I lived on a street off Francis street for a few months about thirty years ago and I liked the area.
The next time you visit Francis Street it will be very different to what is was back in September 2012 when I took these photographs.
In 2019 it was announced that work would begin on a new-look public realm for Francis Street. Following on from design workshops and a successful Part VIII planning consent in 2017, the project is now set to be completed this year. While construction work had originally been expected to start in March 2020 the Covid 19 Emergency led to delays.
With a strong emphasis on pedestrians, the plan envisaged the widened pavements and new threshold spaces to the front of the Iveagh Market and St Nicholas de Myra Church. The awkward widening and narrowing of the carriageway will give way to a consistent width and measures to reduce speeds and allow for more relaxed cycling and easier crossing. Changes to car parking and loading arrangements, 20 new street trees and landscaped areas, sustainable urban drainage measures (SUDs), new street lighting, street furniture and utilities will all serve to create a much improved street and establish Francis Street as a destination.
AN EXAMPLE OF DUBLIN STREET ART IN THE FORM OF A LARGE MURAL ON AUNGIER STREET
Aungier Street is a street on the southside of Dublin, Ireland. It runs north-south as a continuation of South Great George’s Street. Unfortunately both South Great Georges Street and Aungier have suffered from neglect for decades despite the fact that both have much potential.
Formerly this area was waste ground near the Dublin Carmelite Friary. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the monastery’s lands were granted to the Aungier family.
The street was named after the family of Francis Aungier, 1st Baron Aungier of Longford who developed the street. His name is French and is correctly pronounced [on.ʒje], but modern Dubliners pronounce the street name to rhyme with “danger.” When the street was opened in 1661, it was 70 feet (21 m) wide, the widest in the city.
Edward Lovett Pearce designed a theatre for the street, built 1733–34 and merged with the Smock Alley Theatre in 1743.[
St. Peter’s Church (Church of Ireland) opened in 1685; it closed 1950 and was demolished in 1983.
The poet Thomas Moore was born at 12 Aungier Street in 1779.
In 1829, Aungier Street was the site of the first meeting-room of what would become the Plymouth Brethren.[
The Irish republican Simon Donnelly was born on Aungier Street in 1891.
During the Irish War of Independence, it was suggested that Aungier Street (and several others) would be joined to form Cahirmore Road, named for the legendary king Cathair Mór.
In 1851, Sheridan Le Fanu wrote a ghost story, “An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street.”
Aungier Street appears twice in the work of James Joyce: it is mentioned in “Ivy Day in the Committee Room;” while Leopold Bloom’s blinds were purchased at 16 Aungier Street in Ulysses.
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