DUBLIN'S BAGGOT Street is a most interesting architectural curiosity, with the two parts of the street dating from different periods, writes Hugh Oram.
Lower Baggot Street is fundamentally Georgian, while Upper Baggot Street is mostly Victorian. These separate architectural styles live on, despite large-scale developments over the past three decades.
Lower Baggot Street has been home to many professional practices - mostly doctors and solicitors - for many years. A century ago, 126 Lower Baggot Street housed the Baggot Street private hospital, as it still does. The H. Williams grocery shop was flourishing in Lower Baggot street 100 years ago. Today Tesco is trading there, with the Sunday Tribune newspaper on its upper floors.
In the late 1960s, the Bank of Ireland caused great controversy when it proposed demolishing a whole row of Georgian houses, some of which had once housed the Lincoln & Nolan motor company, to build office blocks. Before Lincoln & Nolan, the premises had been occupied by Thomas Dennehy's coach-building works; the transition from horse-drawn to horseless carriages had been made in the earlier 20th century.
Despite widespread opposition to the destruction of this large section of the original Lower Baggot Street, the bank's offices were completed between 1968 and 1978, so minimalist in style as to lack any character. So much bronze manganese was used that it affected the world price of that commodity. Facing the bank in this part of Baggot Street is the renowned L'Ecrivain restaurant. Ironically, the bank itself is now seeking to move its headquarters elsewhere.
Just a little way along from the Bank of Ireland, at 63 Lower Baggot Street is the birthplace of the painter, Francis Bacon, whose chaotic studio now graces the Dublin City Gallery, the Hugh Lane, in Parnell Square.
The Convent of Mercy, a little further along, has seen many changes and extensions over the years since it opened as Catherine McAuley's first House of Mercy in 1831, but it still fits in well with the streetscape, complete with a sculpture of its founder facing on to Baggot Street.Catherine McAuley died here in 1841, from tubercolosis.
Across the road is the modern building that once housed the Bord na Móna headquarters. A curious building, designed on the lines of a Greek temple, once graced the site - the First Church of Christ, Scientist, which lasted a mere 40 years from 1934, until it was redeveloped. Next door is the office block that housed the headquarters of the old Bord Fáilte; this was one of Dublin's very first modern office buildings, nearly 50 years ago.
One shop at the halfway point of Baggot Street is still fondly remembered - Parsons bookshop on the bridge over the Grand Canal, complete with its Irish Times sign above the door. It was once a great literary institution of this part of Dublin and some of its literary denizens repaired frequently to the Waterloo House pub in Upper Baggot Street, now modernised. Upper Baggot Street was once one of the favourite haunts of Patrick Kavanagh, who for many years, lived close by.
Upper Baggot Street has a whole litany of lost retail names. The cobblers' shop that stood near the bridge for many decades now sells mobile phones, while Mooney's pub on the opposite corner is now a bank. Shops such as Dunns, the fish merchants; Liptons; Findlaters; the Kylemore Bakery shop and the Monument Creamery are long gone.
Restaurants too, by their very nature ephemeral, have also vanished. In the 1960s, the Horseshoe Café at 24 Upper Baggot Street was a popular venue, while in more recent times, Kilmartin's restaurant, named after the bookie's shop that was once here, was a gregarious bistro. Today, restaurants include the long-established Langkawi Malaysian restaurant.
Kilmartin's itself has been replaced by a sandwich bar, one of a number of fast-food shops, coffee bars and sandwich shops that have proliferated in the street in recent years.
At the corner of Upper Baggot Street and Waterloo Road, long since replaced by modern office buildings, once stood the vast structure of the Episcopal church, a striking building, opened in 1835 and closed in 1945. In its latter days, it became an asylum for penitent women.
But some aspects of Upper Baggot Street remain, amid the flurry of new outlets. The original Royal City of Dublin Hospital building dates back to 1832; it is still in everyday use as a community hospital and its convoluted brick facade is undiminished by time. Another Upper Baggot Street institution is Weir's hardware shop, which has been trading here for many decades. As long ago as 1900, Weir's was renowned as an ironmonger's. In those days, it also had a bicycle factory on the premises. Around 150 years ago, when this part of Baggot Street was built, most of the buildings were private residences for the well-to-do. Further back, around 1800, this street was known simply as "the road to Blackrock" .
As for the name of Baggot Street, it comes from Robert, Lord Bagod, who was given the Manor of Rath in the 13th century. His great dwelling, Baggot Rath Castle, once stood at what is now the junction of Upper Baggot Street and Waterloo Road. It's hard to imagine now, with the flood of traffic sweeping round the corner here, that this very spot was also once the setting for a great battle, in 1649, between the forces of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Ormonde, and a Cromwellian army.
Personally, I never fail to be fascinated by the numerous historical insights evident in Baggot Street. It's a great place for observing the results of the sweeping social changes Ireland has experienced in the past 30 years, including the constant figures of the homeless begging outside some of the shops.