Old Cross Poddle

Old Cross Poddle

31 Jan 1972

OLD CROSS PODDLE

What we call Dean Street, leading from Patrick Street to the Coombe, in ancient times was known as Cross Poddle. The change of name was made as recently as May, 1826, by the Wide Street Commissioners. Before they set to work this was one of Dublin’s worst bottlenecks, less than twentylive feet wide, wall to wall, on the evidence of John Rocque’s map of 1756 (which calls the street merely “Poddle”). The “Cross” in this name must have been either from the fact that here Cross-land (that is, Church property) was entered, or simply because the old Poddle coming in from Harold’s Cross, had to be crossed here. To Iive on the Poddle was once a distinguished address in old Dublin, and the stream was here the boundary between the lands of St. Thomas’s Abbey and the possessions of the Archbishop. The only reason for building a great cathedral in formerly marshy ground alongside the Poddle was the tradition that here St. Patrick himself blessed a well (Know Your Dublin, 14/8/68), but this has caused the Cathedral to suffer down the years as the Poddle floods came down. At Intervals from 1437 all this area was under water; boats plied for hire in the streets In 1701, and there was five feet of water in St. Patrick’s Choir In 1762.

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