Henrietta Street Area - Dublin

Henrietta Street Area - Dublin, originally uploaded by infomatique.

In 1911 Dublin had the worst housing conditions of any city in the United Kingdom. Its extensive slums were not limited to the back-streets or to impoverished ghettos. By 1911 the city slums also incorporated great Georgian houses on previously fashionable streets and squares. As the wealthy moved to the suburbs over the course of the 19th century, their huge, red-brick buildings were abandoned to the rent-paying poor. Tenements in inner-city Dublin were filthy, overcrowded, disease-ridden, teeming with malnourished children and very much at odds with the elite world of colonial and middle-class Dublin.

The decay of Dublin was epitomised by Henrietta Street, which had once been home to generations of lawyers, but was, by 1911, overflowing with poverty. An astonishing 835 people lived in 15 houses. At number 10 Henrietta Street, the Sisters of Charity ran a laundry with more than 50 single women inside. The other houses on the street were filled with families. For example, there were members of nineteen different families living in Number 7. Among the 104 people who shared the house were charwomen, domestic servants, labourers, porters, messengers, painters, carpenters, pensioners, a postman, a tailor, and a whole class of schoolchildren. Out the back were a stable and a piggery.


The street was first laid out and developed in 1729-30 by Luke Gardiner, a banker and building developer of humble origins, whose father was perhaps a coachman. Gardiner was careful in choosing the names of the streets he developed, and Henrietta Street was named after the wife of Charles Paulet, 2nd Duke of Bolton, who had been the Irish Lord Lieutenant 1717-21, and after whom the adjacent Bolton Street is named.

The aspect of the street was initially open to fields to the west, but with the construction of the Kings’ Inns by James Gandon in 1800, (laid out to the annoyance of Lord Mountjoy and fellow residence of Henrietta Street at an oblique angle), the street gained an awkward termination. This led to the building of a granite triumphal archway in 1820 by Francis Johnston to screen the less than attractive juxtaposition.

Thirteen of the original fifteen houses of 18th century Henrietta Street remain. The exception is the Kings' Inns Library, built 1825-8 by Frederick Darley on the site of Archbishop Boulter's early 18th century house.

The street was popularly referred to as Primate's Hill, as one of the houses was owned by the Archbishop of Armagh, although this house, along with two others, was demolished to make way for the Law Library of King's Inns.

The street fell into disrepair during the 19th and 20th centuries, with the houses being used as tenements.


According to Dublin City Council: "Henrietta Street ranks amongst the more important architectural and urban ensembles in Ireland. It is the single most intact and important architectural collection of individual houses – as a street – in the city. In the international context, the street is of unique European significance, being the single remaining intact example of an early-18th century street of houses, which was at the forefront of what was to become the Georgian style."

Today, Henrietta Street is isolated as a cultural phenomenon, located, as it is, in an area of streets and houses which has suffered from economic neglect for many years. I live in a modern complex on a lane off the street and for me the neglect in the area is more than depressing. When I purchased my apartment more than 15 years ago the area was not "up-market" but I told that the area would be renewed and upgraded. In reality things have become much worse because of damage done by developers as well as an unacceptable level of 24 hours per day anti-social behaviour.

There is a development plan which is interesting to read:
www.dublincity.ie/SiteCollectionDocuments/plean_caomhanta...


Henrietta Street

“Before the gorgeous Blessington was seen
Or dandy D’Orsay graced the splendid scene Herculean chairmen bore the fair
To routs and masquerades, and the yellow flare
Of the link-boys’ torches burned away the gloom Down Primates’ Hill, to some Palladian room Where the rococo craftsmen set a foil
For Gardiner, Clements, Ponsonby and Boyle, Spendthrift inheritors of the mean renown
Of archiepiscopal rakes like Stone.
Gone are their filigrane splendours: Palladio’s door Unhinged; Tracton Apollo and his stuccodore Alike in turf. In the street today
Poverty pullulates and the arts decay.
Down the proud steps, from the panelled hall,
The children scramble and the babies crawl.
Their swarm enjoy the franchise of the street Skilled to avoid postprandial Benchers’ feet
And blind to the mellowed majesty of law
Pursue their wonted games of hole and taw.”
C.P.C.