The Liberator and one of the 60 great (public) places (on the planet)

"The Liberator" in Ennis, a photo by david sankey on Flickr.

O'Connell Street

County Clare

Ennis, Ireland

Contributed by Project for Public Spaces ---translated into English by sankey --- for the original, go to http://www.pps.org/great_public_spaces/one?public_place_id=173

Along with the two other main streets that branch off of Ennis' central O'Connell Square, O'Connell street bustles with activity at all hours.

• For more images of O'Connell Street or other places, try searching our Image Collection

Why It Works Cars, lorries, bicycles and pedestrians are all accommodated naturally. The well-cared-for street has everything from pubs and music halls to department stores and chemists, making it relevant day and night, for all ages and interests. Although the scale of the street is quite narrow, including pavements, cars and walkers are treated well. Beautiful hanging plants adorn the lamp posts, and cobblestoned crossings and intersections indicate where to cross the road.

What Makes O'Connell Street a Great Place?

• The scale of the town centre is easily walkable
• Although the scale of the street is quite narrow, including pavements, cars and walkers are treated well, beautiful hanging plants adorn the lampposts and cobblestoned crossings and intersections indicate where people cross the street.
• The well-cared-for street has everything from pubs and music halls to department stores and chemists, making it relevant day and night, for all ages and interests. O'Connell Square, at the top of the street, is a natural gathering place.

History & Background

Ennis is a county seat with a growing population, estimated at approximately 20,000. One of the larger cities in Ireland [surely not - definitely NOT a city merely a county town, DS], it is a cultural center as well, hosting serveral of Ireland's best-known traditional music festivals. Ennis blossomed as a market town in the late 1700s.

O'Connell Street and O'Connell Square honour Daniel O'Connor, an MP for Clare in the mid-1800s and pivotal Catholic politician and leader. A statue of O'Connell stands in the square, on the site of the old courthouse. [O'Connell Street was formerly "Gaol Street" Jail Street. DS] The town was founded in 1208 by the O'Briens, who built a castle on the edge of the modern town, which lies on the River Fergus. The O'Briens ruled until they vacated Ennis for Bunratty Castle.

Related Links:

• Web cam of O'Connell Square - .
• History of Ennis - .
• 60 of the World's Great Places - O'Connell Street was named one of the 60 greatest places in the world 
• See also my previous blog http://londonlandscapeobservatory.blogspot.com/2011/09/ennis-2011.html

  
  

Ennis 2011 from a medieval to a modern town

Ennis was founded as a medieval town in the 1200s by the kings of Thomond, the O'Briens.The name is a shortened anglicization of Inis Cluain Ramh Fhada long rowing meadow island. It exploits the the Fergus valley providing a communication corridor between Galway and Limerick. Crucial to its initial success was attracting Franciscan friars to settle and their Friary is still a major monument in the town. The fast rivers also allowed corn mills to be sited here and other industries - such as tanning and fulling - required water resources. The town never had defensive walls and so was not subject to legal restrictions which prevented Catholics from living in Limerick, for instance. It, therefore, remained attractive to the Catholic elite. Politically, until their demise in latest elections, it was a stronghold of Fianna Fail - reflecting the self-identity of the Catholic population (despite the Gaelic kings, O'Briens becoming by degrees Surrey-born English haute-bourgeois/aristocrats).
 The streets still retain the medieval layout and small lanes or alleys lead through, providing a sense of arrival from municipal car parks towards the river into main retail areas today. They also became areas where a degree of latitude allowed -for instance- an early Catholic chapel to be built after the machinery of church had been thoroughly taken over by the established state-Tudor version of protestantism. The release of Friary land spurred on commercial growth and part of the fabric of the friary ended up in nearby bar/restaurant Cruises (which popularly was believed to retain a legal exception of sanctuary from those days - exploited in literature). Any-road-up, it became incorporated as a town in the 17th century - still under the patronage of the O'Briens (by then Earls of Thomond). Chimneys have remained from this time - preserved in party walls retained when buildings either side successively got knocked. Details of survival like these draw the eye and provide points of interest in the fabric of the town.
 In common with the rest of Ireland there was a period of prosperity toward the end of the 18th or beginning of the 19th century and Georgian style has dominated the town. Later buildings were often built in a kind of Neo-Geo style but latterly medieval motifs have been adopted in the older quarters. Inevitably, a ring of modern housing estates surround the town and a new main road bypass speeds traffic between between Galway and Limerick with Ennis barely registering as a spire or so poking up above the road landscaping.

The Liberator - O'Connell - lent his name to the former "Gaol Street" . I kid you not
For more - Click Here

-----------------------------
Update, Ennis was voted one of the 60 Great Places on the Planet. See my later blog http://londonlandscapeobservatory.blogspot.com/2011/10/liberator-in-ennis.html