West of the Great North Road.

CHAPTER V.

Westward of Capel Street we find Chancery Place, (1825) formerly called Mass Lane, from a Church of the Jesuits, opened here in the reign of James II.; but closed of necessity, like all the other Dublin Catholic Churches, Convents and Schools, after William’s victory at the Boyne.

The Church then became the meeting-house of the Huguenots or French Protestant refugees then newly arrived in Ireland. (They had their separate graveyard in Dublin beside the Cabbage Garden Burying Ground in Cathedral Lane, Kevin Street; and afterwards, where the high wall and gate may still be seen, at the junction of Stephen’s Green and Merrion Row.

In course of time they became merged in the general body of Dublin Protestants, and have been distinguished for their ability. The only token of their presence amongst us still is the occurrence of such surnames as Latouche, Journeaux, Tabuteau, Tibeaudo, Maturin, Ducros, Lefanu, Lefroy, Chenevix, Logier Borough, Labatt, Labertouche, Lanauze, Le Clere, Le Bas, Montfort, Fleury, Espinasse, Bessonett, Moulang, D’ Olier, Perrin, Saurin, Bloursiquot, Bosanquet, Dubedat, Bofleau, Chaignean, Blaquiere, Dufour and Crommelin, Cork, Lisbura and Portarlington had each a Huguenot colony.).

Mass Lane was afterwards called Golblack Lane and Lucy’s Lane. The Church of St. Michan’s Parish (served by the Jesuit Fathers in the penal days), to which Mass Lane led, was demolished about a quarter of a century ago in the course of some improvements made by the Corporation which involved the abolition of Bull Lane.

Fisher’s Lane, 1320, now St. Michan’s Street, since 1890, was, early in the 18th century, the seat of three Dublin convent foundations, the Dominicans of Cabra, the Poor Clares of Harold’s Cross and the Carmelites of Ranelagh.

West Charles Street and Mountrath Street adjoining are called after Charles Coote, Earl of Mountrath, Greek Street and Latin Court scarcely correspond to the dignity of their names. The same remark applies to Paradise Place, Eden Garden, Angel Alley and Lucky Hall which are also to be found in our city, He who views them will be sadly disillusioned.

The Presentation Convent in George’s Hill close by was founded in 1794, and is the oldest Dublin, foundation of that Order, which was founded by Miss Nano Nagle, who died in 1784. Little Green Street is so called since 1864 after the Little Green where Newgate was afterwards built. Haliston Street was Bradoge Lane and Halfstone Street and Beresford Street was called, from the times of Queen Elizabeth until 1774, by the singular name of Phrapper or Frapper Lane. Lord Altham resided in Phrapper Lane, and afterwards in Cross Lane, Bolton Street, *Guy Mannering *is founded on the extraordinary adventures of his son James Annesley. (Annesley resided as a boy in Phoenix Street with Purcell, a butcher of Beef Row, Ormond Market, and also in Jervis Street.)

Green Street was Abbey Green in 1568; and most of the streets enumerated in this paragraph stand upon what was once the estate of St. Mary’s Abbey, This celebrated religious house, first Benedictine, but after 1139 Cistercian, lay to the west of Capel Street. It is declared by some authorities to have been in existence in 908, that is exactly a thousand years ago. Its church was on the north side of the street still called Mary’s Abbey, a name found so far back as the year of Magna Charta. A portion of the Chapter House is still standing.

Many of the streets in the neighbour-hood-Mary’s Abbey, Mary’s Lane, Mary Street and Abbey Street-are called after this famous abbey dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. It extended on the west as far as Church Street, and is mentioned by Haliday by its old name of “St, Mary’s Abbey de Ostmanby” or of Oxmantown.

Its lands included on the east Terpois Park where Jervis Street now stands, the Black Wardrobe, now Abbey Street, and the Ash Park, now Upper O’Connell Street, The offices of the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland, Upper O’Connell Street, stand in what was once the Ash Park of St. Mary’s Abbey. The possessions of the Abbey also included Clonliffe, Monkstown and Dunleary.

St. Mary’s Abbey is said to have been the scene of Silken Thomas’s memorable defiance of the English Government. There is a famous old statue of the Blessed Virgin which once belonged to this Abbey and has had a most chequered history, After many vicissitudes, amongst which it served as a pig-trough, it was acquired by the late Very Rev, Dr, Spratt of the Carmelite Order, who had a genuine love for antiquity. It stands now, owing to his exertions, beside the High Altar of the Carmelite Church, Whitefriars Street.

