Come Here To Me!

Bachelors Way, looking down to Middle Abbey Street and the Oval (Picture credit - Eve Andersson)

A dingy but practical little lane that links Bachelors Walk (entrance just beside the Bachelor Inn pub) on the quays and Middle Abbey Street (entrance between Supermacs and Book Worms).

According to some maps, it used to be called Williams Lane. Confusing as there still is a Williams Lane a stone throws away. Other map mark it as Willams Row.

It is by Williams Row that the lane gets a fleeting mention in Joyce’s Ulysses (1922):

‘Mr Dedalus, tugging a long moustache, came round from Williams’s row. He halted near his daughter.’

Bachelors Way. Bachelors Inn to the left (Photo credit - Eve Andersson)

Tracing the history of the lane through maps:

1848, Williams Lane.

1907, Williams Row

2011, Bachelors Way

Not a particularly picturesque lane, I reckon most people today associate it as a public toilet and a place where junkies occasionally loiter.

Bachelors Way, looking down from Middle Abbey Street. (Photo credit - Ester Esther Moliné)

Looking from Molesworth St. down to Molesworth Place. (Picture - Kieran Murphy)

A pretty ugly (the Schoolhouse Lane side anyway) but none the less useful shortcut that links Kildare St. (entrance between the Department of Industry and Commerce and Clerkin Lynch Solicitors) and Molesworth St. (entrance between Whytes Auctioneers and the Irish EU HQ).

Molesworth Place joins into School Lane East. Presuming the latter was named after a school, I wonder where it was and what it was called? (Thanks to comments, I’ve found out there used to a be a school on Kildare Street called ‘Kildare Place National School’)

Beautiful plaque to Molesworth Place (Picture - Monceau)

Now home to the Dawson Car Park, Molesworth Court apartment, One Pico restaurant and Paul’s hair studio. Apparently it’s also been used by protesters in the past (particularly students) to slip by cops and get towards the Dail!

Looking from Kildare St. down to Schoolhouse Lane East

Charting its history using a number of maps:

Looking prominent in 1836 map

Still looking well in 1848

Looks like it was made more narrow and dropped to 'lane status' by 1885

View by 1907

Johnsons Court, looking from Grafton Street. (Photo credit - Paul Feeney)

A beautiful little, narrow lane linking Grafton St. and Clarendon St., probably best known for its regular buskers, its jewellery stores and for the side entrance to St Teresa’s Church.

Visible in 1836

Visible but without title in 1840

Disappared from 1885 map

Still AWOL in 1912

As far I can tell, it was also the site of HMV’s first Dublin store, 6 Johnsons Court, dating back to at least the mid 1920s.

Dec 19, 1925. Nenagh Guardian

May 12, 1933, Irish Independent

View from Clarendon St. (Picture credit - hc1916)

View from Dame Street down to Crampton Court (Photo credit - Trevs Photos)

This is probably my favourite little lane or passage way in Dublin. Not least because it’s not featured on any maps, it was the site of two of Dublin’s most famous 18th century coffee houses – ‘Little Dublin Coffee House’ and ‘Royal Exchange Coffee House’ and as I’ve had some memorable personal experiences in the lane (nothing dirty!)

Crampton Court links Dame Street (entrance just under ‘BAR’ in the sign for Brogans BAR) and leads right down, past the back entrance to The Olympia Theatre, to Essex Street East (entrance just beside the Dublin Theatre Festival office)

Flora H. Mitchell in her excellent Vanishing Dublin (1966) described it as being

“… the unofficial “exchange” of Dublin until the “commercial buildings” were opened in 1799. No 20, “The Little Dublin Coffee House” provided the merchants with a meeting place prior to this. Crampton Court had been used as a short cut from the Olympia Theatre to the well known Dolphin Restaurant prior to it being demolished in 1963.”

Entrance to Crampton Court from Essex St. East (Photo credit - infomatique)

The doors in Crampton Court were famous in their own right:

Uploader credit - Jimmymac

This is how it looked in the 18th century when the court was bustling with trade and housing:

Artists interpretation of those doors (and buildings) in 18th century

Like so many beautiful and historical sites, it fell into decay in the 1950s and 1960s:

How it looked in 1959. Photo - Dublin City Library

A real pity. An anonymous letter to The Irish Times (May 23rd, 1931) described it as ‘a part of Dublin which still seems to suggest its ancient history’.

No doubt at one stage Palace Street used to run right across Dame Street and into Crampton Court:

While Palace St. is still visable on maps, Crampton Street has been lost.

So next time your heading down Dame Street, when not pop through Crampton Court and have a gawk at an old, forgotten part of Dublin.

Entrance just beside Dublin International Theatre Festival Essex St. East. Notice wooden rafter across frame (Photo credit plattbridger)

Plus see if you can spot the wooden rafter above your head, as you come from the narrow Essex St. East side, that looks especially old! Perhaps original?