Patrick Comerford
During my short, overnight pre-Christmas visit to Dublin the week before last, I was staying in the Travelodge Hotel in Rathmines, on the corner of Lower Rathmines Road and Observatory Lane.
When I was growing up, Observatory Lane was an enticing place. Although it looks grubby, if not derelict, from the street corner, its leads into one of the best and best-known cricket grounds in Ireland, and I spent many summer afternoons there in my late teens watching cricket. That love of cricket continued, and I was even playing (though very badly) Taverners Cricket at The Irish Times into my early 40s.
I was surprised, when I looked back, that the last time I had visited the grounds of Leinster Cricket Club was in 2012, although I had promised myself then that I would be back soon.
Leinster Cricket Club was founded on 1 May 1852, and it first it played in Grosvenor Square, off Leinster Road. The club moved three times, playing also at grounds at the end of Garville Avenue, Rathgar, Palmerston Park and Emor Ville, opposite Portobello Gardens on the South Circular Road, before finally moving to Observatory Lane in 1865, a year before the world-famous Grubb telescope moved there and gave Observatory Lane its name.
When the great cricketer of the age, WG Grace, was enjoying his tenth and best season in first-class cricket in 1873, he brought a side to Rathmines. Leinster put 22 players in the field against Grace’s XI, which included his brother GF and nine professionals. The talent-laden visitors struggled to escape with a draw, but they returned in 1874.
The first inter-provincials were played in Rathmines in 1890, when Leinster beat Ulster and Munster to top the table, and Ireland first played first-class cricket at Observatory Lane in 1912.
The ground hosted six first-class matches before World War II, including one between Ireland and a touring New Zealand side in 1937, in which no team passed 100 in any of the four innings.
Ireland played the Marylebone Cricket Club in 1948, with a 27-year wait before the next first-class match was played at the ground in 1975.
Women’s international cricket was first played at Observatory Lane in 1990, when the Ireland women played England women in a One-Day International. List A cricket was first played at Observatory Lane in the 2005 ICC Trophy.
Leinster Bowling Club was formed in 1913, and the Cricket and Bowls had Observatory Lane to themselves until May 1925 when the Tennis Club was formed. The table tennis club was founded in the 1940s, and the squash club was launched in 1969.
Today, Leinster is a multi-sports club. The complex includes one of Ireland’s premier cricket grounds as well as tennis courts, a bowling green, squash courts, table tennis facilities and a bridge club. The facilities also include a recently refurbished bar, a meeting room, function room and car park.
I suppose Observatory Lane could also claim to be the home of Irish international rugby: Ireland’s rugby team played its first home match there in 1875 against England, after Lansdowne Road was deemed unsuitable.
A red oval plaque in the lane is a reminder that Observatory Lane takes is name from the Optical Works of Sir Howard Grubb (1844-1931). I suppose it would have been inappropriate to call it Grubb Street, given Samuel Johnson’s definition of Grub Street in 18th century London and the squalid living coniditions of the impoverished hack writers who lived there.
Sir Howard Grubb was one of the foremost engineers in the field of telescopes and photographic lenses. He was born in 1844 on Leinster Square, the youngest son of Thomas Grubb (1800-1878).
Thomas Grubb, who was born into a Quaker family in Portlaw, Co Waterford, made billiard tables before becoming the chief engineer at Bank of Ireland, where he perfected a successful and secure system of printing bank notes. However, his primary business was in telescopes, and he built an observatory near his factory at 1 Upper Charlemont Street, Portobello.
The Grubb company’s worldwide reputation grew following the production of the Melbourne telescope, one of its greatest commissions. When the Melbourne telescope was ordered, the Grubbs moved to a larger premises. The Grubb factory was built on Observatory Lane in 1866 and became the largest of its kind in the world.
Thomas Grubb handed over the business to his son Howard while he was studying engineering in Trinity College Dublin. Under Howard’s watchful eye, the company became known for its innovations in lenses and telescopes.
Some of the telescopes produced by the Grubbs include the refractor for the Vienna Observatory (1878), the refractor at Armagh Observatory (1882), the refractor at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich (1893) and the refractor at Coats Observatory, Paisley (1898).
Howard Grubb was still based in Rathmines during World War I when he oversaw the manufacture of periscopes and telescopic gunsights for the British navy. But as the war continued, and with the instability created by the Easter Rising in 1916 and fears of a German invasion of Ireland, the company moved to St Albans in England in 1918. The business continued to produce large-scale optical items for observatories until 1985.
The Grubb company no longer exists but Sir Howard Grubb is remembered as the ‘Rembrandt of the Lens-Making Age.’
