THE CONFESSION BOX Heritage

🏭 Heritage-listed building

Built: c.1880 · NIAH rating: Regional

This well-presented licensed premises, with its elaborate late Victorian pub-front, is an excellent example of its type, with the recent decorative leadwork above the coved fascia maintaining this high-quality standard. Dionysius Lardner (1793-1859), editor of "Cabinet Cyclopedia", a popularizer of science in Ireland, was born and lived at a house at this address in the late eighteenth century. He was the father of the playwright, Dion Boucicault (1820-90), who was most well known for his perennially popular play "The Colleen Bawn". During the War of Independence (1919-21), sympathetic priests used this pub, then known as "The Maid of Erin", as a venue to hear the confessions of the rebel fighters who had been ex-communicated by the church hierarchy. This gave rise to the new name for a building steeped in social history: "The Confession Box".

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