Halliday Road

Halliday Road is one of several streets laid out in 1906/07 on the northern end of the Mount Temple Estate lands, in Stonybatter.¹

The streets were developed by the Dublin Artisans’ Dwelling Company who, in 1907, submitted proposed names for the streets to the Corporation’s Paving Committee. The name proposed for this street was ‘Plantation Road’.²

This name stands out from the names of the other streets proposed at the same time, Ben Edar Road; Niall Road; Finn Street; Swords Street; Thor Place, and Moira Road.

The Committee accepted the proposed name, but when the full Council came to consider it, Alderman Kelly put an amendment that it be named ‘Halliday Road’ instead.³ This was duly agreed to by the Company.⁴

No reason was given for the choice of name, but it most likely comes from Charles Hal[l]iday, antiquary and bibliophile, whose work on the Viking origins of Dublin was published posthumously as The Scandinavian kingdom of Dublin in 1892.⁵ Alderman Tom Kelly, who suggested the name, had a lifelong interest in the history of the City, writing on the subject for Sinn Fein newspapers. A book dealer both before and after his political career, he was elected as the first President of the Old Dublin Society in 1934.⁶ Alderman Kelly referred to Haliday’s work in a piece for the Dublin Metropolitan Magazine that same year.⁷

(‘Halliday’ was the original surname of Lady Mount Temple’s father, but I suspect that is just coincidence.)

1. The Company purchased the lands from Lady Mount Temple in 1901 – see Irish Times, 4 February 1902, p. 8.
2. Reports 1907/55.
3. Minutes 1907/282.
4. Reports 1907/141.
5. C.J. Woods, ‘Haliday, Charles’, in Dictionary of Irish Biography (https://doi.org/10.3318/dib.003712.v2).
6. Marie Coleman, ‘Kelly, Thomas’, in Dictionary of Irish Biography (https://doi.org/10.3318/dib.004468.v1).
7. Sheila Carden, The alderman: Alderman Tom Kelly (1868-1942) and Dublin Corporation (Dublin, 2007), p. 215.