Reply To: ‘Dutch Billys’
Your location is spot on, that pair of Billys faced westward onto Wood Quay. They featured in an article by Peter Walsh in ‘Viking Dublin Exposed, The Wood quay Saga’ published in 1984. The houses were located a little to the west of the medieval ‘Fyan’s Castle’, a rectangular tower on the circuit of the city walls.
The house on the left was rebuilt in a Victorian gabled warehouse style soon after the picture was taken and both were subsequently demolished after Fishamble Street was extended to the quays.
Interestingly the site had been occupied by one of Dublin’s first public jacks [Jakes] erected in the 1650s and when a Mr. Connor, gent, took a lease of the ground from the Corpo in 1674 he was obliged to reserve ‘the house of office in good condition for public use as heretofore’
A ‘house of office’ or more descriptively a ‘house of ease’ being the polite term then in use for a toilet.
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That print of Kennans from the 1860s rather pours cold water on Fishamble Street being the location of the O’Colmain streetscape. Back to square one on that I think.