Linenhall Street and Yarnhall Street commemorate the Linen Hall, opened in 1726. The business of this Hall lay principally amongst certain important towns of Ulster, as the names of the adjoining streets recall. There are Coleraine Street, Lisburn Street, and Lurgan Street, and there was formerly Derry Street, closed to enlarge the Linen Hall in 1781. Bolton Street received its name from the Duke of Bolton, who was Lord Lieutenant 1717-21, and Dorset Street from Lionel Cranfleld Sackville, the first Duke of Dorset, who was Lord Lieutenant 1731-7** **and 1751-5, It had been called previously Drumcondra Lane, and we read of the Rose Tavern and the Stone Well, both on this road; as well as the Poor Clares’ Convent, subsequently the Jesuit Church and School, in Hardwicke Street, but originally opening on Drumcondra Lane.

West of Bolton Street is Henrietta Street, formerly Primate’s Hill, so called from four of the Protestant Primates who resided there. Bishop’s Lane and Prebend Street are still in this neighbourhood. The adjacent King’s Inns were opened in 1809. The portion of the Temple Garden next the Linenhall was formerly Ancaster or Anchorite’s Park, and the portion next the Broadstone was Plover Park. The valley of the Bradoge was probably once the resort of plovers. Henrietta Street derives its name from Henrietta, wife of Charles Fitzroy, second Duke of Grafton, who was Lord Lieutenant 1721-4.

It contains perhaps the finest old houses on the north side of Dublin, and No. 10 was the residence of the Gardiner family, Earls of Blessington and Viscounts Mountjoy, who were the greatest owners of property on the north side. The house was built by Luke Gardiner, Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, and the family resided here for over a century.

In 1874 all the Gardiner property in Dublin, except Henrietta Street, was sold in one lot for £120,000 to the Hon, Charles Spencer Cowper, son-in-law of Lord Blessington. In 1814 the first wife of the second Lord Mountjoy died, and her remains lay in state in Henrietta Street. Her funeral cost between three and four thousand pounds. The doors were thrown open and all who would might enter and receive entertainment. This would hardly be possible now, but Dublin was then much smaller.

Upper or New Dominick Street, along with the adjoining Mountjoy Street, was built about a century ago, being much more modern than Lower or Old Dominick Street; and Blessington Street, called after the noble family just mentioned, is a little older, dating from 1795, but Paradise Row, called Wellington Street since the year after Waterloo, on a map, but not until 1843 in fact, is found as early as 1769.

Nelson Street is a name fairly indicative of the date of the street, St. Mary’s Chapel of Ease. Mountjoy Street, called the Black Church from the colour of the stone, was built in 1830. The name Eccles Street is found in 1772. It is derived from Sir John Eccles, Lord Mayor in 1710,** **who owned property here.

His house, Mount Eccies, stood where the Loreto Convent, North Great George’s Street, stands now, and he built St. George’s Church, Lower Temple Street (since 1886 Hill Street) for his Protestant tenantry.

Some of the Eccles family resided in the street until a few years ago, and they were land-lords of the large house No. 59, formerly the residence of Cardinal Cullen.

At the top of Eccles Street, where the Mater Misericordiae Hospital (opened in 1861) stands now, the Directory maps from 1796 until about thirty years later, and Byrne’s Map of Dublin in 1819 mark a certain Royal Circus, whose form is indicated. It was projected but never constructed, It was to have been a splendid range of private mansions surrounding a circle instead of the usual form of a square. It was to have been approached by several grand streets, of which Eccles Street was one; and another, called Elizabeth Street, probably from Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Wm. Montgomery, Bart., and first wife of Lord Mountjoy, was to have started from Synnott Place then newly built. The Royal Circus comprised the site of St. Joseph’s Church, the Mater Misencordiae Hospital, Berkeley Road and the streets west of it to the City Branch of the Royal Canal, It was intended to have included ground even beyond the North Circular Road, where Mountjoy Prison was afterwards built about sixty years ago. The only part of it which was, in fact, made, with the exception possibly of some of the houses in Eccles Street, was Cowley Place on the North Circular Road, built in 1792 and named after Lieutenant General Cowley who erected it. The three tall old houses of Cowley Place were demolished a few years ago. (Cowley Place was to have reached the Royal Canal bank near the 4th Lock, as the old maps show, It was to have been the eastern entrance to the Royal Circus. The corresponding western I entrance was to have been a new street, opposite to Cowley Place, almost exactly on the spot where St. Joseph’s Church now stands, This street is marked as Margaret Place, and like the actual Margaret Place, (1818), N.C.R., near Russell Place, appears to have derived its name from the wife, afterwards widow, of Lord Mountjoy, Margaret, daughter of Hector Wallis of Russell Place.)

