Castleforbes Road

Running from the North Wall to Sheriff Street, Castleforbes Road was originally called ‘Fish Street’.

The street dates from the mid-eighteenth century, appearing as ‘Fish Street’ on a map of 1757.¹ The name likely derives from some association with fishing: perhaps fish were off-loaded at that part of the quays?

Although it was listed in the street directories from 1798,² and mentioned in advertisements in 1828,³ it was described as a ‘building ground’ in 1840,⁴ and it wasn’t until 1877 that the first businesses are listed.⁵

In 1924 the ‘ratepayers and occupiers’ of the street petitioned the Corporation that the name of the street be changed, as it was ‘dissident to the existing commercial conditions in the street’.⁶

At the time the street was occupied by businesses, three of them operated by Messrs. T & C Martin, timber merchants. Noting that the majority of the ratepayers had signed the petition, the Streets Section recommended that the name be changed to ‘Castleforbes Road’.

As stated in the petition, that name came from a building which for had stood for many years at the Sheriff Street end of the street. The building is shown on a map of 1822,⁷ and ‘Castle-Forbes’ is given as the address of a Mr Carolin in a petition for the ‘suppression of street begging’ in 1836.⁸ The name was well-established by 1924, the Streets Section noting that T & C Martin’s timber yard bore the name ‘Castleforbes Timber Stores’.

The Commissioners approved the new name on 20 December 1924, and Fish Street became Castleforbes Road.⁹

1. John Rocque, A survey of the city, harbour, bay and environs of Dublin on the same scale as those of London… (1757).
2. Wilson’s Dublin Directory (1798).
3. ‘North Lots’ in Saunders’s News-Letter, 23 May 1828, p. 4.
4. Pettigrew & Oulton, The Dublin Directory for 1840.
5. Thom’s 1877.
6. Reports 1926/288.
7. John Cooke, Cooke’s Royal Map of Dublin with Vignettes of Principal Buildings (1820) (National Gallery of Ireland Online Collection), available at: National Gallery of Ireland Online Collection. [Note: the building is not shown on the edition of Cooke’s map that is included in IHTA III.]
8. ‘Suppression of Street Begging’, in Dublin Morning Register, 22 June 1836, p. 1.
9. Minutes 1924/665.