How well do you know Dublin?
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@GrahamH wrote:
Did gunter perchance give it away on another thread of late? It may have been swiftly mentioned…
Indeed. From the VHI/Abbey Street thread:
@gunter wrote:
If Dublin City Council had wanted to protect a Scots Presbyterian Church, the one to protect was the, 300 year old, one in Swift’s Alley off Francis Street (from the ‘How well do you Know Dublin’ thread), reportedly the first Presbyterian church in Dublin,
To be honest, the picture stumped me. I wasn’t aware of the building at all.
Likewise. It’s very like St. Mark’s Church on Pearse Street. Where exactly was it gunter, and when was it knocked do you know?
And in a similar vein, and right next door, it seems another structure here has recently bitten the dust that’s been puzzling me for a while. Christine Casey mentions the following: “Nearby on Garden Lane is a simple classical building of 1819, now used as an abattoir. An attractive essay in the utilitarian classicism practised by Francis Johnston and his circle. Two-storey three-bay central block, rendered with blind ground-floor arcade, panelled screen walls and an arch at each end. What was its original purpose?”
A more pertinent question now is where was it? There’s nothing of this nature on the abattoir site that I’m aware of. Was it on the site of the thoroughly hideous block of apartments that’s just gone up with multiple dead frontages onto Carman’s Hall and Catherine Street? This would have been developed after the area was surveyed.
The church was just behind the boundary wall on Swift’s Alley at the back of Chadwick’s yard (Dublin Saw Mills).
1986 revised edition O.S. mapThe way I remember it, the roof and gables had been taken off and a large concrete top storey added (in the 30s ?). It either had a flat roof, or possibly no roof at the time that I became conscious of it. Forklift trucks used to whizz around it and a number of other interesting timber roofef sheds at the back of the builders providers, and then one day it was gone.
Around the same time, a Zoe apartment scheme was built opposite the Iveagh Markets on Francis Street that wrapped around the corner into Swift’s Alley and I not sure if the church site wasn’t incorporated into that site. That Zoe development was stalled for years in a half built state and there was talk of planning problems, but I doubt that the church was any part of these problems.
The similarities with St. Mark’s struck me too and the similarities would lead one to conclude that the simple over-hanging gutters and the little stone eaves brackets at St Mark’s may have been a Victorian alteration replacing parapet walls, as here at Swift’s Alley. The parapet walls do reduce the barn like dominance of the roof, which is a bit of a characteristic of St. Mark’s.
@gunter wrote:
Around the same time, a Zoe apartment scheme was built opposite the Iveagh Markets on Francis Street that wrapped around the corner into Swift’s Alley and I not sure if the church site wasn’t incorporated into that site.
No, I just checked. The church site is marked by a new high reinforced concrete wall on Swift’s Alley, with building materials peeping up on the other side. The Zoe scheme adjoins that site to the east.
I think the church was demolished about 10 years ago, which probably means it was 15 years ago.
Just in the interests of not spreading bad information, I checked Douglas Bennett’s Encyclopaedia of Dublin (1994).
This is his entry for Swift’s Alley Church:
A Baptist meeting house was built in 1653 in an alley between Francis Street and Meath Street with a lease from Goodwin Swift after whom the Alley is named. The building was demolished and a new one built in 1738. In 1835 it was leased as a chapel of ease to St. Catherine’s Church, when £3,000 was spent on refurbishing the building. Swift’s Alley Church was closed in 1891.So Baptist, not Presbyterian, I knew there were Bibles involved, and not 300 years old, 270 years old.
I don’t suppose there are too many Baptists at large in the city any more.
It’s interesting to reflect that the Liberties was probably Dublin’s first multi-cultural quarter, with large numbers of Hugenot French, English settlers (such as Swift’s parents), colourful weaver types and exotic religious sub-groups. That would give modern day Parnell Street a run for it’s money.
I see that DCC are advertising for submissions on a ‘Draft Local Area Plan for the Liberties’, (deadline 10th Sept. ’08).
*must put together an outraged rant*
Following the success of the Swift’s Alley Church . .
Here’s another oldie. Would anyone like to have a stab at naming this location?
This was about 1955, when billboards were billboards, none of your wimpy JC Decaux two foot square jobs.
North King Street?
Long shot, but I need to say it in order to clear my head.
Is the whiteish building with the gable at the end of the vists still standing? Or the Bedding Manufacturers?
The bedding manufacturers looks very familiar, but I think there used to be another building on the south quays with the same signs. I agree with ctesiphon about the feel of North King Street, there is the feel therer used to be the markets area, a lot of mud and cobbles. It also it reminds me of the old Upper Abbey Street where Moorkins used to be. Having said that what about Queen Street? Final answer.
No right answers yet.
I don’t think that one single building in this photograph still stands.
That does add to the degree of difficulty 🙂
@gunter wrote:
No right answers yet.
I don’t think that one single building in this photograph still stands.
That does add to the degree of difficulty 🙂
Ah jaysus Gunter, are we now going to have a thread of “How well do you know your Dublin that no longer exists?”
Cuffe Street so – and not the little one now known as Ellis Street :p
Not Cuffe St. not Parnell St.
If you’re going to do an A – Z you’ll eventually get it.
I have another picture (almost the same) but with a clue in it. Might think about posting it, if I feel you’re making a genuine effort.
Does posting from bed at 2 am not count as ‘a genuine effort’? 🙁
Last night’s other guess: looking east along The Coombe. But the wholesale demolition might undermine that answer…
Also, given the total lack of extant fabric, is it even recognisable today? Is the lamp standard in situ (Graham)? Is the road layout the same? Is the billboard still there?
One more guess (nothing educated about this): Kevin Street?
Correction:
One building (just visible) survives today!
ctesiphon: It’s identifyable by the degree to which it is unrecognisable
Looking down The Coombe/Dean Street from outside the Widows’ Almshouses with the gabled school to the right? All buildings to the left on the current site of the convent et al?
@GrahamH wrote:
Looking down The Coombe/Dean Street from outside the Widows’ Almshouses with the gabled school to the right? All buildings to the left on the current site of the convent et al?
That would have been my guess, if I was in your position.
But no!
See how I got that qualifier in before you posted. Always cover yourself.
It’s remarkable how a place can look so like a place, and yet not be that place.
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