Trams - St Stephen's Green

Trams were first introduced on Dublin streets in 1872. Over the next eighty or so years they were a major feature of life in the city, running over almost one hundred kilometres of track throughout a much smaller Dublin than the one we know today. The early trams were horse drawn, changing to electric cars on 14 January 1901, which helps date this photograph. Early trams were beautifully decorated, the interiors being 'richly cushioned in velvet and fitted all round with fitted plate glass windows and with sliding shutters of Venetian glass...the lamps are placed within ornamental plate glass compartments at the extremities, thus cutting off entirely any unpleasantness which might arise from the combustion of oil'. Such luxuries ensured that fares were high, and public squabbles over the prohibitive nature of tram fares were numerous over the lifetime of the old Dublin tram system.

Ironically, fifty years after the dismantling of the trams, Dublin found itself in dire need of a new light rail system. The Luas (above right) became operational in 2004.

A quirk of the changeover from trams to buses is that CIE retained many of the tram route numbers, which even today remain as a reminder of the history of public transport in Dublin. The tram in the above picture may have been on route number 10 (Donnybrook and the Phoenix Park, via St Stephen's Green). The 10 bus route from the Phoenix Park to Belfield (via St Stephens Green and Donnybrook) was only recently retired. Another example is the 31 bus to Howth - which is still operational today.

References:

Left: CLAR164, National Photographic Archive

Right: Copyright Raymond Okonski and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

Michael Corcoran, Through Street Broad and Narrow: A History of Dublin Trams (2000).

Claddagh Rings - Galway

Only six posts in and I'm already straying beyond my stated objective! I'm currently spending quite a bit of time in Galway, so while I'm here I may as well do some posts on similar topics in Galway. Not to worry - I'll still be posting on Dublin.

The building on the right of these pictures is Claddagh Rings, Number 1 William Street (formerly Dillons). Dillons have been making Claddagh rings since 1750 and continue to do so, although their premises moved from this location down Shop Street to Quay Street in the 1990s. A camera shop is now located at number one, but they have kept the exterior decoration on the upper levels with the small exception of changing the clock face. The chimney stack visible behind the building is gone - the Eyre Square Shopping Centre is now situated there.

Although they've been popular Irish symbols since the eighteenth century, Claddagh rings are less specifically Celtic than you might think. Rings featuring clasped hands were popular throughout Europe as wedding rings during medieval times - and the term 'Claddagh ring' was only coined during the nineteenth century. From that time on though they have been an Irish variation on the clasped hands ring (known as 'fede' rings) and very much associated with the west of Ireland, and Galway in particular.

References:
EAS_2177, National Photographic Archive
'The Claddagh Ring', Ida Dellamer

Hotel Metropole/Penneys - O'Connell Street

The Hotel Metropole stood just beside the GPO on O'Connell Street from the early nineteenth century onwards. Four Georgian buildings were combined to make the hotel, and it was remodelled over the decades to look as it does in the picture above (taken around 1900).

As you can see on the right, heavy shelling during Easter Week of 1916 left the hotel in a very sorry state, and it was pulled down. It was replaced with a neoclassical building which fitted in well with the surviving buildings on the south end of O'Connell Street.

Sadly though, Dublin council saw fit to grant permission for this building to be replaced with the hideous 1970s block you can see above right. The building (now a branch of Penneys) clashes horribly with its surroundings. Not to mention that, as far as I can see, the top floor is used for storage - a criminal waste of frontage onto Dublin's main street. 

It's enough to almost make you wish for the return of heavy shelling.

References:

LROY 4818, above

South County Dublin Libraries, right

Lower Drumcondra Road

Drumcondra is less than two miles from the very centre of Dublin, but it has a very definite character of its own. In years past this was even more the case, with Drumcondra being surrounded by significant woodlands and bounded by the canal from the city. This photograph is taken standing on Binn's Bridge which spans the Royal Canal, with my back to Dorset Street. Drumcondra Road has always been the gateway from Dublin city centre to the north of Ireland via Drogheda and Dundalk, and it now leads directly onto the M1 motorway.

