Dublin down the years

The South Circular Road Dublin on the eve of the First World War by Catherine Scuffil (Four Courts Press / Maynooth Studies in Local History, €8.95/£7.95)

A Portrait of Dublin in Maps by Muiris de Buitléir (Gill & Macmillan, €29.99 / £26.99)

Drawing on the resources of the census records of 1901 and 1911, the secretary of the Dolphin’s Barn local history society explores just what her neighbourhood was like a century ago. The road was part of a plan for a road round Dublin, and along it was built up in the Victorian era a varied community.

Dubliner’s of old would speak of Kelly’s Corner and Leonard’s Corner ñ designations now unknown to most people ñ but though there were local businesses and many homes the road also saw many other groups of ìoutsidersî, not just Methodists and Presbyterians, but also a range of Jewish groups. These have in recent times been replaced by Muslims and others, for the Jewish community has moved out towards Terenure and the synagogues here have closed, or in one case turned into a museum.

In the maps created for his book by Muiris de BuitlÈir there are two which reflect very well on this change. It is this inner city area where many of the groups that compose the new Dubliners now live, African, Arabs, Poles, Romanians and many others. This change of population from that described by Catherine Scuffil is clear.

Yet oddly though in 1911 these ëoutsiders’ were characterised by religion, not the inner city as a whole contains then highest percentage of those who report no religion. One suspects that there may be some confusion here: does this simply mean that, say, a Chinese respondent simply means they have no western religion.

Both books provide fascinating glimpses of how the city has developed through constant change, and how this evolution has affected the general life, culture and religious outlook of the city.

(Catherine Scuffil’s essay is only one of six titles newly issued in the very valuable Maynooth Studies in Local History series, two of which deal with the Dublin region ñ an account of Rising in Skerries and the Portmarnock Terracotta works – and three with little known aspects of Carlow, Leinster and rural Galway.)