O'Connell Street
Categories: Dublin | Roads in Ireland
- O'Connell Street is also the main street in Limerick and in various towns around Ireland.
O'Connell Street (Sráid Uí Chonaill in Irish) is Dublin's main thoroughfare. One of Europe's widest streets, it measures 160ft (49m) in width at its southern end, 150ft (46m) at the north, and is 1650ft (503m) in length. Known as 'Sackville Street' until 1924, Dublin Corporation renamed it in honour of Daniel O'Connell, a nationalist leader of the early nineteenth century whose statue stands at the lower end of the street, facing O'Connell Bridge.
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Introduction
O'Connell Street has often been centre-stage in Irish history, forming the backdrop to one of the 1913 Dublin Lockout gatherings, the 1916 Easter Rising, the Irish Civil War of 1922, the destruction of the Nelson Pillar in 1966, and many public protests and demonstrations through the years - a role it continues to play to this day.
Sited just north of the River Liffey, the thoroughfare has a fine axial positioning, running close to a north-south orientation. The sun rising to the east and setting in the west illuminates the alternate sides of the street over the course of the day, while for the most part it is lit directly from the south. This helps in making the thoroughfare two or three degrees warmer than windswept O'Connell Bridge or the city quays.
Located in what is now regarded as the heart of Dublin city, O'Connell Street forms part of a grand thoroughfare running through the centre of the capital created in the 18th century, including Carlisle (now O'Connell) Bridge, Westmoreland Street, College Green and Dame Street, terminating at City Hall and Dublin Castle.
The street's layout is simple but elegant; not dissimilar to Paris's Champs-Élysées (though more intimate in scale), it is comprised of a pavement each side of the street serving the retail outlets that line its length, and a pair of two-lane roadways running parallel to these. A paved median space runs down the centre of the thoroughfare, featuring monuments and statues to various Irish political leaders. The famous large London Plane trees that lined the median for the second half of the 20th century were cut down in 2003 amidst some controversy, with the oldest of these at the northern end planted c1903 being cut down in 2005 - all as part of an extensive regeneration scheme currently being undertaken by Dublin City Council.
History
O'Connell Street has its origins in a street named Drogheda Street dating from the 17th century. Laid out by Henry Moore, Earl of Drogheda, it was a third of the width of the present day O'Connell Street and extended from the very top of the nothern end down to the current junction with Abbey Street. In the 1740s, a wealthy banker and property speculator by the name of Luke Gardiner acquired the upper part of Drogheda Street (extending down to Henry Street) as part of a much larger land deal. He demolished the western side of Drogheda Street creating an exclusive elongated residential square 150 feet (46 m) in width. The new, more ordered western side generally featured smaller houses intended for merchants, while the eastern side had larger houses, the grandest of which was Drogheda House rented by the sixth Earl of Drogheda. Gardiner also laid out a mall down the central section of the street, lined with low granite walls and obelisks topped off with oil-fuelled globe-lamps. It was planted with trees a few years later. He titled the new development 'Sackville Street', also known as 'Sackville Mall', 'Gardiner's Mall' or simply 'The Mall' to most people. Unfortunately, due to the limited lands owned by the Gardiners in this area, the Rotunda Hospital sited just off the street at the bottom of Parnell Square - also developed by the family - was not built on axis Sackville Street, terminating the vista. It was always Gardiner's intention to eventually break this grand new street through to the river, however he died in 1755, with his son taking over the estate.
It wasn't until 1777 that the planning body in the city the Wide Streets Commission obtained a financial grant from Parliament that work could begin to realise this plan. For the next 10 years work progressed in demolishing a myriad of dwellings and other buildings, laying out the new roadway and building new terraces. Upon completion circa 1785-90 one of the finest streets ever in Europe had been created, if not the finest of its age. The Wide Streets Commission had envisaged and realised marching terraces of unified and porportioned facades extending from the river as far north as Princes Street, their simple red brick elevations off-set with a major classical cut stone building near the centre (later to be the GPO built in 1814-18). The street became a commercial success upon the completion of Carlisle Bridge, designed by James Gandon, in 1792 for pedestrians and 1795 for all traffic.
19th Century
Sackville Street prospered in the 1800s, though an invisible boundary seems to have been maintained for some time between the Upper and Lower street. As planned, Lower Sackville Street became highly successful as a commercial location, its terraces ambitiously lined with purpose-designed retail units, one of the first schemes of its kind in Europe. By contrast the northern end proved not to be as successful initially; being exposed to the commerical activity of the lower street it lost its fashionability as a quiet enclave of grand townhouses, whilst also being too far away from the commerical core of the city to stand as a strong retail location. As a result a difference between the two ends of the street developed: the planned lower end successful and bustling next to the river, and the upper end featuring a mixture of less prominent businesses and old townhouses, some converted for commerical use and growing somewhat decrepit.
