Werburgh Street is a street in the medieval area of Dublin, Ireland named for St. Werburgh's Church.
The street was originally St Werburgh Street, named after St. Werburgh's Church, with the street first appearing on maps in 1257. Werburgh Street Theatre was the first purpose-built theatre built in Ireland.
In 1280 Sir Robert Bagod bought a stone dwelling house near Werburgh Street from the Hyntenberghs, a prominent Dublin family. In the fifteenth century, Roger Sutton had a house on the Street. It passed on his death to his son William Sutton, Attorney-General for Ireland.
The southern end of the street was the location of one of the gateways in the city's walls, known as St Werburgh's Gate or Pole Gate. In the 1600s, the southern end was also the location of the Main Guard of the city. Their station on the street is denoted by Gun Alley nearby, which has since been demolished.
The earliest iteration of the prison, the Four Courts Marshalsea, was also located on Werburgh Street in an area previously known as Shoemaker's Street from 1580 until the 18th century.
In 1637, perhaps as early as 1634. John Ogilby (at the time, Master of the Revels for Ireland and member of the household of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, the Lord Deputy of Ireland) founded Ireland's first theatre, the Werburgh Street Theatre.
There was a square on the western side of the street known as Darby Square, where the Liberty Rangers performed military practice in the run-up to the 1798 rebellion.
In 1785, a portion of the pavement collapsed, revealing a cave 40 feet deep filled with coffins and bones. It was thought to be the remains of the old cemetery of St Martin's Church.
Jonathan Swift was born in Hoey's Court, which was off Werburgh Street. One of the last surviving cagework, timber and plaster houses in Dublin was on the corner of Werburgh and Castle Street before it was demolished in 1813.
Bride Street runs from Werburgh Street at the north to New Bride Street at the south. It runs parallel to Patrick Street.
Bride Street appears in a 1465 map of Dublin as "Synt Bryd stret". The St Bride's Church for which the street is named is first mentioned in 1178. This church was demolished in the late 1800s to make way for the Iveagh Trust housing scheme.[3] Adelaide Hospital was originally located at 42 Bride Street until 1846.
Many of the older buildings on Bride Street were demolished during the 1960s to widen the road for increased vehicular traffic.[6] Before this, it was one of the streets illustrated by Flora Mitchell for her book Vanishing Dublin. It depicts the store owned by a noted Dublin character, Johnny Foxes.
Molyneux House sits on the corner of Bride Street and Peter Street. Molyneux House is a converted church and modern office extension that was once the offices of the architect Sam Stephenson who also designed the conversion and extension in 1973.[8] It is built on the site of the old Bird Market, and Stephenson provided the traders with a walled side garden from which they continued to trade.
There is a plaque to John Field on the corner of Bride Street and Golden Lane. Some of the series of plaques created by artist Chris Reid are on Bride Street, with quotes from local residents of the area.