The fiery history of city’s Hell

DUBLIN is home to two medieval cathedrals, namely Christ Church and St Patrick’s. They stand less than one kilometre apart, but in 18th-century Dublin they stood worlds apart. Just beside and underneath Christ Church lay a district with a name as foreboding as its reputation, ‘Hell.’

Long before Temple Bar became Dublin’s nightlife hub, Hell was the city’s original underbelly, a maze of taverns, brothels, and crooked lanes where drink, debauchery, and crime reigned.

Origins of the name

The name ‘Hell’ may have sprung from the cramped, shadowy laneways that seemed like an underworld compared to the broader streets above. Others trace it back to Dublin’s Norse settlers, who used Hel to describe the land of the dead.

The district was also home to Dublin’s original Four Courts, where criminals often received severe sentences, another possible inspiration for the ominous name. Folklore adds yet another tale, a tavern in the cathedral crypt once locked in an unfortunate patron who was only discovered months later as a skeleton. That tavern was dubbed ‘Hell’ and the name spread to the surrounding streets.

Whatever its origin, the name carried weight. Trinity College threatened to expel students who ventured into the quarter after dark and satirists quipped: “In Dublin, you could pray in Heaven and sin in Hell without crossing a street.”

A den of vice and danger

By the 17th and 18th centuries, Hell was firmly established as Dublin’s vice district, predating even the infamous Monto on the city’s northside. Drink, gambling and prostitution flourished. Court records speak of drunken brawls, gaming houses, and brothels.

But it was not only indulgence seekers who came here, Hell was also a haven for pickpockets and highwaymen—its twisting alleys providing perfect cover for crime. One magistrate of the era described it as ‘a labyrinth where honest men go astray, and seldom come out with purse or dignity intact.’

Among its most notorious figures was Darkey Kelly (above), a madam whose brothel operated in Hell until a skeleton was discovered in the basement of her establishment. Accused of witchcraft and of attempting to blackmail Sheriff Simon Luttrell by claiming she carried his child, she was executed by burning near St Stephen’s Green in 1761. A pub on Fishamble Street immortalizes her name today

Folklore and firebrands

The district’s notoriety made it a favourite target of Dublin’s clergy. Preachers thundered from pulpits about the dangers of living ‘within a stone’s throw of Hell,’ using the name as a ready-made metaphor for sin.

Folklore deepened its mystique. Strongbow’s tomb inside Christ Church Cathedral was said to host clandestine deals and the entrance to Hell itself was marked by a carved wooden bust of Satan hanging above the archway.

The end of Hell

By the 19th century, Hell’s days were numbered. The Wide Streets Commissioners, tasked with modernising Dublin, demolished or renamed its alleys. The district was gradually absorbed into new housing developments until only whispers of its existence remained.

Today, a stroll down Fishamble Street or around Christ Church reveals nothing of Hell’s former infamy. Yet the contrast lingers, for every solemn sermon, there was once a rowdy tavern; for every grand Georgian townhouse, a slum. As one historian noted: “Hell was more than a place. It was Dublin’s conscience, its dark mirror, reminding the city of the vices it could never quite banish.”

Visiting today

Christ Church Cathedral and its crypt remain open to visitors. Highlights include the tomb of Strongbow, the heart of St Laurence O’Toole, a copy of the Magna Carta, and even a mummified cat and rat, strange relics of a city where Heaven and Hell once stood side by side.