09 October 2019

The Synagogues of Dublin:
11, Lombard Street West

The synagogue at 11 Lombard Street West in the Portobello area of Dublin was founded in 1890 or 1893 and continued until the 1960s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

The new Jewish immigrants fleeing Poland, Russia and the Baltics who arrived in Dublin in the 1880s and 1890s, settled mainly around Clanbrassil Street and Portobello, and formed their own small congregations or hebroth in an area that would soon become known as ‘Little Jerusalem.

These new hebroth in ‘Little Jerusalem included shuls in Saint Kevin’s Parade (1883), Oakfield Place (1885), Lennox Street (1887), Heytesbury Street (1891), Lombard Street (1893), and Camden Street (1892).

According to Louis Hyman in The Jews of Ireland, the Chevrah Tehillim Synagogue at 46 Lombard Street West in 1893 was one these many hebroth established in this area by the recent immigrants from Lithuania and Poland.

Louis Hyman says the Chevrah Tehillim Synagogue was founded in 1893, although the Jewish Year Books say it dates from 1890.

James Joyce in Ulysses has Leopold and Molly Bloom living nearby at 38 Lombard Street West in 1893.

In her soliloquy in Ulysses, Molly Bloom recalls 1893, the year ‘the canal was frozen’ and how she had too many oranges and too much lemonade at a party in the Comerfords’ home in Clanbrassil Street. She was caught short on the way home to Lombard Street that night, and recalls how she had to use the men’s toilets in a pub, with great personal discomfort.

If Molly Bloom is referring to a party hosted by the Comerfords in 1893, she is referring to Lower Clanbrassil Street. At the time, my grandfather’s eldest brother, James Comerford, was living at 62 Lower Clanbrassil Street.

The synagogue at 46 Lombard Street West had 154 seat-holders in 1939, and 100 in 1944.

The synagogue closed in the early 1960s, due to the decline in the Jewish population in the area, with many people moving to the southern suburbs of Terenure, Rathfarnham and Churchtown, and the building later became a clothing factory.

The former synagogue was on the market earlier this year, when it was described as ‘a truly unique former synagogue boasting a very spacious interior ideally located in the heart of Portobello on the doorstep of the city centre ... This red brick property incorporates an adjoining terraced property and dates from the 1890s.’

Tomorrow, 12, United Hebrew Congregation, Greenville Hall, South Circular Road

Yesterday, 10, Adelaide Road Synagogue

2 comments:

cathal coleman said...

Again, very interesting.
Just back (in Harold's Cross) from photographing 57 (where John Wyse Power lectured) and Leopold's No. 38.

Can't post the photos - but no 38 is no more - just a blank wall!

Daniel Green said...

My great grandparents lived at 57 Lombard Street West in 1887, the year they married.

- Daniel Green