I didn't realise it at the time, but the seeds of this project were sown in the early months of 2000 when, to mark the New Millennium, I photographed
every shopfront in
the old town centre (my definition of which excludes Lyster Square and all the development on the south side of James Fintan Lalor Avenue). What follows now is
an attempt to document, over as many years as possible, the history of every building in the photographs.
Scattered amongst the facts and figures are some memories of my own, and bits and pieces of local lore.
You can use the Ctrl+ and Ctrl- keys to change the text and picture size. If necessary, click on the number in a footnote to return to the
relevant part of the main text.
N.B. Because of certain inconsistencies in the source material, and, of course, my own fallibility, none of what follows is written in stone,
and anything I am particularly unsure of is printed in red. Consequently, this is a work-in-progress and, as such,
I would welcome corrections, additions, suggestions etc.
HOUSE NUMBERS. The numbering in Griffith's Valuation is different from today's and, to further complicate matters, each census starts
counting from different ends of the town: thus Number 70 in 1901, for instance, appears as No. 1 in 1911.
This project refers to the present-day house numbers, and follows them intuitively:
i.e., start on the left side and continue on the left. I started in the Market
Square simply because I have a strong sentimental attachment to the place.
Italicised lines are actual advertising slogans used by the businesses concerned. Lines within single quotation marks are taken from newspaper reports.