As the 19th century progressed, a great many changes took place on Sackville Street resulting in the gradual erosion of the unified classical street created by the WSC and its replacement with an ostentatious high-Victorian boulevard, comprised of elaborate individually designed buildings. One of the world's first purpose-built department stores was such a building: Delany's New Mart 'Monster Store' built in time for the Dublin Exhibition of 1853 and later to be purchased by the Clery family in the 1880s. It also housed the Imperial Hotel. Across the road another elaborate hotel was built next to the GPO: the Hotel Metropole, in a high-French style. Similarly the Gresham Hotel opened in 1817 to the north of the street in adjoining Georgian townhouses and was later remodelled as it became more successful.
As the fortunes of Upper Sackville Street began to improve in the second half of the century, other businesses began to open such as a Turkish Baths, later to be incorporated into the Hammam Hotel. Standard Life Assurance built their flagship Dublin branch in a striking classical style close to the GPO, while the Findlater family opened a branch of their successful chain close to Parnell Street, as did Gilbeys Wine Merchants. A distinctive turreted office building by the firm of T.N. Deane was also built on the corner with Cathedral Street in 1866. By 1900 Sackville Street became as venerable a shopping and business location as the institutions that lined it, a highly successful city centre thoroughfare that earned the title of 'Ireland's Main Street'.
Impact of Events of 1916 and 1922
The Easter Rising in 1916, when a band of Irish republicans seized the General Post Office (GPO) and proclaimed the Irish Republic, led to the street's bombardment for a number of days by a gunboat of the Royal Navy and sniper fire from surrounding areas. Much of the street was reduced to rubble, the damaged areas including the whole eastern side of the street as far north as Cathedral Street, and the terrace in between the GPO and Abbey Street on the western side.
The events had a disasterous impact on the commercial life of the inner city, with many businesses forced to close for up to six years for rebuilding, or some never even reopening. Vast tracts of Henry Street, North Earl Street, Eden Quay and parts of Abbey Street were also devastated, resulting in a loss of rates for Dublin Corporation and a rise in unemployment in the city.
In the immediate aftermath of the Rising, the 'The Dublin Reconstruction (Emergency Provisions) Act, 1916' was drafted with the aim of controlling the nature of reconstruction on the thoroughfare. An expert group was also established in October 1916 which included the City Architect CJ McCarthy. Making use of the new Act, the group set out to rebuild in a coherent and dignified fashion, using the opportunity to modernise the nature of commerical activity on the street.
Plans were drawn up for unified terraces or 'blocks' of buildings, lined with retail outlets at street level and housing modern office accommodation in the upper floors. While the unified facades were never realised, and some developments didn't quite match the rest of the street leading to criticisms of an opportunity lost, Lower O'Connell Street was nonetheless rebuilt in a coherent fashion, its buildings maintaining a standard cornice line and making use of similar materials of limestone, red brick with granite dressings, or Portland stone. The imposing architectural idiom of 'commercial classicism' generates a strong sense of civic importance and grandeur, especially the first set of buildings on the street with their neoclassical features, and grand cupolas and copper domes piercing the skyline.
With the exception of its Sackville Street facade and portico, the vast structure of the General Post Office was completely destroyed - a decade-long refurbishment project only having been completed a few weeks previous to its destruction. In the aftermath of the events, consideration was given to knocking the surviving facade, as were various plans proposed for the site such as a new Catholic cathedral for the city; in the end a new GPO was built behind the 1818 facade. Works got underway in 1924, eight years after the Rising, with the Henry Street side the first to be erected with new retail units at street level, a public shopping arcade linking through to Princes Street, and new offices on the upper floors. The Public Office underneath the portico on O'Connell Street reopened in 1929.
Luckily none of the reconstructed buildings were badly damaged during the Irish Civil War (1922–1923). Its effects were largely confined to the northern end of the street, with the entire terrace north of Cathedral Street to Parnell Square being destroyed, as well as a few buildings on the northwestern side (image left). As a result, only one Georgian townhouse remains on the street today, though there are still some other Georgian buildings extant on the corner with Henry Street, as well as some masked behind Victorian facades on the lower end of the street.
