BLAQUIERE BRIDGE SCHOOLHOUSE – NORTH CIRCULAR ROAD
Different accounts and discriptions use different spellings “Blacquiere” or “Blaquiere” but the name on the building and the spelling a local streetsign is the version without the “c”.
A diminutive early nineteenth-century schoolhouse, prominently located at the corner of North Circular Road, and now converted to a house. The overall form and proportions have been retained, and the building is of social significance for the area, due to its associations with early nineteenth-century education in the area.
In the 19th Century Broadstone was a major transport centre consisting of a railway station and a canal harbour. There was, at one stage, an aqueduct and a narrow canal that linked to the royal canal.
The canal was known as the Broadstone Canal and as the North Circular crossed the canal route the engineers had to build a humpbacked bridge to carry to road over the canal. The bridge was named Blaquiere Bridge after one of the directors of the Royal Canal Company.
Note: The Royal Canal was originally planned to terminate in Dublin at Broadstone, to serve the then fashionable area of residence, as well as King’s Inns and the nearby markets, but it was extended so that now, at the Dublin end, the canal reaches the Liffey through a wide sequence of dock and locks at Spencer Dock, with a final sea lock to manage access to the river and sea.
Note: It is claimed by many that the bridge was named after Sir John Blacquiere (1732-1812) however I cannot establish if he was a director of the Royal Canal Company [I doubt it] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Blaquiere,_1st_Baron_de_Blaquiere
https://irishhistorypodcast.ie/broadstone-station-a-forgotten-history-of-dublin/
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