Dublin Stories

The Rise and Fall of the First Dublin Tram Network – Part 2: Electrification and Unification

Mergers

Before the last independent horse tram company was founded, some of the early companies had started talking about joining forces, and in 1881 the DTC, NDSTC, and the DCT merged into the Dublin United Tramways Company (DUTCo). This company would become the basis for one, unified, Dublin tramway system (and later Córas Iompair Éireann) but they were still facing competition from the South Dublin tram companies who had both been acquired in 1893 by Imperial Tramways of Bristol and merged into one company.

Electrification

The “Tramway King” Clifton Robinson ran the new company and immediately started making changes. Firstly the rails running from Dún Laoghaire to Dalkey were standardised to the same gauge as all other rails, but more importantly he wanted to electrify the whole line from Haddington Road to Dalkey, and reduced the fares by 50%. Despite objections from the railway company and the DUTCo, he did get all necessary permissions, built a new power station and car shed on Shelbourne Road (as of writing this is now a Mercedes car dealership), and installed the overhead wire system. The power station was capable of driving 50 trams, weighing 10 tonnes each, at the same time.

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The Rise and Fall of the First Dublin Tram Network – Part 1: Beginnings

The Beginning of City Transportation Systems

The rise of city transportation is directly linked to the growth of cities in the 18th and 19th century. For example, in 1660 Dublin’s population was around 8,800 people, by 1760 it had grown to 141,000, and by 1860 there were over 260,000 inhabitants. As the population grew, the city spread out and absorbed smaller towns and villages, creating what we now call suburbs. Unless you were rich and had your own coach, you’d depend on renting a coach to travel around the city, and those weren’t exactly affordable either for the common man.

The idea of a coach transporting people along a fixed route within a city began in Nantes, France around 1823. A man called Stanislas Baudry opened a bath house far away from the city centre and started a shuttle service that left the town centre on a regular schedule. The first bus held 16 passengers, seated on two benches along the side of the coach.

After Baudry realised that not all passengers were going to the bath house, but used the shuttle to travel to destinations along the route, he saw an opportunity and opened up the first urban transit service in 1826 in Nantes, calling his coaches “Omnibus” (Latin for “for all”). He quickly expanded to Bordeaux, Lyon, and eventually Paris.

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Windmill Lane Studios, Ringsend, Dublin 4

The Windmill Lane Studios

The famous Windmill Lane Studios are currently located in a striking art-deco style building on 20 Ringsend Road in Dublin 4.

The original building

The studio was founded by Brian Masterson and James Morris in 1978, and started out on Windmill Lane on the corner with Creighton Street. It was originally primarily used to record traditional Irish music sessions. There Planxty recorded After the Break, The Woman I Loved So Well, and their final album, Words & Music, between 1979 and 1983.

But Windmill Lane Studios is probably best known as the recording studio for U2. Their first album, Boy, was recorded there, and the iconic red exterior of the original Windmill Lane building became synonymous with U2’s early career. Interestingly the drums on Boy were recorded in the reception area:

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The Dolocher

The Legend of the Demonic Pig of Cornmarket

The legend of the Dolocher monster roaming Cornmarket for innocent victims was tied to the Black Dog Prison, which has its own entry. A man by the name of Olocher was sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a woman. The morning he was scheduled to be hanged, he committed suicide and “escaped the disgrace of being conveyed through the streets, exposed to the silent execrations of the multitude, on a cart to Gallows Green” (in those days, the common place of execution, now Baggot Street Lower).

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Browne's Castle, Dublin. Sketch from The Antiquities of Ireland By Francis Grose, 1791

The Black Dog

Castle turned tavern, turned debtor’s prison

Originally known as Brown’s Castle, and part of the Dublin city wall fortifications, this square tower was converted into a tavern called the Black Dog, named after a sign that hung above the door.

In the 17th century, however, the tavern closed, and the tower became the main debtor’s prison for Dublin. Those who could not pay their debts were locked up here until they either paid up, or an alternative solution was reached. Officially the prison was called the Sheriff Marshal’s Prison or Marshalsea Prison, but the Black Dog remained the more commonly used name. Another colloquial name was the “Nunnery”, because the city watch would use it to lock up women who were arrested at night.

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