Names In Waterford City

losthorizon

I'm a Blow in to Waterford and live in the county and was looking at a map of the city today and was struck by the names of the places in Waterford City. I would love to know how they came to get them. Places like Christendom but especially Misery Hill - what happened there?

If anybody can explain these and others I would like to know!

Finnbar01

losthorizon wrote: »

I'm a Blow in to Waterford and live in the county and was looking at a map of the city today and was struck by the names of the places in Waterford City. I would love to know how they came to get them. Places like Christendom but especially Misery Hill - what happened there?

If anybody can explain these and others I would like to know!

There used to be a street called Duck Shít alley!

losthorizon

Finnbar01 wrote: »

There used to be a street called Duck Shít alley!

You are Kidding!:eek:

seven_eleven

the two cliffs, mount misery and bilberry do look quite miserable especially on rainy days.
I actually quite like them, except for the bollocks 500 layers of paint some fools keep slapping on mount misery.

deisemum

Finnbar01 wrote: »

There used to be a street called Duck Shít alley!

Where was that? I guess we can figure out how it got it's name, same with wormhole and dyke road in Galway

Max Powers

Various historical reasons and eras for names of streets and areas.

Ballygunner - Bhaile Mhic Gunnar - the town of Gunnar (Viking connection)
Ballybricken - Bhaile Bhric - town of Bhric (another scandanavian connection)
Bolton st -- Bolton was one of Cromwells generals
Newtown - obvious enough - the new part of town
Geroge's st - presumably named after King George (Number?) who visited Waterford back couple hundred years ago.
Ferrybank - must be some connection with boats
Im guessing a lot of the area names could be made up by the wealthy land owners/stealers who ran the show for so long.
Obviously the Irish sounding streets, O Connell, Parnell etc are a lot more recent.

I agree with you, its an interesting topic. names like Vulcan St, you would wonder how it happened.

echosound

there's a great book on the topic, don't know if you can still get it or if it's out of print, but it's called Waterford Streets Past and Present, author Daniel Dowling, I got it years ago in Waterford Treasures when it was in the granary on the Quay, they might still be selling copies in the shop over in the new location. It's not a comprehensive list, but it does list a rake of streets/name origins/history, with a few photos for good measure (didn't find any listing in it for mount misery or christendom, sorry OP!)

From that book, Vulcan St is so named because Vulcan is the Roman god of fire, patron of metalworkers, and there would have been foundries at that location (and from my own memory, i seem to recall an older resident of Waterford mentioning to me that there was a tyre place on that street back in the day, hence the name, made sense to me at the time - vulcanised rubber etc. but not 100% sure of the truth in that).
If anyone has any other streets they're dying to know anything about, post em up and I'll have a look at my copy of the book to see if they're listed

Funfair

In Misery Hill Dublin they used to publicly display victims of the hangman as a warning to would-be troublemakers...

Would we have had the same victims I wonder ?

GrandBlaa

I presumed Mt. Misery got its name from the golf course on top, and any shots too far went over the edge and into the Suir?

RoyMcC

As to Christendom I understand that this was simply one of the original small settlements in the Ferrybank area that consisted primarily of Christians.

Finnbar01

deisemum wrote: »

Where was that? I guess we can figure out how it got it's name, same with wormhole and dyke road in Galway

I think it was somewhere down near Ballytruckle.

Also, there used to be a street called Tea pot lane down by the Brewery.