The Coombe Portico
The Coombe Memorial is the surviving portico and landmark of the original location of the Coombe Lying-In (Maternity), Hospital officially opened in 1829. It is primarily a monument dedicated to the hospital, the staff and the women who gave birth and children born there.
Towards the end of 1825, two women, in an attempt to reach the Rotunda Hospital (located on Dublin City’s Northside), perished with their new born in the snow off Thomas Street in the Liberties. When this terrible news circulated a number of well disposed people founded the Coombe Lying-in Hospital, in 1826, for the relief of poor women.
The location for the Coombe Lying-in Hospital had been on the site of another Hospital, The Meath Hospital and County Dublin Infirmary. The foundation stone for the original building was laid by Lord Brabazon in October 1770 and opened the following year in 1771. Some fifty plus years later the old building would eventually become the Coombe Lying-in Hospital.
In 1823 the Meath Hospital was acquired by Doctor John Kirby (twice President of the Royal College of Surgeons) and moved to a new location known as Dean Swift’s Vineyard, in Heytesbury Street. Mrs Margaret Boyle of Upper Baggot Street (a leading member of the hospital’s new charitable committee) founded the Lying-In Hospital in the now vacated building of 81-84 The Coombe. With funding by bequest, supports by the Guinness family and other benefactors It officially opened as The Coombe Lying-In Hospital in 1829.
John Kirby was replaced as Master of the hospital by Hugh Carmichael in 1836 and the name changed to the ‘Coombe Lying-In Hospital and Dublin Ophthalmic Dispensary (Carmichael had a keen interest in ophthalmology). The hospital was granted a Royal Charter 1867 but by this time the original building was old and had deteriorated. Patients were moved to a new location on Peter Street (run by John Kirby) and with the support of Benjamin Guinness (among others) raised funding for a revamped hospital building which opened in 1877, including a dispensary and known as the ‘Guinness Dispy’.
During the nineteenth century institutionalised birth was not necessarily much safer for women than home birth. In Dublin as many as thirteen institutions at various times offered midwifery care during the nineteenth century. In the mid nineteenth century (according to the Census of 1851) eighteen percent of births in Dublin took place in lying-in hospitals. The rest took place in women’s homes, workhouses (twice the number than in lying-in hospitals), prison and the Westmoreland Lock Hospital (a hospital to treat venereal diseases in women and children where several births occurred each year).
Over the years thousands of births (approximately 300,000) had taken place in the lying-in hospital (today known as The Coombe Women & Infants University Hospital). The hospital remained in operation at this location until it was eventually moved, in 1967, to a new spot near Dolphin’s Barn (responsible for around 9000 births a year). The old location was demolished in 1974 to make way for a new housing development by Dublin Corporation and the portico is all that remains of the old site. With a clean up and conservation by Dublin Corporation The Portico became a monument in 1980 (officiated by Alderman Fergus O’Brien at the time ).
Today The Portico location and courtyard/entrance behind the monument is still a location for good works. It is used by a community group of volunteers for the distribution of free food parcels and called the D.8 Food Bank. Working from a small office on Meath Street they set up and distribute food parcels and other supplies Monday to Friday (from around 11am and up until about 2pm), and the parcels vary depending on what they have available. One of the volunteers, Margaret, explained that the group got together in 2020 when they saw the urgent need for a food bank in the area. They work in collaboration with the online FoodCloud site and are also very happy and appreciative to receive great support from businesses located in the area.
On a completely different note The Portico also displays a list of street characters of twentieth century Dublin, engraved on the rear of the monument. The list includes the following: The Magic Soap Man, The Grindstone Man, Johnny Wet Bread, Soodlum, The Prince Of Denmark, Bugler Dunne, Johnny Forty Coats, Houdini, The Earl Of Dalgashin, Windy Mills, Lady Hogan, The Tuggers, Bang Bang, Rags Bottles and Bones, Jembo No Toes, Stab The Rasher, Hairy Yank, Love Joy and Peace, Shell Shock Joe, The Umbrella Man, Hamlet, Nancy Needle Balls, Damn The Weather, Dun Lavin, Michael Bruen.
