I had difficulty establishing that O’Donovan Road is named after John O’Donovan
John O’Donovan (25 July 1806 – 10 December 1861), from Atateemore, in the parish of Kilcolumb, County Kilkenny, and educated at Hunt’s Academy, Waterford, was an Irish language scholar from Ireland.
He was the fourth son of Edmond O’Donovan and Eleanor Hoberlin of Rochestown. His early career may have been inspired by his uncle Parick O’Donovan. He worked for antiquarian James Hardiman researching state papers and traditional sources at the Public Records Office. Hardiman had secured O’Donovan a place in Maynooth College which he turned down. He also taught Irish to Thomas Larcom for a short period in 1828 and worked for Myles John O’Reilly, a collector of Irish manuscripts.
Following the death of Edward O’Reilly in August 1830, he was recruited to the Topographical Department of the first Ordnance Survey of Ireland under George Petrie in October 1830. Apart from a brief period in 1833, he worked steadily for the Survey on place-name researches until 1842, unearthing and preserving many manuscripts. After that date, O’Donovan’s work with the Survey tailed off, although he was called upon from time to time to undertake place-name research on a day-to-day basis. He researched maps and manuscripts at many libraries and archives in Ireland and England, with a view to establishing the correct origin of as many of Ireland’s 63,000 townland names as possible. His letters to Larcom are regarded as an important record of the ancient lore of Ireland for those counties he documented during his years of travel throughout much of Ireland.
By 1845, O’Donovan was corresponding with the younger scholar William Reeves, and much of their correspondence to 1860 survives.
O’Donovan became professor of Celtic Languages at Queen’s University, Belfast, and was called to the Bar in 1847. His work on linguistics was recognised in 1848 by the Royal Irish Academy, who awarded him their prestigious Cunningham Medal. On the recommendation of Jacob Grimm, he was elected a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Prussia in 1856.
Never in great health, he died shortly after midnight on 10 December 1861 at his residence, 36 Upper Buckingham Street, Dublin. He was buried on 13 December 1861 in Glasnevin Cemetery, where his tombstone inscription has slightly wrong dates of both birth and death.
He married Mary Anne Broughton, sister-in-law of Eugene O’Curry and was father of nine children (all but one of whom died without issue). His wife received a small state pension after his death.
MARLOW & CO GROCERY SHOP – SANDFORD GARDENS THE TENTERS
The building is painted dark blue but some of my photographs showed it as being black and others showed various shades of blue.
At times I find it difficult to decide if I should describe a street as being in The Tenters, The Liberties, The South Circular or The Coombe.
The Tenters is an area in Dublin 8 bordering the Liberties, Blackpitts, Donore Avenue and Newmarket Square. It is within a short walk to Grafton Street, St Stephen’s Green and Christ Church Cathedral.
Today there is a stone on Clarence Mangan Road which reads as follows: “This area is known as the Tenters — because linen cloth was stretched out to bleach in the sun. When the linen trade failed, the fields were used for market gardens, until this housing scheme was built.”
The area was once known as Fairbrothers Fields a housing project that was to be built in response to what was, at the time, a critical housing crisis . Plans were produced for four different schemes and the British Government promised £4 million but the 1916 Rising interrupted the project as the money was used to rebuild the City Centre of Dublin.
In April 1918 a tender was accepted for the first project at Spitalfields which is off Francis Street. The next development was St James’s Walk, also known as Colbert’s Fort, followed by Ceannt Fort near St James’s Hospital. The Fairbrothers Fields site was the last project to be undertaken.
The Fairbrothers were Quakers and the site had been used for market gardening. The Tenters, an older name for the area, comes from the earlier practice of drying linen stretched across wooden frames known as tenters.
Some of the streets in the area are listed below: St Thomas’s Road after an abbey that had stood nearby Oscar Square named after Oscar the son of Oisín of Na Fianna rather than Oscar Wilde Clarence Mangan Road in honour of the poet O’Carolan Road after the famous Irish harpist O’Curry Road [I am guessing] Eugene O’Curry (20 November 1794 – 30 July 1862) was an Irish philologist and antiquary. O’Donovan Road, Geoffrey Keating Road [I am guessing] Geoffrey Keating was a 17th-century historian. He was born in County Tipperary, Ireland, and is buried in Tubrid Graveyard in the parish of Ballylooby-Duhill. He became an Irish Catholic priest and a poet. Petrie Road [I am guessing] George Petrie (1 January 1790 – 17 January 1866) was an Irish painter, musician, antiquary and archaeologist of the Victorian era[1] who was instrumental in building the collections of the Royal Irish Academy and National Museum of Ireland.
You must be logged in to post a comment.