Ormonde Market
As part of the development of the north side of the river Liffey in Dublin in the 1600s, Lord Mayor, Sir Humphrey Jervis constructed the broad quays by reclaiming land which had been the estuary of the River Bradogue or Pill. Stone recovered from nearby St Mary’s Abbey were used to build the broad wall of the Quay which was named Ormonde Quay after the viceroy (Craig M.,1980). Behind Ormonde Quay, he laid out Ormond Market shifting the main focus of the city from the south side of the river to the north. The market was set out with a rotunda to one end and a series of small streets and lanes running from it with some seventy stalls. Wilsons map (1798) shows the location of the market, off Ormond Quay and adjacent to the Four Courts, with its framing thoroughfares – Pill Lane (Chancery Street) (1673) Charles Street (1708) and Arran Street (1709) (Irish Historic Town Atlas)
Ormond market was formerly accounted one of the finest markets in Europe. It has not decreased, but others in Dublin have increased. The passages in the market are flagged, and kept tolerably clean; but they are all inconveniently narrow, for the very great business done here. Besides the seventy three stalls occupied by butchers, most of which are of great extent, and all well filled every day, with little variation, there are numerous stalls for poulterers, bacon, butter, cheese, fruit, vegetables, and every kind of fresh fish; in short there is not one article of food possible to mention (consonant with our climate and the season of the year) nor any sauce that luxury or intemperance could require, that may not be had in Ormond-market, on any day, or at any hour.
extract from: Strangers to that Land: British Perceptions of Ireland from the Reformation …
edited by Andrew Hadfield, John McVeagh 1994
During the 1700s Dublin was famous for factional fights between the Ormond Boys and Liberty Boys. According to J.D Herbert’s Irish Varieties, the Ormond Boys were the “assistants and carriers from slaughter-houses, joined by cattle drivers from Smithfield, stable-boys, helpers, porters, and idle drunken vagabonds in the neighbourhood of Ormond Quay,” whilst the Liberty Boys were, “a set of lawless desperadoes, residing in the opposite side of the town, called the Liberty. Those were of a different breed, being chiefly unfortunate weavers without employment, some were habitual and wilful idlers, slow to labour, but quick at riot and uproar.”
The Ordnance Survery map from the late 1800s shows clearly the Rotunda and surrounding streets. The lanes within the market had interesting names like Beef row, Brush row, Charles row, Chicken Row, Circle (or Dawson Circus), Daltons row, Dawson row, Flag alley, Narrow row, Old Bread Market, Ormond Market, Royal row, Walkers alley, Water row.
By the late 1800s, Ormond Market was in a state of dilapidation and was a slum. A report for the Corporation described it as follows:
Ormond Market was closed and demolished in 1890 and rebuild as modern housing in 1917. It was renamed Ormond Square. Ormond Square was further renovated in 2008.
I was parked right next to those bollards with my granddaughter Alannah this morning. Calling to lawyer in Chancery St