No 1 South Circular Road, Limerick.

Bicycle

Hi everyone,

Does anyone know where exactly this house is, please? And would they have any idea of the history of the house.

Someone I know had a family member born there, while the mother of the child was staying in the house as a guest. It happened roughly in the 1900s (e.g. 1900 - 1911 or so). The child was baptised in St Joseph's Church as far as I remember.

The person would like to (a) see the house (in that regard, if we knew exactly which house it was, google maps would be perfect) and (b) try and gain an understanding of what it was like when their relative was born.

Many thanks.

source

Bicycle wrote: »

Hi everyone,

Does anyone know where exactly this house is, please? And would they have any idea of the history of the house.

Someone I know had a family member born there, while the mother of the child was staying in the house as a guest. It happened roughly in the 1900s (e.g. 1900 - 1911 or so). The child was baptised in St Joseph's Church as far as I remember.

The person would like to (a) see the house (in that regard, if we knew exactly which house it was, google maps would be perfect) and (b) try and gain an understanding of what it was like when their relative was born.

Many thanks.

OP SCR is broken up into multiple terraces, clareview, harbour view, shannon, victoria, richmond etc, each would be numbered 1 to however many houses were involved. Then there are the larger private houses which are named not numbered.

Realistically it could be the first house in any of the terraces. So far as i know the whole road is in the parish of st Joseph's too, so that won't help narrow it down.

Any chance they have a better location?

denismac

The Census records are available for those years. If you had a surname of the house owner it would help to narrow it down.

onliner

Census record 1911

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1911/Limerick/Limerick_No__4_Urban/South_Circular_Road/630432/

The Redemptorist Church might have a bit of info on this. Probably worth a call or visit.

charleshardin

There are two possibilities.

I was born along that road during the 1940's, and at that time, almost every home either had its own individual house name, or was part of a small terrace of perhaps four or five houses, with names like Victoria Terrace etc.

If you type 1 South Cicrular Road, Limerick, into Google, you get a link which shows a modern house, positioned at the front of an estate which was only being built when I was growing up - so that house is unlikely to be the original building. However, that house may well have replaced an older one or may have replaced a gate lodge to the type of house we used to call "the big house" - but in any event, I cannot remember what was there originally even though that was being built as I was growing up.

https://tinyurl.com/yat36ono

There is however a second and more likely possibility.

The South Circular Road (before it became predominantly residential) was known as "The back road" - the front road being O'Connell Avenue and it is possible that your friend's relationwas born in St Gerards Nursing Home, South Circular Road, which was built back in the 1870's and still stands.

To explain - on O'Connell Avenue is the Mount - proper title Mount St Vincent - which was built around 1851 and stretches from O'Connell Avenue back to the South Circular Road. Over the years this has been a convent, a home for widows, a dispensary, an orphanage and a nursing home, as well as a school.

As I say, the Mount runs from O'Connell Avenue back into the South Circular Road, and here, at the rear of the property, was a building named St Gerards, but nowadays called Gerard House. This was a nursing home for expectant mothers and was indeed in the parish of St Josephs, so that children born here would most likely have been baptised in that church.

This also may well have been the original Number 1 South Circular Road back in the 1870's as at that time, the "back" road itself looked mainly onto fields, or very large houses each surrounded by land and there were not that many other properties on it.

The entire complex was run by the Sisters Of Mercy.

The "back" road, had a number of other religious establishments on it, most built before the houses which now occupy the road.

In 1844, the FCJ nuns opened what eventually became a complex of four schools, Laurel Hil, Clareview, Maryville and St Philomenas (where my sisters attended school), while in 1856, the Reparation Convent also opened up just off the main road. And a few years later, the Redemptorists opened a massive complex on the same road, while in 1898, a huge college for the training of teachers, known as Mary I, was built just across the road from St Gerards.

In 2013 or so, the nuns sold the "The Mount" property to what we used to call Mary I - and the entire property now operates as the John Henry Newman Campus.

About 30 years ago, the building was re-developed as a private nursing home, and naturally looks a lot more modern to what I remember it as a kid. Here is a link to it's current appearance.

https://tinyurl.com/yd6zd4gh

Behind the building, you can see the spire of the Mount Convent, and some of the original property.
As was earlier suggested, the Redemptorist priests at Mount Saint Alphonsus who have been there since 1867, may know, or failing that, if you visit the Limerick City and County Council offices at Merchants Quay, they should will be able to help.

Good luck with your search.

OfTheMarsWongs

The Irish Geneaology site has copies of birth/marriage/death records from Limerick for that period.

https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/en

It’s government sponsored too so doesn’t charge to view online. I’ve found it much better than Ancentry and such.