alley; and the splendid and spacious Blackhall Street, built in 1789, and named after Sir Thomas Blackhall who was Lord Mayor in 1769. Whitehall Street was near this a century ago. The name Queen Street, found in 1687, and Queen’s Bridge adjoining, are probably from Catharine of Braganza, consort of Charles~I. Irwin’s Guide to Dublin, published in 1853, speaking specially of Blackhall Street, says that this is the part of Dublin enjoying the most mild and genial climate, and that in gardens ‘here the grape and the fig ripen in the open air. To the west of old Church Street lay also Gravel Walk, afterwards Tighe Street, now part of Benburb Street; Sand Quay, afterwards Pembroke Quay, now rebuilt and called Sarsfield Quay, Gravel Walk Slip, a dock on the riverside where Blackhall Place now meets the quay; and Arran Quay, called after the Earl of Arran, a younger son of the Duke of Ormonde, where Edmund Burke was born (at No.12). (The Carmelite nuns now in Ranelagh had their Convent in Pudding Lane, now Lincoln Lane, a few doors from No.12, in the 18th century. It was behind No. 16 or 17 Arran Quay). It was in the year 1750 that Edmund Burke went to London like many Irishmen “to seek his fortune,” which he found. No.32 Arran Quay was the place of business of Charles Haliday, already referred to as the historian of the Scandinavian Kingdom of Dublin.

West of Arran Quay is Ellis’s Quay, called after the family of Agar-Ellis, Viscounts Clifden, who had a valuable leasehold interest from the Corporation of Dublin extending from Arran Quay to the Phoenix Park. Some of the leases are dated 1662, and their maps show the Liffey as the southern boundary of the Ellis property. Lord Clifden resided on Arran Quay. (Near Dublin the Ellises also owned Pickardstown and the Boot Inn, about six miles from the General Post Office, on the road to” Naul. The title Viscount Clifden passed in 1899 to Lord Robartes in Cornwall, who is connected with Ireland only by descent, but the property fell to the present Lady Annaly1 a member of the Agar-Ellis family).

Parkgate Street (The sign of the well-known Royal Oak tavern here is scarcely true to historic facts. One error is the omission from the picture of Colonel Careless, who, in honour of his association with Charles II., afterwards changed his name to Carlos, the Spanish for Charles. Careless was with the King in the oak Boscobel all that 6th of September, 1651, three days after Worcester Field. Nor was the King ever in such immediate jeopardy as is depicted here. But we must remember that John D’Alton in 1838 saw a Royal Oak sign in Swords presenting “King Charles blazing in scarlet and gold through its ill-furnished branches, and a whole regiment bivouacking at its foot.”) and Conyngham Road are names of the old thoroughfare from Dublin to Chapelizod and Lucan. Before the King’s Bridge was built in 1828, there was a ferry at this part of Parkgate Street. Yet this circumstance scarcely justified an assertion made a few years since in the account of a famous Dublin trial of over a century ago in the pages of a Dublin magazine. The writer was puzzled by the statement in the old newspaper he was consulting that the criminal was believed to have left Dublin by the Parkgate packet. He explained it by asserting that the packet started from the Park Gate. But the Dublin cross-channel vessels corresponding to the present Holyhead service sailed in those days to Parkgate in Cheshire. There is a reference to this in the humorous old song of Billy O’Rourke

I engaged with the Captain for eight thirteens

To carry me over to Parkgate.

But before the ship went half the way,

She went at a terribly hard gait

The cessation of the Dublin traffic was a great blow to Parkgate which is now a kind of obsolete coast village.

Close by Old Church Street on the west were three streets worthy of some notice. The first was the Hangman’s Lane, a name naturally not much relished by the inhabitants, and consequently corrupted into Hammond Lane, which it is still cal1ed.

(In the same way Bumbailiff’s Lane, off New Street, on the south side, became the meaningless Fumbally’s Lane. There was another Hangman’s Lane from Kimmage to Dolphin’s Barn, where Tom Calvin, the hangman of ‘98, is said to have lived. It is now called the Dark Lane. Dublin also contained such names as Cutthroat Lane, Murdering Lane, Cutpurse Row (Corn Market), Hell, near Christ Church, flog Hill (St. Andrew Street), The Common Lane (Watery Lane, now Brookfield Avenue), Gallows Road, Gallows Hill, Gibbet Meadow, Dirty Lane (Bridgefoot Street and Temple Lane South), Dunghill Lane (Island Street) and Pinchgut Lane. Some 18th century street-names were even coarser; yet, they were the recognised official names, figuring in postal addresses, and found in maps and directories. The age of refinement was yet to come, and it has already reached its extreme point in renaming Dublin streets and lanes.)

