Overview
Broadstone has no main street, which is the first thing to understand about it. This is somewhere you read rather than tick off: there’s no ticketed attraction and no obvious centre, just a rough triangle north of the River Liffey, on the southern edge of Phibsborough in Dublin 7, bounded by Phibsborough Road, Constitution Hill, the North Circular Road and Dorset Street. Its identity was always built from infrastructure rather than commerce: the Royal Canal first, then the railways, now the Luas and the TU Dublin Grangegorman campus. The streets are lined with mid-sized red-brick houses put up for canal and railway workers, many still carrying their original half-circle fanlights and Georgian-style doors. If you make one stop, make it the Blessington Street Basin.
The former railway terminus faces Constitution Hill. View its stone frontage from the public footpath and keep the depot entrances clear.
Water and steam
Long before any of it, the area was Glasmanogue (Irish: Glas Mochanog, ‘Monck Green’). Viking settlers grazed it as common pasture, and by the late 18th century sketches show a boggy wetland. The turning point was 1789, when Dublin Corporation commissioned the Royal Canal. A spur reached Broadstone in 1801, creating a harbour on Constitution Hill that served the city markets and the law courts. By 1807 passenger boats were running regularly to Mullingar, and in 1810 a reservoir, the Blessington Street Basin, was dug to supply local drinking water.
The canal’s dominance ended when the Midland Great Western Railway bought the waterway in 1845. In 1850 the MGWR opened Broadstone railway station, one of Dublin’s original termini. John Skipton Mulvany designed it in a striking neo-Egyptian granite style, facing the King’s Inns, and it handled passengers, livestock and emigrants bound for Galway, Sligo and Westport. The Famine and the emigration that followed slowly drained the traffic. The last train arrived from Westport in 1937 and the station closed for good in 1961. It became a bus depot, so keep its entrances clear.
Landmarks and walking routes
For somewhere that lost both its canal and its railway, Broadstone keeps a remarkable density of old architecture and green space.
The King’s Inns
A legal institution founded in 1542, King’s Inns moved to Constitution Hill once the Four Courts went up in the 1790s. The current neoclassical building was designed by James Gandon and built between 1800 and 1823, deliberately turned to face the canal harbour the way Gandon faced the Custom House to the river. Alumni include Mary Robinson, Charles Haughey and Patrick Pearse. It is best appreciated from the street; the interior is not a general visitor attraction.
The Black Church
Officially St Mary’s Chapel of Ease, this 1830 Gothic-revival building was designed by John Semple. The nickname comes from the gloomy, windowless interior rather than the dark-grey stone outside. It has a distinctive parabolic arch that forms both wall and ceiling. It anchors the North Circular Road visually, and it earned its place in print too: James Joyce put it in Ulysses, and it gave Austin Clarke the title of his memoir, Twice Round the Black Church. View it from the street.
Blessington Street Basin
The Blessington Street Basin once stored water for the north city and is now a walled park with a pond and a gate lodge. Dublin City Council restored the old reservoir in the early 1990s after years of neglect, removing six thousand tons of silt and enlarging a central island for wildlife. The council publishes seasonal closing times, so check them before you go.
Beside it, the Royal Canal Bank follows the filled-in line of the original spur and joins the main towpath of the Royal Canal.
Regeneration and culture
Broadstone’s recent revival runs on education and transport. The Luas Green Line opened in 2017 along the former railway corridor, with stops serving the TU Dublin Grangegorman campus. The new traffic has brought café openings and better street lighting without much disturbing the residential grain.
Worth knowing for literary visitors: James Joyce lived at 44 Fontenoy Street from 1909 to 1910 while trying to set up Dublin’s first cinema.
Getting there
For public transport, use the Luas Green Line at Broadstone, which also serves Broom Bridge, and check the TFI journey planner for the return. Check current Luas operating times on the Luas website.
On-street parking in the surrounding streets is limited, so public transport is the easier option. The King’s Inns and Black Church are private buildings: view them from the street only.