Pearse Street

Street in central Dublin, Ireland

Pearse Street is a major street in Dublin. It runs from College Street in the west to MacMahon Bridge in the east, and is one of the city's longest streets. It has several different types of residential and commercial property along its length.

The street is named after the Irish revolutionaries, Patrick Pearse and his brother William. It first appears as Moss Lane, then Channel Row. It was constructed to connect the city centre to the Grand Canal Dock, primarily for commercial traffic. It was named Great Brunswick Street for the House of Brunswick, holders of the British and Irish crown from 1714 to 1901. where W. B. Yeats’ play The Countess Cathleen was first performed on 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. St Andrew's Resource Centre is at Nos. 114 116 and provides various adult education programmes and daycare for the elderly. It originally opened as a Roman Catholic school in 1897, accommodating 1,200 children. The school closed in 1972 and reopened in its current form in 1989. Further east along the street is the Pearse Street Public Library at Nos. 138 144, which has supported the Gilbert Library, a research facility, and the City Archives, on its first floor since 2003. The building was designed by C. J. McCarthy and opened in 1909. It is constructed from Mount Charles sandstone and Ballinasloe limestone and built in a classical style. The building has been modified several times, and was extensively redesigned internally to support the City Archives. Beyond the library, the street becomes residential. The Winter Garden is a set of apartments on the corner of Pearse Street and Erne Street. It was designed by Paul O'Dwyer and opened in 1999 and designed around a glazed internal street. Shortly beyond this is Pearse Square (formerly Queen Square). The square was constructed in 1839 but was slow to develop; there is still an undeveloped plot at the south east end by Pearse Street. The eastern extent of Pearse Street holds the Gallery Quay apartments and MacMahon Bridge at Grand Canal Dock, where numerous high tech offices and high rise apartment buildings can be found, in an area sometimes dubbed Silicon Docks. The street becomes Ringsend Road, and later Bridge Street around Ringsend Bridge, on its continuation into Dublin 4. The Cuban embassy is located on this street within the Westland Square premises at number 32. The Royal Irish Yacht Club had premises on Clarendon Buildings, Great Brunswick Street from the early 1830s prior to their move to Kingstown.

Patrick Pearse (also known as Padraig), one of the executed leaders of the 1916 Rising, was born at No. 27 Great Brunswick Street on 10 November 1879. His father James established an ecclesiastical architecture and sculpture firm (fashioning stone and marble altars and gravestones) at the site. 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. Oscar Wilde was baptised at St Mark's in 1854.