Besides Hammond Lane there was Lough Buoy, the present Bow Street, but called up to the early part of the 18th century by the old Irish name from a large pond at the north, or King Street, end which was probably connected with the Channel Row branch of the Bradoge. There was also May Lane, perhaps so called from the surname May, but mentioned in the Maybush, an old ballad to be found in ‘Ireland 120 Years’ ago.

(By the late Right Hon. John Edward Walsh, Master of the Rolls. It is a most interesting little book, of which a new edition is to appear soon, describing the wild Ireland of 1787 and some time later, as depicted by Charles Lever. ‘The Maybush’ and the ‘Baiting of Lord Aitham’s Bull’ both contained in ‘Ireland 120 Years ago’ (Gill, Dublin) are choice specimens of slang, and good illustrations of the coarseness of the age already mentioned.) The butchers of Ormond Market had their Maybush in Smithfield.

Turning next from the junction of Church Street with North King Street or North Brunswick Street we follow the course of a road by Stonybatter even older than that which is continued from Church Street to Ashbourne or Naul. North King Street is found as ” King Street, Oxmantown “in 1551 and is probably the same as King’s Lane, Oxmantown, in 1438. King Street had at least two convents of the Poor Clares at different times in the 18th century, both on the north side of the street, the later near Blackhall Place and the earlier nearer to Church Street, the present No.63 North King Street, formerly a Medical School and now a National School. In the latter a very old lady died in 1730 who had been famous in the world in her youth. This was Frances Jennings, sister of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and widow of Richard Talbot, Earl and Duke of Tyrconnel, James II’s Lord Lieutenant and the last Catholic who held that post. He died in Limerick during the siege. The Poor Clares finally left North King Street in 1825, and returned to Galway from which they had originally come. Redcow Lane, King Street, hear their convent, seems to have taken its name from an inn sign. In the 18th century there were Augustinian nuns in Russell Court. This court was situated between the Capuchin Church and May Lane.

The parallel street to North King Street) viz., North Brunswick Street, obviously derives its name from Charles, Duke of Brunswick, who married in 1764 Princess Augusta, sister of George III. He was killed at Jena in 1806, and his son and successor at Les Quatre Bras, 16th June, 1815. It was called before 1766 Channel Row, and derived its old name, still sometimes heard, from a channel connected with the little stream called the Bradoge. This little brook (which has a namesake at Bundoran) also gave its name to Bradoge Lane, now the southern portion of Halston Street, under which it flows. We shall meet this little river again, later on.

Having crossed the Bradoge and passed Richmond Hospital, where once stood “Channel Row Nunnery,” the predecessor of Cabra Convent, we reach Stonybatter, a name recalling still more ancient times. The last part of the word is the Irish bothar, a road and this very road was called Bothar-na-gcloch, road of the stones. It is likely that this street formed part of the old road from Tara by the sea to Wicklow, made in the second century and crossing the Liffey at the ford of hurdles (Ath Cliath) where Whitworth Bridge now stands.

As is well-known Dublin derives its old Irish name Baile Atha Cliath, from this ancient ford. If the name Stonybatter is really 1,700 years old, is must surely be granted the palm for antiquity amongst Dublin street-names. The northern end of Stonybatter received its present name of Manor Street in 1780 from the Manor of Grangegorman in which it was situated. The Manor House is now the police barrack in that street. The owner of the Manor in the reign of Charles II was Sir Thomas Stanley, from whom the short street called Stanley Street, off North Brunswick Street, is named. His daughter Sarah married in 1663 Henry Monck, grandfather of the first Lord Monck. To this family the estate passed, and their long association with the district is commemorated in such names as Monck Place, Royse Road, from the name of a family intermarried with the Moncks, Rathdown Road and Terrace, from the title of Earl of Rathdowne, enjoyed by one of the Viscounts Monck, and Charleville Road and Terrace and Enniskerry Road, from the name of their residence near Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow.

The apex of a triangle formed by the two streets at the north end of Manor Street marks the site of a village before Dublin had extended so far.

(The junctions of King Street with Bolton Street, Church Street with Coleraine Street, Taafe’s Village with North Strand, are other instances.)

