Friday 10th of September 2010
Northgate Street and Passionfruit Theatre PDF Print E-mail
sourced and provided by Gearoid O’Brien
http://fisathlone.wordpress.com/the-location/
  • Northgate Street takes its name from a sixteenth century town gate which formed part of the Town Wall of Athlone. It stretched across the street from where the present ‘Wheatley’s Gents Hairdressers Salon’ is today.
  • Northgate Street leads into Athlone from the district of Coosan. It served the Franciscan Abbey and the adjoining graveyard which served for many years as the main Catholic burial ground in Athlone.
  • The Athlone Workhouse (today parts of this complex survive as the Graphic Design Dept of Athlone IT and St. Mary’s Hall) was built c1840 to cater for about 800 paupers.
  • The site of the Workhouse was used by the Williamites for their assaults on Athlone during the Sieges of 1690 & 1691.
  • Northgate Street runs parallel with the River Shannon.
  • In Victorian times (and indeed until 1940) the industrial premises of Athlone Woollen Mills (and Athlone Gas Works) occupied the land now occupied by the Radisson Hotel.
  • The old Northgate overlooked the aptly named Stirabout Harbour, a harbour constructed in 1822 as a poverty relief scheme (it is claimed that those who developed the harbour were paid in stirabout). This harbour disappeared with the Shannon Navigation works of the 1840s.
  • Passionfruit Theatre occupies a building which was refurbished c1915 as Athlone Masonic Lodge. The date 1810 on the pediment is misleading as the Lodge itself has met since c1739. The Athlone Lodge, Lodge 101, was known as Shamrock Lodge.
  • Nearby in the grounds of Court Devenish House stands the ruins of a ‘U’ shaped Jacobean house built by George Devenish in the 1620s.
  • At the head of Northgate Street (in what is now called Custume Place) once stood the Tholsel or Market House of Athlone. This was the centre of activity in old Athlone here political rallies were held – the ‘stocks’ also stood there where many a local miscreant was punished.
  • The present town bridge was built as part of the Shannon Navigation works of the 1840s. The earlier bridge was down river from the present bridge, it was built in the time of Elizabeth I and was crucial to the Jacobite defence during the Siege of Athlone.
  • Athlone Castle dates to 1210 but has been modernised and altered over the centuries to improve its defences. Next year, 2010, will mark the 800th Anniversary of the building of Athlone Castle
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