Baggot Street

Baggot Street (Irish: Sráid Bhagóid) is a street in Dublin, Ireland.

Baggot Street

Clockwise from top: Lower Baggot Street; Miesian Plaza: Upper Baggot Street
Native name	Sráid Bhagóid (Irish)
Namesake	Baggotrath, named in turn after Robert Bagod
Length	700 m (2,300 ft)
Width	27 metres (89 ft)
Postal code	D02
Coordinates	53°19′58″N 6°14′32″W / 53.33278°N 6.24222°W / 53.33278; -6.24222
northwest end	Merrion Street, Ely Place, Merrion Row
southeast end	Grand Canal, Herbert Place, Wilton Terrace
Other
Known for	Georgian architecture, Victorian architecture

Location

The street runs from Merrion Row (near St. Stephen's Green) to the northwestern end of Pembroke Road. It crosses the Grand Canal near Haddington Road. It is divided into two sections:

• Lower Baggot Street (Irish: Sráid Bhagóid Íochtarach) - between Merrion Row and the Grand Canal. It was called Gallows Road in the 18th century.^[1]
• Upper Baggot Street (Irish: Sráid Bhagóid Uachtarach) - south of the Grand Canal until the junction with Eastmoreland Place, where it continues as Pembroke Road.

History

Baggot Street is named after Baggotrath, a feudal manor granted to Hiberno-Norman judge Robert Bagod in the 13th-century. He also built Baggotrath Castle, which was partly destroyed during the 1649 Battle of Rathmines and demolished in the early nineteenth century.

Dermot O'Hurley, Archbishop of Cashel for the strictly illegal and underground Catholic Church in Ireland during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, was hanged at Gallows Road (modern Lower Baggot Street) on 20 June 1584. The Archbishop was Beatified as one of the Irish Catholic Martyrs by Pope John Paul II in 29 September 1992.^[2]

On a 1756 map of Dublin, Baggot Street is marked as The Road to Ball's-Bridge, and in 1800 Baggot Street Upper was marked as Blackrock Road.^[3]

Darkey Kelly, a madam, or kip-house keeper, and alleged female serial killer, was executed by burning on Gallows Road (modern Baggot Street) in 1761.^[4][5]

The street was renamed Baggot Street in 1773.^[1][6]

The areas status as a cultural hotbed in the mid to late 20th century led to it being referred to as "Baggotonia".^{[7][8][9][10]}

Architecture

Lower Baggot Street is distinguished by Georgian architecture, while Upper Baggot Street has mainly Victorian architecture with a few buildings of 20th-century vintage such as the former Bank of Ireland headquarters, Miesian Plaza. The Royal City of Dublin Hospital, opened in 1834, is on the east side of Upper Baggot Street, just south of the junction with Haddington Road.^[11] Cook's Map of 1836 shows the north side of Upper Baggot Street and Pembroke Road almost entirely built on.^[11]

Modern development such as the Miesian Plaza has been viewed by some as destructive to a previously unified Georgian streetscape. Journalist Frank MacDonald characterised the Plaza as a more violent interjection on the street than the contemporaneous ESB building on Fitzwilliam Street. On 13 July 1973, two nurses escaped from their flat in number 11 Lower Baggot Street when the back and side walls of the house collapsed following the demolition of three adjoining houses to make way for an office block.^[12] The 1978 offices built for Bord na Móna, near the Miesian Plaza, were designed by Sam Stephenson, and won the Buildings in Context award from An Taisce.^[13]

 

Upper Baggot Street

 

Patrick Kavanagh sculpture by the Grand Canal near Baggot Street bridge

People

• The Sheares Brothers, members of the Society of United Irishmen, who died in the 1798 rebellion, lived at no. 128.^[1]
• In 1830, Thomas Davis, the revolutionary Irish writer who was the chief organiser and poet of the Young Ireland movement, lived at 67 Lower Baggot Street.^[1]
• Catherine McAuley, a nun, founded the Sisters of Mercy order in 1831 and built what is now the Mercy International Centre on Lower Baggot Street where she later died in 1841.^{[citation needed]}
• In 1909, Francis Bacon was born at 63 Lower Baggot Street.^[6]
• May O'Flaherty, County Cork-born literary patron was the proprietor of Parsons Bookshop on Baggot Street Bridge from 1949 to 1989.^[14]
• The poet Patrick Kavanagh frequented Baggot Street, (including Parsons)^[14] and regarded it as his favourite place in Dublin.^{[citation needed]}
  • In his poem "If ever you go to Dublin Town" Kavanagh addresses Dubliners 100 years after his own time and tells them to "Inquire for me in Baggot Street/And what I was like to know".^[15]

•  
  Francis Bacon's birthplace at 63 Baggot Street Dublin
•  
  Pieter Jan Schippers, V-person [nl] during World War II was registered Lower Baggot Street 118

See also

• List of streets and squares in Dublin

References

1. Carol and Jonathan Bardon: If Ever You Go To Dublin Town, Blackstaff Press, 1988 ISBN 0-85640-397-0
2. "Archbishop Bl. Dermot O'Hurley". Catholic-Hierarchy.org. David M. Cheney. Retrieved 19 January 2011.
3. M'Cready, C. T. (1987). Dublin street names dated and explained. Blackrock, Co. Dublin: Carraig. p. 5. ISBN 1-85068-005-1. OCLC 263974843.
4. Cathy Hayes (12 January 2011). "Was Irish witch Darkey Kelly really Ireland's first serial killer?". IrishCentral.com. from the original on 12 May 2016. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
5. Eamonn McLoughlin (19 January 2011). "No Smoke Without Hellfire". podomatic.com. from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
6. Clerkin, Paul (2001). Dublin street names. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan. pp. 11–12. ISBN 0-7171-3204-8. OCLC 48467800.
7. "Baggotonia, the bohemian soul of Dublin where artists flourished". Independent.ie. 6 March 2022.
8. Gilsenan, Alan (1 March 2022). "Opinion: Ever heard of Baggotonia? Why I've made a film about this forgotten part of Dublin's past". TheJournal.ie.
9. "The Ghosts of Baggotonia - Dublin's bohemian quarter revisited". RTE.ie. 11 September 2023.
10. Lynch, Brendan (2011). Prodigals and Geniuses: The Writers and Artists of Dublin's Baggotonia. The Liffey Press. ISBN 978-1-905785-96-4.
11. "M. Donnelly, D.D: Short Histories of Dublin Parishes, part 2". from the original on 6 October 2009. Retrieved 11 February 2010.
12. McDonald 1985, p. 109-111.
13. McDonald 1985, p. 214.
14. "O'Flaherty, May". DIB.ie.
15. . Dublin City Council. 22 February 2014. Archived from the original on 11 September 2018. Retrieved 24 December 2021.

Sources

• McDonald, Frank (1985). The Destruction of Dublin. Gill and MacMillan. ISBN 0-7171-1386-8.

External links

  Media related to Baggot Street Upper, Dublin at Wikimedia Commons   Media related to Baggot Street Lower, Dublin at Wikimedia Commons

• Royal City of Dublin Hospital