As a result of all the destruction and rebuilding, most of the buildings on the street date from the 1920s and 1930s. Apart from the GPO, the most famous buildings on the street include the Gresham Hotel (finished 1927), the Royal Dublin Hotel (1963) and Clerys department store (reopened 1922).
Modern O'Connell Street
Despite the progess made in improving the street's architectural coherence post-1916 and 1922, poor planning controls in the 1970s and 1980s had a severely negative impact on the street. Like so much of Dublin of that time, property speculators and developers were permitted to construct inappropriate buildings on the thoroughfare, in spite of its Conservation Area status. Fine Victorian and 1920s buildings were demolished in the 1970s including the highly elaborate Gilbey's at the northern end, the Metropole and Capitol cinemas next to the GPO, and even the last surviving Wide Streets Commission buildings on the street dating from the 1780s located on the present day site of a well-known shoe shop at the southern end of the street. Coupled with a neglect of the public domain by the authorities, the emergence of many fast-food joints, gaming arcades, cheap stores and convenience shops, and poor planning controls that enabled plastic signage, PVC windows and inappropriate alterations to buildings to flourish, O'Connell Street became a shadow of its former self as one of the grand thoroughfares of Europe.
After four decades of neglect, the street has being undergoing a form of renaissance of late as part of Dublin City Council's O'Connell Street Integrated Area Plan (IAP) which was unveiled in 1998 with the aim of restoring the street to its former glory. Work to realise the plan was delayed by approximately four years, with work starting on street in 2003. The Plan envisages maintaining the basic plan of O'Connell Street, but with widened pavements double their previous width on each side of the street, a reduction in roadspace to two traffic lanes either side of a slightly narrower central median, the removal of all London Plane trees and the installation of over 200 replacement trees of various species, and a central plaza area near the centre of the street that adequately addresses the GPO and provides a space for public gatherings and national celebrations. The IAP also proposes new street furnishings including custom-designed lampposts, litter bins and retail kiosks, and the replacement structure for the Nelson Pillar, the Spire of Dublin, the world's tallest sculpture, which was erected in January 2003. Since commencement, the works have largely run to schedule, with a completion date of 2006 for the public domain works. As of October 2005, Lower O'Connell Street is almost complete with the Upper end works well under way.
In efforts to protect O'Connell Street from the planning mistakes of the past, the thoroughfare has been designated an Architectural Conservation Area and an Area of Special Planning Control - both of which safeguards strictly govern all aspects of planning and development on the street. In most cases not even comparitively minor alterations can be made to any structure, or any building's use change (such as to fast-food etc) without the planning permission of Dublin City Council. The majority of the buildings on the street are now also Protected Structures.
The street has a number of major monuments, all of which were restored in spring/summer of 2005 as part of the thoroughfare's regeneration programme. Statues include late nineteenth century Irish political leader Charles Stewart Parnell, radical early twentieth century labour leader Jim Larkin and Daniel O'Connell, who was the dominant force in Irish politics from the late 1820s until his death in 1847. One monument in particular, Nelson's Pillar, honouring British Admiral Horatio Nelson, dominated the streetscene, offering an unparalleled viewing platform to which people could climb and see the city. The monument, which stood at the junctions of Henry Street, Talbot Street and Henry Street, was controversially blown up by Irish republicans in March 1966, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Rising. The controversial Spire of Dublin has been erected on the site of the pillar.
Dubliners (who are famous for giving blunt nicknames to monuments) used to nickname the street 'the street of the Three Adulturers' because of the allegations of adultery made against the three principal figures on the street commemorated by statues; Parnell, Nelson and O'Connell. It was also noted humourously that the statue of Charles Stewart Parnell, on which appears his famous words "No man has a right to fix the boundary to the march of a nation. To say to his country 'thus far shall thou go and no further" are quoted, points to the Rotunda Hospital nearby, once Dublin's main maternity hospital, as though he was encouraging the Irish nation to outbreed its enemies.
Among the major buildings near to O'Connell Street on Dublin's northside are the GPO, the Pro Cathedral (the church which serves as Dublin's de facto Roman Catholic cathedral, though it has never been raised formally to cathedral status, hence the name) and the Rotunda Hospital which serves as North Dublin's main maternity hospital. From the lower end of the street, facing O'Connell Bridge, one can see the famous James Gandon-designed Custom House while looking directly over O'Connell Street, one can see Trinity College Dublin and the Irish House of Lords entrance to the old parliament building. The north of the street links into Parnell Square (formerly Rutland Square) while the south meets Dublin's quays.