Former Alley Corner
26 Jan 1972This hostelry, on the corner of Dean Street and New Street South, stands at a much-changed spot. What is now Dean Street was called Cross Poddle, until May, 1826, when the name was changed by the Wide Street Commissioners, and the wide space, where New Street meets Patrick Street and Dean Street, was formerly a narrow gut, known as Freestone (or Three Stone) Alley, with a large block of buildings standing on the site of the present massive public convenience, with its accompanying trees. A still older name for the former alley is Freeman’s Stone, as is on record in the Liber Albus (“White Book”) in the Dublin Corporation muniment room in the City Hall, where under the date 1603, the riding of the Francises by the Mayor, the Aldermen and more than three hundred of the citizens is described. Gilbert, in Volume [?] of the Calendar of Ancient Records of Dublin, describes how they rode “beteen the Coombe to the Freeman’s Stone, standing in the street . . . and rode along through the Coombe near the houses.” The Stone nvust have been a mark on the boundary between the City jurisdiction and that of the Archbishop. Charles Ryan presided at this corner house, about 1850 to be followed by John Mealy, J. Vaughan and
View News Article Online