Addison Place

Located off Botanic Avenue, Glasnevin, Addison Place was described in 1904 as ‘a bye-lane or passage, having no formation or drainage’.¹

The name ‘Addison’ comes from the writer and politician Joseph Addison,² whose connection to the area derives from his friendship with Thomas Tickell, his literary executor. Tickell lived in Glasnevin,³ his home being where the Botanic Gardens have stood since 1795.

In 1904 councillors on the Corporation’s Paving Committee were told that in September 1899 the Drumcondra Urban Council had made an agreement with a Mr Thomas Connolly, to erect ‘permanent dwellings’ on a plot in Addison Place, which was then in the Urban Council’s area.

The Drumcondra Urban Council, a short-lived successor to the Drumcondra, Clonliffe, and Glasnevin Township, was abolished in 1900 and the area incorporated into the City. The agreement on Addison Place then transferred to the Corporation.

The Corporation’s Improvements Committee considered that they had ‘made a fair amount of housing accommodation for the working classes of Drumcondra in the Elizabeth St scheme’, and decided to dispose of the Addison Place plot.

In 1905 the Corporation accepted an offer of £10 from Mr Edwards, 36 Chelmsford Road, for the purchase of the plot.⁴

In 1909 the Corporation took Addison Place into charge,⁵ and in the same year it appeared in Thoms Street Directory with the entry ‘Five small cottages’.⁶ The municipal electoral roll for 1910 includes voters registered at numbers 1, 2, 4, and 5, Addison Place.

1. Reports 1904/94. ↩︎
2. Patrick J. Walsh, ‘Addison, Joseph’, in Dictionary of Irish Biography (https://doi.org/10.3318/dib.000031.v1). ↩︎
3. Weston St John Joyce, The Neighbourhood of Dublin (2nd edition, Dublin 1921), p. 266. ↩︎
4. Reports 1905/91. ↩︎
5. Reports 1909/97. ↩︎
6. Thom’s, 1909. ↩︎