The Royal Circus was projected by Lord Mountjoy and his premature death prevented its construction. The Gardiner family had already built the splendid Sackville Street some sixty years before. Lord Mountjoy was engaged, at the time he projected this new residential district, in building Mountjoy Square, but the Royal Circus was to have eclipsed Merrion Square. (The house now known as 65 Mountjoy Square West, was the residence of Piers Geale, Crown Solicitor, who became allied to many noble families by the marriages of his daughters, His house was called the House of Lords.)

At the corner of Eccles Street and Berkeley Road in the plot of ground fronting the Mater Misericordiae Hospital, stands the memorial to the Four Masters, Franciscans of Donegal, an Irish Cross erected in 1876.

The fine new Church of St. Joseph, Berkeley Road, was built in 1880, replacing a wooden structure erected ten years earlier, Berkeley Road was formerly called Somerset Place, and the corner house, 37 Nelson Street, Somerset House.

Near St. Joseph’s Church Irish National I memories are recalled by the names of Geraldine Street, Fontenoy Street, Goldsmith Street, Sarsfield Street, and O’Connell Avenue, built about forty years ago. (Called O’Connell Street from 1870 to 1870-1885, Gerald Griffin Street 1885-6-6 and O’Connell Avenue since)

The beauty-spots of Kerry and the south-west are similarly recalled in streets between the Circular Road and Royal Canal built thirty years ago, There are Valentia, Innisfallen, Muckross, Derrynane, Glengariff and Killarney Parades.

The late Cardinal Cullen and Isaac Butt resided in Eccles Street at the same time, over thirty years ago, the first at No. 59, the second at No. 64. The latter house, conspicuous by the ornaments on its front, was the residence of Francis Johnston, the first President of the Royal Hibernian Academy, who died in 1829. He was the architect of the Church of St. George adjoining, remarkable for its tall and beautiful spire.

Some years ago a small square tower stood behind this house in Upper Eccles Lane. It had once housed a peal of bells, the property of Johnston who bequeathed them to St. George’s Church, where they are still heard.

No. 63 was the residence of Sir Boyle Roche famous for his bulls and blunders. No. 18 Eccles Street, now part of the Dominican Convent School, was once the residence of James Cuffe, Lord Tyrawly. It was divided into two houses in 1845, It was a ladies’ boarding school so far back as 1835, but its present occupancy dates from 1882.

Synnott Place, dating from 1795, is called after a family of that name who owned property here, Mark Synnott of Drumcondra Lane was Sheriff of the County of Dublin in 1742. This family, of Wexford origin, now resides in the County of Armagh.

St. Francis Xavier’s School, next St. Ignatius Road, occupies the site of an older building called Kellett’s School. The present school was founded in 1850 by the late Rev, John Gaffney, S.J.

The road crosses the Royal Canal by Binns’s Bridge, called, like Clarke’s and Newcomen Bridges, after John Binns, one of the Directors of the Royal Canal Company in 1791.

Behind the Drumcondra Hospital is St. George’s Burying Ground, containing amongst other memorials the tomb of Carmichael, an eminent Dublin surgeon, from whom the well-known School of Medicine is named, He was drowned on the evening of the 8th of June 1849 in Sutton Creek while attempting to cross it on horseback from Dollymount to his residence at Sutton at low tide.

The large old building facing Clonliffe Road, now the Sacred Heart Home, was previously, from 1875 to 1883), St. Patrick’s Training College, which was removed in the latter year to Belvidere House beyond Drumcondra Bridge, where it still flourishes, For many years before 1875 the present Sacred Heart Home was the Convent of the Redemptoristine Nuns who removed in that year to their present convent, then newly built, on St. Alphonsus’ Road named after their founder.

Saint Anne’s Road adjoining was formerly called Burnett Place, but the old site was demolished a few years ago to make way for the Drumcondra Link Line Railway. The lane beside the Convent of Saint Alphonsus is called Seery’s Lane,

Some distance up Millbourne Avenue, formerly Mill Lane, the older Ordnance Survey Maps mark St. Catherine’s Well, but all this district has been very much built over within the last twenty years.

Hampstead House, on the west of the highway, was apparently named so from some analogy of its position, towards Dublin with that of Hampstead Heath towards London. Each is situated on high ground to the north commanding an extensive view of the city, The analogy was closer seventy years ago when an adjoining house was called Highgate.

The name of the King’s father is perpetuated in the Albert Model Farm of the Commissioners of National Education, lately transferred to the Department of Agriculture.

To Chapter 6. To North Dublin Index. Home.