Pearse Street


Pearse Street is one of the longest streets in Dublin and varies in use along its length. It is named after the Irish revolutionaries, Pádraig Pearse and his brother William, who were born there. It was previously called Great Brunswick Street, after the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Hanover line.

Location and addresses

The western end of Pearse Street meets College Street near Townsend Street. Here, on the northern side, there is a Garda station, followed by the old headquarters of the Dublin Fire Brigade with the Central Fire Station. The Trinity City Hotel is over and beside the old fire station. Office buildings are on the southern side of the street, followed by Trinity College, Dublin. The offices of the Department of Social Protection are on the site of the Queen's Theatre, Dublin. Another building of note is 37 Great Brunswick Street which dates from the 1850s and is still in the same ownership today.
The DART crosses Pearse street beside St. Mark's church, and east of that is the former Antient Concert Rooms where W. B. Yeats’ play The Countess Cathleen was first performed 8 May 1899 and James Joyce won an award for singing at the Feis Ceoil 16 May 1904. No. 43 is the former Erasmus Smith Commercial and Civil Service School, a bank and pub bracket the junction with Lombard Street, with Trinity College and the railway station and Goldsmith Hall opposite each other on Westland Row.
Further east along the street is the Pearse Street Public Library, which has the Gilbert Library and the City Archives on its first floor. The street then becomes residential, including Pearse Square, until it reaches MacMahon Bridge at Grand Canal Dock, where numerous high-tech offices and high-rise apartment buildings in an area dubbed Silicon Docks can be found. The street is then named Ringsend Road, and later Bridge Street around Ringsend Bridge on its continuation into Dublin 4.
The Cuban embassy is located there.

People

Padraig Pearse, one of the executed leaders of the 1916 Rising, was born at 27 Great Brunswick Street in 1879. His father James established an ecclesiastical architecture and sculpture firm at the site a few years before Padraig’s birth. The original house still stands as a memorial, while the Trinity City Hotel occupies the back garden.
Architect Thomas Francis McNamara had offices at No. 192 Great Brunswick Street from 1911 to 1927.
Frederick Saunders, Chief Pump Monitor, the Dublin Water Department 1931-1942.