Marrowbone Lane () is a street off
Cork Street on the south side of
Dublin,
Ireland.
History
Naming convention
The street is likely named after
Marylebone in London;
Pimlico
Pimlico () is an area of Central London in the City of Westminster, built as a southern extension to neighbouring Belgravia. It is known for its garden squares and distinctive Regency architecture. Pimlico is demarcated to the north by London V ...
is located right next to it, and other London-inspired street names are nearby, like Spitalfields. These were brought to Dublin by London wool-workers, who settled in the area after
William III William III or William the Third may refer to:
Kings
* William III of Sicily (c. 1186–c. 1198)
* William III of England and Ireland or William III of Orange or William II of Scotland (1650–1702)
* William III of the Netherlands and Luxembourg ...
's conquest of Ireland in 1690. Marylebone, London, commonly pronounced like "Marrow-bone", is named after the church of St Mary at
the Bourne, later corrupted to "Mary le Bone",
Middle French for "Mary the Good." The Irish street name reproduces this error, literally meaning "Lane of Mary the Good." By 1743, the street name was corrupted to Marrowbone Lane.
Easter Rising
Fighting took place on the street during the
Easter Rising
The Easter Rising ( ga, Éirà Amach na Cásca), also known as the Easter Rebellion, was an armed insurrection in Ireland during Easter Week in April 1916. The Rising was launched by Irish republicans against British rule in Ireland with the a ...
of 1916. The
distillery
Distillation, or classical distillation, is the process of separating the components or substances from a liquid mixture by using selective boiling and condensation, usually inside an apparatus known as a still. Dry distillation is the heati ...
was used as a strongpoint by a force of more than a hundred rebels under the command of
Éamonn Ceannt
Éamonn Ceannt (21 September 1881 – 8 May 1916), born Edward Thomas Kent, was an Irish republican, mostly known for his role in the Easter Rising of 1916.
Background
Ceannt was born in the little village of Ballymoe, overlooking the River Su ...
, which also held the nearby
South Dublin Union
A House of Industry was a workhouse in Dublin, Ireland which existed from its establishment by an act of parliament in 1703, "for the employment and maintaining the poor thereof."
From 1729 the House of Industry also incorporated the foundlin ...
.
Ceannt was executed by the
British authorities after the rising's failure. His second-in-command was
Cathal Brugha
Cathal Brugha (; born Charles William St John Burgess; 18 July 1874 – 7 July 1922) was an Irish republican politician who served as Minister for Defence from 1919 to 1922, Ceann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann in January 1919, the first presiden ...
, and other participants included
W. T. Cosgrave,
Joseph McGrath and
Denis O'Brien.
In describing the careers of participants, the terms "fought at Marrowbone Lane" and "fought at the
South Dublin Union
A House of Industry was a workhouse in Dublin, Ireland which existed from its establishment by an act of parliament in 1703, "for the employment and maintaining the poor thereof."
From 1729 the House of Industry also incorporated the foundlin ...
" are used interchangeably.
Popular culture
In 1939, the story and history of Marrowbone Lane was immortalized in a play of the same name which was written by Robert Collis and produced and directed by
Michael Mac Liammoir and
Hilton Edwards. Among the cast was a young Wilfred Bramble, who was later to find TV fame in the UK as Steptoe, in Steptoe & Son. The play depicts the hardship of tenement life in Dublin in typical areas like Marrowbone Lane. It tells the story of a young girl from Mayo who marries into a tenement family and is appalled at the living conditions she and her baby will have to endure. ‘Marrowbone Lane’ was first performed at the
Gate Theatre in Dublin on the 10
th of October 1939
Built heritage
In the mid-17
th century linen and silk weavers were a prominent section of the Dublin population. They were mostly French
Huguenot, Dutch and Flemish immigrants and lived in the areas around The Coombe including Marrowbone Lane. The emergence of the ‘Dutch Billy’ style of housing was attributed to these workers. This type of housing had many distinctive features and characteristics one of which being the roof ridges that ran at right angles to the street. These residences were constructed of brick and were designed to stand in terraces. Another feature that could be seen in these homes were the shared chimney stacks. This feature was due to the placement of fireplaces in the corner of two neighboring houses resulting in a shared chimney stack. These houses with their unique architecture at the time were common in Marrowbone Lane and the surrounding area, but many have since vanished or have been demolished. However, up to the 1980’s there remained a few examples in Marrowbone Lane and the surrounding streets.
Marrowbone Lane is notable for what the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage describes as an "elegant early social housing scheme", designed by Dublin Corporation's Housing Architect Herbert George Simms, and built in the late 1930s, with curved corners that respond to the curve of Marrowbone Lane. "It is an excellent example of early modernist architecture which employed materials historically used in the area. H.G. Simms was housing architect to Dublin Corporation from 1932 until 1948. During his time in office, Simms was responsible for the design of some 17,000 new homes."
See also
*
List of streets and squares in Dublin
This is a list of notable streets and squares in Dublin, Ireland.
__NOTOC__
References Notes
Sources
*
External linksStreetnames of DublinaArchiseekArchitecture of Ireland— English-Irish list of Dublin street names aLeathanach baile Sh ...
References
{{Streets in Dublin city, state=autocollapse
Streets in Dublin (city)