The western or left hand side of the Oxmantown triangle was called Blackhorse Lane from this point to Castleknock until 1780, when the portion from Manor Street (so named in the same year) to the Circular Road, was given the name of Aughrim Street, as a memorial of the Battle of Aughrim, fought on the 12th of July, 1691. Such a memorial is characteristic of the sway of Orangeism in municipal affairs in the days of the old Corporation, whose civic patriotism was not so liberal as to include consideration for the Catholic majority of Ireland and of Dublin. The fine Parish Church of the Holy Family in this street was built in 1880. The present Blackhorse Lane, starting from the Dublin Corporation Abattoir (on the Ordnance map misspelled Abbatoir), derives its name from the Black Horse tavern, better known to Dubliners as “Nancy Hand’s” from its popular hostess of fifty years ago, or the” Hole in the Wall,” from a turnstile into the adjoining Phoenix Park. Blackhorse Lane passes an old well called the Poor Man’s Well, and, nearer to Dublin, the Military Cemetery and Marlborough Cavalry Barrack, built about fifteen years ago when Lord Wolseley was Commander in Chief. About the same time he produced his Life of Marlborough.

(Most people know that Wolseley is a native of Dublin, but few are aware that John Churchill, afterwards Duke of Marlborough, resided for several years of his boyhood in our city. His father, Sir Winston Churchill, a Devonshire Cavalier, who had suffered great losses for Charles 1 in the Civil War, was recompensed by Charles II, shortly after his Restoration, by a Government appointment in Dublin Castle. Sir Winston’s famous son, John, went to school at the Dublin Schoolhouse in Schoolhouse Lane. His favourite classical work is said to have been Vegetius’s ‘Epitome Rei Militaris’, which is not allowed by the Intermediate Education Board to the rising generation of strategists. The Churchill family resided in Lower Bridge Street, then very fashionable, and at that time the approach to the only bridge leading to the north side of Dublin. Thus a great British general, who was an Englishman, had nevertheless some association with Dublin, in which Wellington and Wolseley were born.)

Prussia Street received its name in 1765 (For the dates of the first appearance of many of the street-names we are indebted to Canon McCready’s interesting little work, Dublin Street Names.) from Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, whose dynasty’ is represented by the present German Emperor. Frederick, who belonged to the Hohenzollern family, Electors of Brandenburgh, was then one of the most prominent personages in Europe. The tall old house in Prussia Street, now the City Arms Hotel, was formerly the residence of one of the Jameson family, the well-known distillers, who came to Dublin from Scotland. At an earlier period it was inhabited by Henry Stevens Reily from whom is named the bridge over the Royal Canal on the Ratoath Road, a continuation of Prussia Street.

He is the “Squire O’Reilly ” of Burton’s strange topographical romance of Oxmantown.

Before 1765 Prussia Street and its continuation were called Cabragh Lane; as the Continuation is still called Old Cabra Road in contradistinction to the new Cabra Road, starting from St. Peter’s Church and joining the old road at the gate of the Deaf and Dumb Institution, the point of intersection of the roads to Navan and Ratoath. The little building which preceded the present fine Church was erected in 1828, and, after a few years, handed over to the Congregation of the Mission on its establishment in Ireland. The Old Cabra Road is connected with Blackhorse Lane by a thoroughfare oddly called Blind Lane, for it is not a blind lane or cul-de-sac, but a complete thoroughfare. Old Cabra Road passes on the right Cabra House, once the residence of Lord Norbury, John Toler, who shot ahead in life by means of duelling pistols, and, when he had shot his way to the bench, became the terror of prisoners in Ireland a century ago. He was more famous for wit than for feeling. On the left is Cabra Convent, founded in 1819 in the old mansion of the Segraves. Except for a brief stay in Clontarf, in a house still called Convent House in the Green Lanes, the Dominican nuns had inhabited “Channel Row Nunnery” for nearly 100 years. The last named Convent had been built originally for Benedictine nuns in the reign of James II.

Where the road crosses Reily’s Bridge on the Canal, named after Henry Stevens Reily, one of the original Directors of the Royal Canal Company, a fine view is obtained of the picturesque ruin of Finglaswood House, within living memory the residence of a family named Savage. The country lane adjoining is still called Savage’s Lane and leads past the secluded residence of St. Helena, by the Long Walk, to the village of Finglas. Old Cabra Road descends into the valley of the River Tolka at the village of Cardiff’s Bridge. Some distance to the left, at Pelletstown, there was a castle in ruins some years ago, of which not a vestige remains. Pellets-town House adjoining was the residence, about years ago, of a young officer who is now General Sir John French. On a road north of this is the Royal Observatory at Dunsink. From Cardiff’s Bridge the main road, passing not far from a place with the familiar name of Killester, leads into the little town of Ratoath in the county of Meath.

