Mountjoy Square (Irish: Cearnóg Mhuinseo), one of five Georgian squares in Dublin, Ireland, lies on the north side of the city just under a kilometre from the River Liffey. Planned and developed in the late 18th century by the second Luke Gardiner, then Viscount Mountjoy, the square is surrounded on all sides by individual terraced, red-brick Georgian houses. Construction began in the early 1790s and the work was completed in 1818.[1]
Over the centuries, the square has been home to many of Dublin's most prominent people: lawyers, churchmen, politicians, writers and visual artists. The writer James Joyce lived around the square during some of his formative years, playwright Séan O'Casey wrote and set some of his most famous plays on the square while living there, W.B. Yeats stayed there with his friend John O'Leary, and more recently, much of the Oscar-winning film Once was made in the square. Historic meetings have taken place there, including planning for the Easter Rising and some of the earliest Dáil meetings. Prominent Irish Unionists and Republicans have shared the square.
Mountjoy can boast being Dublin's only true Georgian square, each of its sides being exactly 140 metres in length.[1] While the North, East and West sides each have 18 houses, the South has 19, reflecting some variation in plot sizes.[1] Though each side was originally numbered individually,[2] the houses are now numbered continuously clockwise from no. 1 in the north-west corner. While its North and South sides are continuous from corner to corner, the East and West sides are in three terraces, interrupted by two side streets, Grenville Street and Gardiner Place to the West and Fitzgibbon and North Great Charles Street to the East. Gardiner Street passes through the West side of the square, while Belvidere Place and Gardiner Lane run off the North- and South-East corners.
Although some of the original buildings fell to ruin over the 20th century, replicas have been built in their place, so the square still maintains its consistent Georgian façade.
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The first Luke Gardiner (d. 1755)[3] was a highly successful banker, developer and Member of Parliament for Dublin in the early 18th century. During his career he acquired a wide variety of properties throughout the city. The major continuous part, much of which he purchased from the Moore family in 1714,[1] was a large piece of land to the East of the then established city. This estate corresponds to the modern area bounded by The Royal Canal, Dorset Street, the Western Way, Constitution Hill, Parnell Street, O'Connell Street and the River Liffey. As owner of this land, Gardiner led the development of the Northside of the city east along the river, developing what is now O'Connell Street (then Sackville Street), Dorset Street, Parnell Street and Square (then Rutland Street & Square). After his death, his son and heir Charles continued the development, finishing Rutland Square before his grandson, the second Luke Gardiner (later Lord and Viscount Mountjoy) inherited the estate and accelerated the development further East. A powerful figure, Luke II was a member of the Wide Streets Commission and MP for County Dublin.[1]
Mountjoy square was developed as part of this third development phase. An early plan and elevation, known then as Gardiner Square was drawn up in 1787 by Thomas Sherrard, surveyor to the Wide Streets Commissioners.[4] Gardiner and Sherrard clearly had a hugely ambitious vision for the square. It was on high ground, so all streets off it led downhill. It overlooked The Custom House and was connected to it by Gardiner Street. The plan included a rebuilt St. George's Church in the centre of the park. The original West side plans show a palatial stone-clad street frontage[1][4] with a terrace of brick residential houses behind the cladding. A less ambitious compromise of red-brick façades, consistent with other nearby streets, eventually prevailed.
