Dominick Street, Dublin

The street was one of the earliest Georgian streets to be laid out on the North side of the city after nearby Henrietta Street had been the first in the area to be developed. It was originally only made up of what is today Lower Dominick Street and consequently is sometimes referred to as Old Dominick Street on some maps. The area began to be built on by the 1720s. The first lease is recorded in 1727 made out to Lady Alice Hume at the corner of Great Britain Street which was bounded by the house of Dominick. The area was however still shown as mainly open land on Charles Brooking's Map of Dublin of 1728.

In the early 1750s, Sir Christopher Dominick's widow and son of the same name let lots to various developers and builders along what is today Dominick Street Lower.[3] His daughter Elizabeth assisted with this and she later married St George St George, 1st Baron St George in July 1752 around the same time.

Later Sir Christopher Dominick's sole grand daughter, Emily Olivia, would marry William FitzGerald, 2nd Duke of Leinster with their new home on the street remaining in family ownership as their city residence up to its replacement in the 1950s by social housing.

The street is featured on John Rocque's Map of Dublin in 1756 with no buildings along its sides. The street soon became a fashionable upmarket address for members of the gentry and aristocracy.[4]

Upper Dominick Street was opened later around 1808 and consequently was sometimes referred to as New Dominick Street. The houses were significantly more modest in their design.[5]

After the Acts of Union 1800, both ends of the street fell gradually into decline. In the first half of the century, the houses continued to be owned or leased by members of the middle and merchant classes such as the legal profession, owing to the streets proximity to the King's Inns and the Four Courts. Towards the end of the century, residents began selling their houses on the street or leasing them to other residents as tenements.

In 1853, St Saviour's Priory began to be constructed on the lower section of the street near the junction with Dorset Street.

Between 1875 and 1880 a number of social housing blocks named the Temple Buildings were constructed on the street to a design by Thomas Newenham Deane.[6]

Lower Dominick Street, Dublin (1968)

Most of the original Georgian houses on the street became tenements between the late 19th and mid 20th century and were demolished or fell into ruin from the 1950s to the early 1990s.

In the census of 1911, 40 people were recorded as living in 16 Lower Dominick Street alone while there were 372 combined in the first 8 houses on the street.

In 1958 large parts of Lower Dominick Street were cleared with the space later replaced with Dublin Corporation flats designed by Desmond FitzGerald in the 1960s.[7]

In 1949, the modernist Hendron's garage was constucted towards the end of Upper Dominick Street.[8]

Between 2018 and 2022, a new block of 72 social housing apartments named Dominick Hall were constructed as part of a larger regeneration scheme for the street.[9][10]

As of 2023, only 10 of the original Georgian houses remain, with all listed on the record of protected structures.[11] Some notable stucco work by Robert West can still be seen in the interior of 20 Lower Dominick Street, the largest remaining and finest house on the street.