Gerald Griffin Street

A name proposed, but not adopted, for O’Connell Avenue when it was being renamed in 1884.¹

Gerald Griffin was a novelist from Limerick.² His most successful work was The Collegians (1829),³ which gave the world the name Myles na Coppaleen, and was adapted for the stage as the Colleen Bawn, by Boucicault.

However, Griffin took to religion and joined the Christian Brothers at North Richmond Streset, and perhaps that has more to do with his name being proposed. Having said that, a nearby street also has the name of a well-known Irish writer, Goldsmith.

1. Minutes 1886/47. ↩︎
2. Bridget Hourican, ‘Griffin, Gerald’, in Dictionary of Irish Biography (https://doi.org/10.3318/dib.003640.v1) ( accessed on 18 March 2025). ↩︎
3. Saunders Newsletter, 23 March 1829. ↩︎