Cook Street () is a street in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

running from Bridge Street to

Winetavern Street Winetavern Street is a street in the medieval area of Dublin, Ireland. Location Winetavern Street runs from High Street northwards and down to the quays, passing Christ Church Cathedral on its east side, in the heart of Medieval Dublin. Hist ...

, in the heart of

Medieval Dublin The City of Dublin can trace its origin back more than 1,000 years, and for much of this time it has been Ireland's principal city and the cultural, educational and industrial centre of the island. Founding and early history The earliest refer ...

History

Cook Street is named for the Guild of Cooks, whose guildhall was on the street. It appears on maps from 1270, and was referred to as ''Vicus Cocorum'' (the street of the cooks) or Le Coke Street. The two last remaining pieces of the Dublin city walls visible above ground can be seen at St Audoen's Church at Cook Street and at Cornmarket nearby. This stretch of wall contains the only extant Dublin gate, known as St Audoen's Arch. This wall marked the northern edge of the medieval Dublin city. The wall is 10 metres high and 83 metres long. It is thought that cooks set up their businesses outside of the city walls due to the unhygienic conditions inside the walls of Dublin or due to the fire risk cooking fires and ovens would have posed to the primarily wooden structures inside the city walls. Being close to the River Liffey also supplied water should a fire break out. Among the early residents of the street were the

Burnell family The Burnell family were a Dublin family who were prominent in Irish public life and in the arts from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century. They acquired substantial estates in County Dublin, and married into the Anglo-Irish aristocracy. They ...

and former Lord Mayor of Dublin, Sir James Carroll. A number of religious orders have historically resided on the street, including Carmelites, Franciscans, and Dominicans. The Franciscan monastery on Cook Street was destroyed on 26 December 1629 by a group led by Dr

Launcelot Bulkeley Lancelot (Launcelot) Bulkeley (1568? – 8 September 1650) was a Welsh Archbishop of Dublin and member of the Privy Council of Ireland. Life He was the eleventh and youngest son of Sir Richard Bulkeley of Beaumaris and Cheadle, but the eld ...

, the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin. The

Church of the Immaculate Conception, Dublin The Church of the Immaculate Conception, also known as Adam and Eve's, is a Roman Catholic church run by the Franciscans and it is located on Merchants Quay, Dublin. History During the Dissolution reign of King Henry VIII around 1540 the Fri ...

on Merchants Quay is commonly referred to as Adam and Eve's, named for the Adam and Eve tavern on Cook Street where Catholic mass was held secretly. Posing as tavern patrons, Catholics would give a guard the password "I am going to the Adam and Eve". In the mid-1800s, Old Moore's Almanac was printed by John Nugent on Cook Street. At the time a large number of the businesses on Cook Street were coffin makers, leading to one of Nugent's rivals calling his Almanac "the Rushlight of Coffin Colony". In the early part of the 1800s, there were 16 coffin makers on Cook street. This fell to 5 by the end of the century.

References

{{reflist Streets in Dublin (city)