Work on the Town Hall began in 1895 on the site of the previous town hall. The commissioners invited one of the best-known and respected architects of Ireland, Sir Thomas Drew, to design this building.
He put up a fine building of red sandstone and brick with a bay window on the first floor. But the most famous feature was the high clock tower, which could be seen from afar. The clock on the tower was made by a local firm called Chancellor and Son. They claimed they could beat any English and Scottish company so they got the job. The clock has four faces, one for each side of the tower. Before the clock could be run with electricity, the four sides would often show different times so the clock was called ‘four-faced liar’.
Percy French, who wrote many well-known songs about counties in Ireland and who had his own theatrical company, gave many performances in the town hall and one of the first moving films made by a man called Edison was shown here in 1902.
I never noticed this memorial before but I discovered that it was in very poor condition and easy to miss until it was recently restored or replaced.
Thomas O’Leary was a 22-year-old Dubliner and member of the anti-Treaty IRA when he was shot dead by the Free State Army in March 1923.
Thomas O’Leary fought in the Irish War of Independence [the Black & Tan War]. He opposed the treaty and went with the anti-treaty IRA in the Civil War. He was a member of the 4th Battalion, Dublin Brigade IRA. According to various accounts he was arrested at a friend’s house at Upper Rathmines Road on 23 Mar 1923 by Free State Army. His body was found the next day at Upper Rathmines. He had been shot 22 times [a bullet for each year of his life].
The jury at the subsequent inquiry came to the conclusion that O’Leary was “murdered by persons unknown … by armed forces, and that the military did not give us sufficient assistance to investigate the case.”
There is a building on Upper Rathmines Road which was opened as a Protestant And Orange Hall in November 1890.
The Westminster parliamentary borough of Rathmines had a unionist majority up to independence in 1922. The last Member of Parliament it returned was Maurice Dockrell.
For several hundred years Rathmines was the location of a “spa” – in fact a spring – the water of which was said to have health-giving properties. It attracted people with all manner of ailments to the area. In the 19th century it was called the “Grattan Spa”, as it was located on property once belonging to Henry Grattan, close to Portobello Bridge. The “spa” gradually fell into a state of neglect as the century progressed, until disputes arose between those who wished to preserve it and those (mainly developers) who wished to get rid of it altogether. In 1872 a Dr. O’Leary, who held a high estimate of the water quality, reported that the “spa” was in “a most disgraceful state of repair”, upon which the developer and alderman Frederick Stokes sent samples to the medical inspector, Dr. Cameron, for analysis. Dr. Cameron, a great lover of authority, reported: “It was, in all probability, merely the drainings of some ancient disused sewer, not a chalybeate spring.” Access to the site was blocked up and the once popular “spa” faded from public memory.
THE PROTESTANT AND ORANGE HALL AT UPPER RATHMINES ROAD
This has been used as a Gospel Hall since 1965 and even though many of my family live in the area I never noticed the building until I photographed it in January 2022.
It took a lot of research but it would appear that the building was known locally as the “Protestant Hall” but it was opened in November 1890 as the ‘Orange and Protestant Hall’ or the Rathmines Loyal Orange Lodge No. 1505. The Grand Master was George Lyster.
Throughout the nineteenth century Dublin City and and County hosted a number of Lodges. These Lodges were to be found in areas such a Rathmines, South Circular Road, North Strand and Kingstown, (Dun Laoghaire). Following the First World War the Orange Order in Dublin began its decline mainly due to losses in the Great War, emigration and national politics.
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