Capel Street

Capel Street runs south from Bolton Street to the quays.

Capel Street, and the surrounding area, was developed by Humphrey Jervis, a Cromwellian immigrant, who, along with some others, bought twenty acres of land from the Corporation in 1676.¹

One of Jervis’s supporters was Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex, who served as Lord Lieutenant from 1672 to 1677. In acknowledgement of his support Jervis named the street after Capel, and named the new bridge he built at the southern end Essex Bridge.²

Essex was succeeded as Lord Lieutenant by James Butler, Duke of Ormonde, another supporter of Jervis, hence ‘Ormond Quay‘.

Jervis was an active member of the City Council and served as Lord Mayor in 1681³ and in 1682⁴. He made a lot of enemies, and it didn’t end well.⁵

1. CARD, v, pp. XXI-XXII. ↩︎
2. Ibid. ↩︎
3. Ibid. p. 216. ↩︎
4. Ibid. p. 243 ↩︎
5. John Gibney, ‘Sir Humphrey Jervis’, in Dictionary of Irish Biography (https://www.dib.ie/biography/jervis-sir-humphrey-a4276), (https://doi.org/10.3318/dib.004276.v1), (accessed 10 November 2024). ↩︎