Reply To: good article on temple bar as it now is

From Maurice Craig’s remarkable book Dublin 1660-1860.

An extract on the remarkable Luke Gardnier.
Page 265.

“On June 5th 1798 Lord Mountjoy was killed at the Battle of New Ross. This was the second and (practically) last Luke Gardnier,* a man who deserved better of his country than to die in a civil war on the wrong side. His Catholic Relief Act of 1778 was a landmark, and he had renewed his efforts with success in 1782. He had developed the North Side estate even more rapidly; at the time of his death it had spread along Denmark Street and Gardnier’s place to Mountjoy Square and Great Charles Street, and the half-mile avenue linking the Square with the Custom House had been laid out and partly built. His intention was at first to have the houses on several sides of the Square composed into grandiose elevations with porticoes, pilasters and central domes. But such a scheme was against the sense of the city and was abandoned. Most of the Square, except the east side, was built by 1798, by such craftsmen as Stapleton, William Pemberton and John Russell. Instead of the church that was originally proposed in the middle of the Square, St. George’s was ultimately built in Hardwicke Place, which was also Gardnier territory.”

* His grandson Luke died at the age of nine.