The square was laid out and construction began first on the south side, about 1790,[1][4] continuing until 1818. The stuccadore Michael Stapleton was one of the first to acquire leases (dated October 1789), corresponding to Nos. 43, 44 and 45 Mountjoy Square (all demolished in the 1980s, despite the presence of Stapleton's decoration). His houses were complete by 1793.[5] Luke Gardiner II was killed at the Battle of New Ross during the Rebellion of 1798 with the third side still under construction.[1]
After completion, contemporaries Warburton, Whitelaw and Walsh said of it:
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This square, which is now completely finished, is neat, simple and elegant, its situation elevated and healthy … the elevation of the houses, the breadth of the streets, so harmonize together, as to give pleasure to the eye of the spectator, and to add to the neatness, simplicity, and regularity every where visible, entitling this square to rank high among the finest in Europe.[1] |
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In 1825, George Newenham Wright described the square:
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This small, regular and elegant square, which is named after the proprietor, Viscount Mountjoy (now Earl of Blessington) is not far from Rutland Square … The air in this neighbourhood is considered extremely pure, being at the extremity of Dublin, and on the most elevated ground.[6] |
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More recently in 2005, architecture critic Christine Casey stated:
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The outstanding feature of Mountjoy Square is its Neoclassical plasterwork, which is finer even than that found in the contemporary terraces on the south side of Merrion Square.[7] |
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| Arthur Guinness | |
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| Occupation | Brewer and businessman |
| Known for | As founder of Guinness |
Mountjoy Square has had many famous inhabitants throughout its history. The earliest was Arthur Guinness, who died there in January 1803.[8] Subsequently his descendant Desmond Guinness and first wife Mariga, attempted to save and restore the gracious character of the square in 1966-75, buying No. 50 and several demolished lots with members of the Irish Georgian Society.
Seán O'Casey, the Irish playwright and founder member of the Irish Citizen Army, lived in a tenement in no. 35 Mountjoy Square,[1] during the Irish War of Independence. During his time there, it is said that the house was raided by the Black and Tans.
Patrick Pearse attended meetings in Mountjoy Square in plotting the 1916 Easter Rising, of which he was a leader. |
John O'Leary, a leading Fenian, poet, editor of The Irish People, mentioned in W.B. Yeats' poem September 1913,[9] lived at no. 53 Mountjoy Square West in the late 19th century and early 20th century.[1][10]
| “ | Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
it's with O'Leary in the grave. |
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Indeed Yeats, as a friend of O'Leary is known to have stayed at 53 Mountjoy Square and sent letters from there.[11]
Dáil Éireann, the parliament of Ireland, having been suppressed by the British authorities as a dangerous organisation in September 1919, met before the foundation of the Irish Free State at the home of the republican Walter L. Cole.[12] Although one source states that these meetings were at no. 1,[13] there is considerable evidence to say that Walter Cole lived at no. 3[14] Mountjoy Square North and that the meetings were held there.[12] The Dáil was not the only historic meeting held in Cole's house. The notes of Seamus Reader, an Irish Volunteer from Glasgow, record a meeting in January 1916 at Cole's house
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Shortly after 5pm on the 2nd, January 1916, I went to Cole's house, Mountjoy Square, Dublin, where, while waiting in the kitchen for tea, I jotted my coded notes for my report to Scotland. I then went to the room where I met Tom Clarke, Sean McDermott, J Connolly, P Pearse and McDonagh. [15] |
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all of whom were signatories to the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, all but Thomas McDonagh were members of the military council and all were executed the following May, as leaders of the Easter Rising.
When the volunteers met on Easter Monday 1916, the 1st battalion met at Blackhall Street in the liberties with the intention of taking over the Four Courts. The exception was the twelve men of D company under the command of Captain Seán Heuston who met at Mountjoy Square with the mission of taking the Mendicity Institution across the river from the four courts.[16][17] Also that day, another leader and signatory of the proclamation, Joseph Plunkett discharged himself from a nursing home on Mountjoy Square East to take his place in the GPO where he had been recovering from an operation on his neck.[18]
TM Healy resided at 1 Mountjoy Square, having lived previously on the adjacent Great Charles Street in number 50.[19]
James Whiteside (1804–1876), writer, orator, politician and barrister lived at no. 2 Mountjoy Square in the mid-19th century.[2][20] Born in Wicklow, as a QC in the 1840s, Whiteside defended the Catholic Emancipator, Daniel O'Connell and later William Smith O'Brien in state trials. He became MP for Enniskillen in 1850 and for Dublin University in 1859. He was subsequently appointed Solicitor-General, Attorney-General and Lord Chief Justice in Ireland.
