Development of The Square
The first Luke Gardiner (d. 1755) was a highly successful banker, developer and Member of Parliament for Dublin in the early 18th century. During his career he acquired a wide variety of properties throughout the city. The major continuous part, much of which he purchased from the Moore family in 1714, was a large piece of land to the East of the then established city. This estate corresponds to the modern area bounded by The Royal Canal, Dorset Street, the Western Way, Constitution Hill, Parnell Street, O'Connell Street and the River Liffey. As owner of this land, Gardiner led the development of the Northside of the city east along the river, developing what is now O'Connell Street (then Sackville Street), Dorset Street, Parnell Street and Square (then Rutland Street & Square). After his death, his son and heir Charles continued the development, finishing Rutland Square before his grandson, the second Luke Gardiner (later Lord and Viscount Mountjoy) inherited the estate and accelerated the development further East. A powerful figure, Luke II was a member of the Wide Streets Commission and MP for County Dublin.
Mountjoy square was developed as part of this third development phase. An early plan and elevation, known then as Gardiner Square was drawn up in 1787 by Thomas Sherrard, surveyor to the Wide Streets Commissioners. Gardiner and Sherrard clearly had a hugely ambitious vision for the square. It was on high ground, so all streets off it led downhill. It overlooked The Custom House and was connected to it by Gardiner Street. The plan included a rebuilt St. George's Church in the centre of the park. The original West side plans show a palatial stone-clad street frontage with a terrace of brick residential houses behind the cladding. A less ambitious compromise of red-brick façades, consistent with other nearby streets, eventually prevailed.
The square was laid out and construction began first on the south side, about 1790, continuing until 1818. The stuccadore Michael Stapleton was one of the first to acquire leases (dated October 1789), corresponding to Nos. 43, 44 and 45 Mountjoy Square (all demolished in the 1980s, despite the presence of Stapleton's decoration). His houses were complete by 1793. Luke Gardiner II was killed at the Battle of New Ross during the Rebellion of 1798 with the third side still under construction.
After completion, contemporaries Warburton, Whitelaw and Walsh said of it:
| “ |
This square, which is now completely finished, is neat, simple and elegant, its situation elevated and healthy … the elevation of the houses, the breadth of the streets, so harmonize together, as to give pleasure to the eye of the spectator, and to add to the neatness, simplicity, and regularity every where visible, entitling this square to rank high among the finest in Europe. |
” |
In 1825, George Newenham Wright described the square:
| “ |
This small, regular and elegant square, which is named after the proprietor, Viscount Mountjoy (now Earl of Blessington) is not far from Rutland Square … The air in this neighbourhood is considered extremely pure, being at the extremity of Dublin, and on the most elevated ground. |
” |
More recently in 2005, architecture critic Christine Casey stated:
| “ |
The outstanding feature of Mountjoy Square is its Neoclassical plasterwork, which is finer even than that found in the contemporary terraces on the south side of Merrion Square. |
” |
Read more about this topic: Mountjoy Square
Famous quotes containing the words development of the, development of, development and/or square:
“This was the Eastham famous of late years for its camp- meetings, held in a grove near by, to which thousands flock from all parts of the Bay. We conjectured that the reason for the perhaps unusual, if not unhealthful development of the religious sentiment here, was the fact that a large portion of the population are women whose husbands and sons are either abroad on the sea, or else drowned, and there is nobody but they and the ministers left behind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Good schools are schools for the development of the whole child. They seek to help children develop to their maximum their social powers and their intellectual powers, their emotional capacities, their physical powers.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)
“... work is only part of a man’s life; play, family, church, individual and group contacts, educational opportunities, the intelligent exercise of citizenship, all play a part in a well-rounded life. Workers are men and women with potentialities for mental and spiritual development as well as for physical health. We are paying the price today of having too long sidestepped all that this means to the mental, moral, and spiritual health of our nation.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“Interpreting the dance: young women in white dancing in a ring can only be virgins; old women in black dancing in a ring can only be witches; but middle-aged women in colors, square dancing...?”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)