Crosstick Alley

Crosstick Alley

15 Jan 1971

This is Crosstick Alley, which leads from Francis Street to Meath Street, by way of Garden Lane. Liam’s drawing shows the final section, just before you emerge into Meath Street, between numbers 66 and 67. All this area was outside the walls of Old Dublin.

In the Liberty of St. Thomas, afterwards the Earl of Meath’s Liberty, and is described in old documents as “in the suburbs of Dublin”.
It is tempting to think that this Alley’s name comes from some forgotten shrine on the Abbey of St. Thomas’ boundaries, and I have heard a suggestion that it might have come from a crossing place on the ancient Poddle (but Father M. V. Ronan’s detailed maps of that historic river, published by the ‘Journal’ of the Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Volume 57, do not support that theory).
The Primary Valuation of South Dublin, in 1854, preserves the following family names in Crosstick Alley — Patrick Cramer, the Hannigans (who owned four houses here), Andrew McGuirk, Thomas Sharkey and Patrick Clarke (the latter owned the two houses of highest valuation).

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