Joseph Napier, an Irish Conservative party MP and member of the Privy Council of Ireland lived at No. 17 Mountjoy Square South (now no. 52)[21] . He was an MP from 1848 to 1858 and was also appointed Attorney General for Ireland in 1852.
Richard Dowse (1824–1890) lived at no. 38 Mountjoy Square. Born in Dungannon, during his career he was MP for Londonderry (1868–1872), Attorney General, Solicitor General and a Baron of the Court of the Exchequer.[22][23][24]
Christopher Palles (1831-1920), a native of County Cavan who later became Chief Baron of the Exchequer and was one of Ireland's most famous jurists, lived for a time in the square in the 1860s.
Sir Robert Anderson (1841-1918) was born at Number 1 Mountjoy Square West (now 53),[24][25] the home of his father Matthew,[26] a Crown solicitor.
An infamous brothel, known as The Kasbah Health Studio,[27] frequented by numerous senior Irish businessmen, politicians and churchmen was located in the basement of number 60 Mountjoy Square West[27] from the late 1970s until its closure in the early 1990s.[27]
Seán O'Casey, having lived on Mountjoy Square (see above), later set all three of his "Dublin Trilogy" (The Shadow of a Gunman, Juno and the Paycock and The Plough and the Stars) in tenement houses in Georgian Dublin. In particular, The Shadow of a Gunman opens in ‘A return-room in a tenement house in Hilljoy Square’ which is raided by the Auxiliaries during the play.[28] This room is thought to have been based on O'Casey's former tenement home.[1][29] Although the original house was demolished in the 1960s, it was later replaced by a building with a Georgian façade that now stands on the site. O'Casey subsequently lived in another Georgian house very close to Mountjoy Square at 422 North Circular Road; in that house which still stands today, is where he wrote the trilogy, before later moving to London during the nineteen twenties.[30]
| Once | |
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2007 Oscar-winning film Once, largely filmed in Mountjoy Square |
The stuccadore Michael Stapleton, who built three houses there, was resident in the square from 1793 to 1795.[5][31] Stapleton subsequently moved into a house at 1 Mountjoy Place, just off the south east corner of the Square.
Charles Thorp, another stuccadore also developed three houses on the east side, numbers 19 to 21, and is recorded as residing in number 19 in the 1835 Almanac Registry Directory.[32]
Sculptor Thomas Farrell (1827–1900) lived in number 30, which is sited along the east side of the Square.[33] Two of Farrell's sculptures can be seen on the central median of nearby O'Connell Street at the junction with Abbey Street, with a statue on either side of the Luas tracks. The monument on the northern part of the junction is of the Young Irelander, William Smith O'Brien, while the other sculpture commemorates Sir John Gray, a politician and newspaper editor, who brought a far better water supply to Dublin by way of developing the Vartry Reservoir, as the city had previously suffered from extremely poor sanitation associate with water shortages.
Padraig O'Faolain, an Irish painter, lived next to the Kasbah on Mountjoy Square West in the 1980s.[27]
Irish radio presenter, journalist, former Trinity College SU president and student activist Joe Duffy was born on Mountjoy Square in 1956.[34]
Much of John Carney's 2007 feature film Once which won the Academy Award that year for best original song was filmed in an apartment on Mountjoy Square East, where the female lead character, played by Marketa Irglova, lives with her family.[35] For a period in his childhood days, Hansard had in fact lived just off the north east corner square on Belvidere Place; he also featured in the 1991 film The Commitments, much of which was made in and around Saint Francis Xavier Church (see above), located on Gardiner Street just off the north west corner of the Square.
Actress Jeananne Crowley has an apartment on the Square, having appeared in a number of newspaper feature articles.
Actor Donal McCann, best known for his stage work with Brian Friel, lived in number 19 Mountjoy Square during the 1970s.
