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of Ireland, Lionel Cranfield Sackville, Duke of Dorset.
It was also known as Sackville Mall, Gardiner's Mall or
simply just The Mall. When completed, the street was 160
feet wide nearest the River Liffey and 150 feet wide on
the northern end at Parnell Square, and 1650 feet in length.
Sackville Street became a rounding success upon the completion
of Carlisle Bridge, which connected north and south sides
of the River Liffey. The bridge was designed by James
Gandon and was completed in 1793, opening for pedestrians.
It was open for all traffic in 1795.
Sackville Street prospered through the 19th century,
but an invisible boundary formed to create an Upper Sackville
Street and Lower Sackville Street. It had been planned
for Lower Sackville Street to come a commercial center,
with purposed-designed retail units. Upper Sackville Street's
grand townhouses suffered by being too close to the lower
street. The area soon lost its fashionability as a quiet
enclave. As a result, the upper street eventually saw
people moving to other parts of the city and the once
grand mansions being converted for commercial use, ultimately
falling into disrepair.
During this time, many changed occurred to improve the
state of the street. While the street was reclassified
as an ostentatious high-Victorian boulevard, where once
it retained a highly acclaimed Wide Street classification,
the importance of the street as a commercial district
would ultimately see to the rebirth of the street.
Along Lower Sackville Street, many purpose built structures
were put up, including one of the world's first department
stores, Delany's New Mart, which was built as a "monster
store" in time for the Dublin Exhibition in 1853.
It was later purchased by the Clery family in the 1880s
and is today's Clery's Department Store. Delany's also
included the Imperial Hotel, one of several hotels on
this street. Across the road, the General Post Office
(GPO) went up in 1818 beside the Metropole Hotel and near
to the Gresham Hotel, which opened the previous year.
The Gresham had used adjoining townhouses that were remodeled
for the hotel, which is still open today.
The Turkish Baths opened and later incorporated into
the Hammam Hotel. Standard Life Insurance built their
flagship Dublin branch in an architectural style similar
to the GPO. Gilbey's Wine Merchants opened around the
same time as the Findlater family chain of stores. In
1866, a turreted office building went up for the firm
of T.N. Deane.
The Mall became the center of the Dublin City tramway
system, with many of the city's trams converging at the
base of Nelson's Pillar. By 1900, Sackville Street had
been reborn into highly successful commercial district,
earning it the title of "Ireland's Main Street."
It was in 1916 during the Easter Rising that saw many
of the buildings along the Mall being bombarded for a
number of days by the gunboat Helga of the Royal Navy.
Several other pieces of artillery were brought up to the
northern end of Upper Sackville Street. By the end of
the week, Irish rebels, who had been holed up in the GPO
and other buildings, were forced to surrender, leaving
the GPO burning in their wake. Much of the street was
reduced to rubble. This event had such a disastrous impact
on the commercial live of the street that many businesses
were forced to close for up to six years to rebuild. Many
were unable to rebuild and never reopened.
The Dublin Reconstruction Act of 1916 was drafted with
the aim of controlling the nature of reconstruction around
the Mall. This Act was designed so that a new street could
be rebuilt in a coherent and dignified fashion, while
at the same time taking the opportunity to modernize things.
It took ten years along to rebuilt the GPO, as it had
been completely gutted by fire.
Sackville Street played host to another war, the 1922
Civil War. Fortunately, after a week of heavy fighting,
none of the post-1916 reconstructed buildings were seriously
damaged. The effects of the battle were largely contained
to the north end of the street at Parnell Square. Only
one of the original Georgian townhouses remains on the
north end of the street today, most of the other buildings
on this street dating from the 1910s and 1920s. Clery's
Department Store reopened later in 1922, followed by the
GPO in 1926, the Gresham Hotel in 1927, Eason and Sons
Booksellers, the Royal Dublin Hotel in 1963.
Sackville Street was renamed O'Connell Street in 1924
when the statue of Daniel O'Connell was erected. The statue
overlooks what is now O'Connell Bridge, formerly Carlisle
Bridge, and is Europe's only square bridge, measuring
exactly 180 feet by 180 feet.
The face of O'Connell Street is in continual change.
The Mall has been widened and replanted with new, healthy
trees. And traffic is now limited to those providing public
transportation, buses and taxis, and the LUAS light rail
crosses at Abbey Street. There is a movement on to ban
all vehicles from O'Connell Street and making it purely
pedestrianized, but that day will take some time in coming.
There are several points of interest along O'Connell
Street worth noting —
Daniel O'Connell Monument - Designed by John
Foley and took 19 years to complete. The first foundation
stones were laid in 1864 and was finally unveiled in
1882 as a monument to a man known as The Liberator to
the Irish people. O'Connell was responsible for organizing
peaceful "monster rallies" of up to a million
people in pursuit of Catholic emancipation. He was also
elected MP, Minister for Peace, in 1828. O'Connell Street
and O'Connell Bridge were rededicated in 1924 in honor
of this man and what he did for Ireland.
** If you look closely at this monument you will see
the bullet holes made by guns during the Easter Rising
in 1916. They were never repaired to leave a lasting
memory of the Irish War for Independence. Seated below
O'Connell are four winged
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