MOORE STREET 1955:IT HAS BEEN a favourite with Dublin shoppers for more years than even "auld Mr Brennan" would care to remember. Moore Street takes its name from Henry Moore, the earl of Drogheda, who was from a 16th-century planter family which owned the land around St Mary's Abbey, off what is now Capel Street. Once upon a time this part of the city was alive with street markets: the Rotunda Market, Taaffe's Market, the Norfolk Market and Anglesea Market, which sold second-hand clothes, shoes and furniture. But in 1972 these were all removed, and the Ilac Centre was built in their place.
The stalls along Moore Street have traditionally been manned – if that’s the right word – by feisty Dublin women who stand for no nonsense from passersby but are always ready to do a deal for their regular customers. Nowadays, of course, the voices are as likely to be from Africa as from Dublin; as is much of the edible produce. Our photograph, which dates from 1955, shows Miss Vera Colgan and Mrs Mary Colgan at their well-stocked fruit and vegetable stall. The photographer’s name is not recorded, nor is the reason for the shot. It seems not to have been published, perhaps because it shows what was, at the time, an unremarkable city scene.
But Moore Street did hit the headlines that year. On Saturday July 23rd, 1955, The Irish Times carried a front-page report to the effect that a 16-year-old boy called John Barrett had found a highly unfamiliar black and white striped insect on one of the street’s stalls. He wasn’t sure whether it had come from a case of Spanish greengages or a crate of onions, also from Spain – but he was pretty sure it wasn’t kosher. Inspectors from the Department of Agriculture duly confirmed that the insect was the dreaded Colorado beetle, a virulent predator of potato crops that is still a quarantined pest in the EU.
The dreaded development bug has proved more difficult to control.
Number 16 Moore Street, the house where leaders of the 1916 Rising met after fleeing the GPO, has been designated a national monument along with the houses on either side. The Save Moore Street group wants the area restored and preserved, but planning permission has already been given for another massive shopping centre which would obliterate many of the laneways that surround the historic terrace. Wouldn’t you love to know what the Colgan ladies would have had to say on the matter?
Arminta Wallace
