Street Wise – The Left Bank and Bastion Street

This series of articles for the Westmeath Independent is run in conjunction with the Street Wise Athlone series on Athlone Community Radio which is broadcast on Wednesdays during Athlone Today at 2.30pm and repeated on Thursday mornings at 10am on The Brekkie Show

Athlone Miscellany by Gearoid O'Brien

When the subject of the Left Bank came up in conversation prior to 1990 it was fairly safe to assume that the topic of conversation was Paris. In the late eighteenth century Paris was divided into twelve areas known as ‘arrondissements’. Nine of these were located on the Right Bank (Rive Droite) of the River Seine and just three were on the Left Bank (Rive Gauche) of the river.

Historically, the Right Bank was the commercial heart of Paris. It was inhabited by the upper classes, and it was the location of the great museums and galleries of the city. The Left Bank was considered to be the Bohemian district. The Sorbonne and other Universities were located on the 5th and 6th arrondissements, an area often referred to as the Latin Quarter. The Left Bank was where cheap accommodation could be found and consequently it was the haunt of both students and impoverished artists.

Apparently the first mention of the Left Bank in literature was in 1915 but the term was probably in use since the late Victorian times at least.

Athlone’s Left Bank

I always associate the term ‘The Left Bank’ in Athlone with the celebration of the Tercentenary of the Siege of Athlone in 1991, so I wasn’t surprised when the first mention of the Left Bank that I could find in this paper was in December 1991 when describing the plans for Santa’s visit to Athlone on 7th December that year they wrote: “…he will now get his carriages and helpers to bring him around the Castle and the Left Bank, from there he will proceed to Bastion Street, onto Connaught Street and down Pearse Street”.

In September 1994 in a profile of the late Sean Fitzsimons, also carried in this paper, it states “The Left Bank” title associated with the Main Street area was started by Sean. “We are on the Left Bank so I thought we might capitalise on it,” he says. He feels that the area surrounding the bar lends itself to that kind of title “It is a hub of good shops, good pubs and good restaurants…” he said. For many years Sean Fitzsimons lived on a barge ‘Ye Iron Lung’ which was (and is still) moored on The Quays – one would have thought he would have known where the Left Bank was…but not so. The result is that, Athlone probably has the unique distinction of having an area known as the Left Bank which is actually located on the right bank of the Shannon!

When the news of the new edition of the Egan Ronay Guide was announced in May 1999 their reviewer said that he could hardly believe his luck after stumbling upon top class accommodation at Higgins's Pub, great food at Restaurant Le Chateau, and the best in pub culture at Sean’s Bar without having to walk 100 yards. The Westmeath Independent wrote: “the three proud proprietors have welcomed their inclusion in the tourist bible as a sign that the Left Bank area of the town is now firmly established as a unique cultural enclave with a special atmosphere and hospitality all of its own".

In It is fair to say that the use of the term ‘Left Bank’ didn’t appeal to everyone. In June that year Cllr Beaumont objected to the use of the term Left Bank for the west side of the town, he described it as a ‘vulgarity’ from people who were not natives of the town. However, the term certainly gained public approval and is now firmly embedded in the local consciousness. In 1995 Annie McNamara and Mary McCullagh founded The Left Bank Bistro, an award-winning restaurant, which has in its own way done a great deal to spread the fame of Athlone’s Left Bank far and wide. Indeed, the Left Bank area is today synonymous with some great shops, fine dining and some of the most popular pubs in the town.

The Extent of the Left Bank

Perhaps the late Sean Fitzsimons envisaged the name ‘The Left Bank’ being applied just to Main Street and its environs but in time the area recognised as the Left Bank extended from Main Street to incorporate the whole block including Fry Place, High Street, Bastion Street, O’Connell Street, Pearse Street, Pearse Court, Barrack Street and Castle Street.

Historically, Bastion Street is extremely interesting as it takes its name from a Bastion in the medieval town defences. On the Leinster side the town defences took the form of town walls – the first murage grant (or grant for building a wall) was made in 1251 and during the late medieval period these early defences were improved by the addition of the North Gate and the Dublin Gate (or East Gate) in the 16th century. In the seventeenth century Cromwell’s engineers further fortified the Leinster side defences by the building of stone bastions making Athlone the only Walled Town in Ireland to have bastions. Part of one of these bastions has been preserved just outside the Civic Centre in Church Street, while the stretch of Town Wall along the side of St Mary’s Church of Ireland has recently had extensive conservation work carried out on it.

On the Connaught side of the town, apart from the fortifications of the Castle and the Connaught Tower, the next attempt to fortify the west town came in the 1650s when a series of earthen rampart walls and bastions were built creating a security circuit extending as far as the present Bastion Street, which takes both its name and outline from part of one of these bastions. Because of the nature of these defences and the fact that they were probably largely destroyed during the Williamite bombardments of the Castle and its environs we know comparatively little about the western defences of Athlone apart from what we can see on maps. Later defences of the western town included the Batteries which were built during the Napoleonic era, the last evidence of which is the substantial remains of the No 1 Battery.

Bastion Street

Bastion Street we believe, forms the central axis of the West Bastion. The ‘nose’ of the bastion was at the junction of O’Connell Street and Grattan Row, and the southern flank of the bastion was in Grattan Row. In other words, much of the shape of this streetscape was dictated by the lay-out of the bastion. The bastion which gives the street its name dates to the early to mid-1650s. On an estate map of 1784 the street we now call Grattan Row was marked ‘old road’, and before it became Grattan Row it was Chapel Lane (north) – Grattan Row probably dates to the 1890s, the houses were certainly occupied by the time of the 1901 Census, and like much of this area this street was developed by the Lyster family, one of Athlone’s premier building contractors in Victorian times.

In 1756 the street we now know as Bastion Street was referred to as Royal Bastion, the term Bastion Street seems to have come into use by the mid-nineteenth century.

Next article: O'Connell Street and surroundings.

You can read the previous articles in the series here