Wide Streets Commission

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The Wide Streets Commission was established by Act of Parliament, at the request of Dublin Corporation, in 1757, as a body to govern standards on the layout of streets, bridges, buildings and other architectural considerations in Dublin. The Dublin Improvement Act of 1849 abolished the Commission, the final meeting of the Commission taking place on 2 January 1851.^[1]

Over the following decades, the commission reshaped the old medieval city, and created a network of main thoroughfares by wholesale demolition or widening of old streets or the creation of entirely new ones.

One of the first projects was to widen Essex Bridge (now Grattan Bridge), in 1755 to cope with the traffic congestion caused by human, horse-drawn, and bovine traffic crossing the River Liffey from Capel Street. The building of Parliament Street and the Royal Exchange (now Dublin City Hall), to create a vista from across the river Liffey on Capel Street, soon followed.

Other major initiatives, under the then Chief Commissioner John Beresford, included the effort to merge and widen several narrow streets into one new street on Dublin's northside, creating Sackville Street (now called O'Connell Street). The main north-south axis of the city was thus moved from Capel Street and Parliament Street to the new thoroughfare further east.

Dame Street, College Green, Christchurch and George's Street are also the result of the project of widening Georgian Dublin's congested streets.