Artist, portrait painter, and RHA treasurer, Mick O'Dea also resides on the Square.
The traditional Irish drinking song, Dicey Reilly made famous by Ronnie Drew and The Dubliners tells how …she walks along Fitzgibbon street with an independent air, and then it's down be Summerhill and as the people stare….
Several scenes from Georgie's Story, the third episode of Mark O'Halloran's award-winning television mini-series Prosperity, screened on RTÉ in 2007, were filmed in and around Mountjoy Square park.
The square's own park has both playing areas for football, basketball and table tennis, playgrounds for children and a green park area. It's also a short walk to the Blessington Basin in Broadstone.
| Shane MacGowan | |
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Shane MacGowan, singer with The Pogues |
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| Background information |
During 2010 as part of the preparation by Dublin City Council of their City Development Plan, they received a number of letters from internationally renowned people calling for Mountjoy Square to be designated as an Architectural Conservation Area (ACA).
Letters were received from Shane MacGowan, singer with The Pogues, the writer J.P. Donleavy, author of "The Gingerman", Desmond Guinness, and historian Tim Pat Coogan, among numerous others. Various points regarding the historic value of the Square were made, including literary references to Brendan Behan, and the writer Ernest Gabler.
The purpose of such ACA designation is the uniformity of all of the streetscapes would be protected, whereas hitherto only the original built houses have been protected, leaving approximately one third of the square's exteriors unprotected.
These letters subsequently featured in an article in The Sunday Times, as included in the external links below.
Architectural Conservation Area status has already been scheduled on other Georgian Squares in the city centre including Parnell Square and Fitzwilliam Square, as well as the Victorian style Dartmouth Square in Dublin 4.
Close to the centre of Dublin city and having the major artery Gardiner Street as its West side, Mountjoy Square has considerable transport links in its immediate locality.
The Dublin Bus termini for the 46A, 46B, 46C, 46D, 46E, 63, 145 are on the North side of the square and run toward the south east of the city. Routes 33, 40D, 41, 41B, 41C, stop on the West side of the square on their way to the northern suburbs. The square is also stop covered by the hop-on, hop-off city centre 50 cent fare. The 41 bus is almost certainly the cheapest transport link to Dublin Airport from the city at €1.80 (in 2010) from the square. The main entrance to Dublin Bus' Summerhill Depot is on Mountjoy Place, just off the south-east corner of the square.
In 2009, the Dublin Bikes bicycle sharing system was launched and has one of its more northerly stations on the west side of Mountjoy Square, providing easy access for commuters, locals, and tourists.
Over the centuries, new features have been added to the street furniture while for various reasons others have been removed. As a result, Mountjoy Square is somewhat like a fossil-record of the fads and features from the various eras it has survived.
The street was originally paved with granite.[1] By now, although the kerbs are generally still (probably Wicklow) granite, most of the paving stones have been replaced with concrete. The exception to this is the South-West corner in front of 53-54 which still has full granite paving.
Many of the houses on the square still have their original coal holes and ornate cast iron covers. These small holes in the street outside each house lead to a coal house underneath the street. These elegantly solved the problem of how to quickly and cleanly deliver coal to the house, allowing the coal men to simply pull the hole open and empty their sacks of coal down through it hole. The basement of the house then had a doorway into the coal house, under the street.
The street lamps on the square are of two different designs. Those on the outer sides, in front of the houses are seemingly of the style called The Scotch Standard, dating from 1903-1920 when Dublin streets were being electrically lit as part of the Pigeon House scheme.[38] On the inner (park) side of the street, a slightly more modest design is used, apparently consistent with a more recent 1940-1950 design.[38] These designs are all 9 metres tall.
In the late 18th century, mud streets were not uncommon[39] and horses were also common on streets. To avoid this muck being tramped into the houses, shoe wipers were commonly placed outside their front doors. Many of these were highly elaborate and many remain to this day.
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