Following out Church Street to its northern extremity, we reach Constitution Hill, (The name is probably imitated from that of Constitution Hill in London. The names of Smithfield, Pudding Lane, Curzon Street, Fleet Street, Temple Bar, Pimlico, Watling Street, London Bridge, Corn Hill, Drury Lane (now Street), Pye Corner, Spitalfields, Beggar’s Bush and Goose Green seem to have a like origin.) formerly North Townsend Street, and in earlier times known, with the adjoining district, by the Irish name of Glasmanoge. The Irish Parliament met here once on the occasion of a plague in the city. We pass next under what was, until a short time ago, the Foster Aqueduct, called after the last Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. This aqueduct conducted the water of the Royal Canal to a basin in the Terminus which was filled up about thirty years ago. Some Of the hotels in this neighbourhood are older than the railway, having been established for the accommodation of passengers on the Canal. This service, of which a good description is to be found in Lever’s ‘Tom Burke and Jack Hinton’, was very popular about seventy years ago.

The Royal Canal was purchased, a little over sixty years ago, by the Midland Great Western Railway Company, an event which has gradually led to the almost total abandonment of the Canal. A map of the end of the 18th century marks as “Overfal” another branch of the Royal Canal, apparently never made, opening northward opposite the City Branch. Blaquiere Bridge, on the North Circular Road, spanning the City Branch of the Canal, takes its name from Sir John (Lord) de Blaquiere, a Director of the Company. On the City Branch Canal Bank, behind a house on Phibsborough Road, is found the inscription Cumnor Hall, from the house in which Amy Robsart, the wife of Elizabeth’s favourite Dudley, afterwards Earl of Leicester, is said to have been murdered in 1560 by her husband’s orders. The house by the Canal was probably named by some admirer of Scott’s ‘Kenilworth’ into which the tragic story is introduced. Phibsborough Road, the thoroughfare from the Aqueduct to Westmoreland Bridge, as well as Phibsborough Avenue and Phibsborough, popularly called “the Borough,” are called in older documents Phippsborough, and are named from the family of Phibbs or Phipps, long connected with the county of Sligo.

There are a few interesting names to be mentioned on the North Circular Road between Phibsborough and the Park. St. Dymphna’s, the residence of the Medical Superintendent of the Richmond Lunatic Asylum, is called after that Irish virgin, martyred in Belgium, whose feast occurs on the 15th of May. She has always been regarded in Belgium as the protectress of the insane, and there is a great Asylum dedicated to her at Gheel in that country. Cumberland Place, of which the nameplate bears date 1851, is called after Ernest, Duke of Cumberland and King of Hanover, a son of George III, who died in that year. As he was a member of the Orange Society, we may assume that this terrace was named by some extreme Conservative. Lorne Terrace is from the Marquess of Lorne, now Duke of Argyle brother-in-law of the King. Prince Patrick Terrace is from the King’s military brother, Prince Patrick, now the Duke of Connaught. Bessborough Terrace, like Bessborough Avenue, North Strand, is from the Irish peer who died Lord Lieutenant in 1847, and the last terrace, Wodehouse Terrace, is from Lord Wodehouse, afterwards Earl of Kimberley, who was Lord Lieutenant, 1864-6, in the exciting Fenian times. Sullivan Street, close by, is called after Mr. T. D. Sullivan who was Lord Mayor in 1886 and 1887, and Aberdeen Street from our present Viceroy.

The district of Grangegorman, comprising five town-lands of that name and lying between Phibsborough Road and the Phoenix Park, includes some places and names worthy of notice. Grangegorman and Glasnevin at a period long before the Norman Invasion to the Augustinian Priory of the Holy Trinity, the predecessor of Christ Church. The name of Stanhope Street dates from 1792, a long time after the Vice-royalty, 1745-7, of the famous Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, or of that of his kinsman and immediate successor in the Viceroyalty, William Stanhope first Earl of Harrington. Kirwan Street, joining Grangegorman Lane to Manor Street, is called after Dr. James Kirwan, Coroner of Dublin, and a member of one of the Tribes of Galway, a former owner of property here. There was a great wood called Sallcock’s Wood where Quarry Lane and the Cabra Road now intersect. Here the O’Tooles, returning from a successful foray in Fingal, defeated the citizens of Dublin who tried to intercept them.

To Chapter 2. To North Dublin Index. Home.