Although the horse and cart has been replaced by an Aircoach, the railway bridge is clearly visible in both images. Drumcondra train station opened on 1 April 1901, but the line (which also served nearby Glasnevin) was little used, and was closed on 1 December 1910. However, the growth of commuter suburbs in the north west of Dublin led to the opening of the Western Commuter railway line in stages from 1981-98. Drumcondra was the last station on this line to be added, being reopened in 1998.

It's also planned for Drumcondra station to be an interchange stop on Metro North - but I think we're better off not holding our breaths for that.

References:
EAS_1685, National Photographic Archive

The Confectioners Hall - O'Connell Street

One of the first street signs that I noticed as a kid growing up in Dublin was that of the Confectioners Hall on O'Connell Street. Our bus would drive past it, and if we were sitting upstairs I would always wonder what had happened to 'E Confectioners Hal'.

As it turns out, I was only a few years too late to have been able to visit the Hall. It was a sweet shop owned and operated by the Lemon family, whose name lives on in a range of sweet foods, and it operated from 1842 until 1984. Like St George's Church of the previous post, it is mentioned in Ulysses, with 'pineapple rock, lemon platt, butter scotch. A sugarsticky girl shovelling scoopfuls of creams for a christian brother. Some school treat. Bad for their tummies.' The Confectioners Hall was also a well-known feature at Christmas time, when the windows would feature 'attractive winter scenes'. Lemon's sweets were manufactured at a factory in Drumcondra.

The ground floor of the building is now a shoe shop. Let's hope that the old signage is retained in the future, as O'Connell Street has suffered badly from the loss of many its original buildings during the 1916 Rising, and from poor planning decisions in the second half of the twentieth century.

For further reading on Lemon's and the history of the Confectioners Hall, there is an excellent article on the Irish Architecture Foundation's website.

St George's Church - Hardwicke Place

Next up is a view of St George's Church on Hardwicke Place, just off Dorset Street on Dublin's northside. The view is strikingly similar apart from the large blue 'To Let' sign draped around the church's portico. St George's was deconsecrated when the Church of Ireland sold the building in 1991 after unsuccessfully trying to raise funds for its restoration. Plans to turn it into a theatre fell through, and the building was converted into the Temple Theatre, a nightclub. The bells were moved to a church in Dundrum, and the pulpit was removed and now adorns Thomas Read's pub on Dame Street. At present the building is vacant, having been converted into office accomodation in 2004.

This is a sad and somewhat shabby turn of events for such a lovely and historical building. St George's hosted the wedding of the Duke of Wellington in 1806, and was mentioned by James Joyce in Ulysses (Leopold Bloom living in nearby Eccles Street could hear the bells of St George's pealing).

The adjoining buildings still have retail units on the ground floor. We can also see that the building at the corner of Hardwicke Street and Dorset Street has been significantly altered in the intervening years.

References:

LROY 724, National Photographic Archive

The Lafayette Building - O'Connell Bridge

I'm going to start off with one of my favourite Dublin buildings - the Lafayette building. This building is easily recognisable to most, being as it situated on the south end of O'Connell Bridge. At present the building is occupied by retail units, the Irish Blood Transfusion Service and the upper floors are residential.

However, the building gets its name from the Lafayette family of photographers who had their main studio in the building during the late nineteenth century. The building is primarily associated with James Stack Lauder, who adopted the surname Lafayette to create an association with fashionably artistic and avant-garde Paris. His father Edmund Lauder had founded a daguerrotype studio in Dublin in 1853, and James' three brothers followed him into the family business.

The photography studio flourished, with Lafayette exhibiting his portraits of society beauties and being elected a member of the Photographic Society of Great Britain. After photographing Princess Alexandra during a royal visit to Ireland, James Lafayette was invited to photograph her mother in law, Queen Victoria, at Windsor Castle. After this royal patronage the studio rapidly expanded, opening studios in Glasgow, Manchester, Belfast and London. The business went from strength to strength indeed until the death of James Lafayette in 1923, after which it went into decline and eventually ceased all business in 1962. The Dublin branch however, having been sold off in 1951, continues even now.

The Lafayette Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum holds 3,500 glass plate and celluloid negatives from the Lafayette studios dating from 1885 to 1937, with even more images held in the National Portrait Gallery in London.