Tara Street is a major traffic route in Dublin, Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

, partly due to the current one-way traffic

One-way traffic

One-way traffic is traffic that moves in a single direction. A one-way street is a street either facilitating only one-way traffic, or designed to direct vehicles to move in one direction.-General signs:...

 flow in the city centre. It links Pearse Street

Pearse Street, Dublin

Pearse Street is one of the longest streets in Dublin and varies in use along its length. Its western end meets College Street near Townsend Street. Trinity College, Dublin forms its southern side here, with a Garda station to the north. As one proceeds east, Tara Street joins it along with a fire...

 to the northern side of the city via Butt Bridge

Butt Bridge

Butt Bridge is a road bridge in Dublin, Ireland which spans the River Liffey and joins George's Quay to Beresford Place and the north quays at Liberty Hall....

 - traffic flows to the north. The station gives its name to Tara Street railway station

Tara Street railway station

Tara Street is the 3rd busiest railway station in Ireland , with over 25,000 passengers using it daily. The station is arguably the closest station to the Dublin city centre and certainly is the closest to O'Connell Bridge....

, literally around the corner on Georges Quay

Georges Quay (Dublin)

George's Quay is a street in Dublin between Burgh Quay and Hawkins Street, in the west to City Quay and Moss Street in the east. Tara Street railway station is on this street and both Butt Bridge and Tara Street meet a short distance to the west of the station....

, near the northern end of Tara Street.

It was developed as a completely new street in 1885 replacing Shoe Lane (part of which was called Stocking Lane) and George's Street. The street was named after Tara

Hill of Tara

The Hill of Tara , located near the River Boyne, is an archaeological complex that runs between Navan and Dunshaughlin in County Meath, Leinster, Ireland...

, the home of the ancient high kings of Ireland.

In April 1907 Dublin Fire Brigade

Dublin Fire Brigade

The Dublin Fire Brigade is the local authority fire and rescue service for Dublin City and the majority of the Greater Dublin Area. It is a branch of Dublin City Council. There are currently 14 fire stations manned by DFB, 12 of which are full-time, the other 2 are part-time or "retained"....

 opened its headquarters at the new fire station at the corner of Tara Street and Pearse Street

Pearse Street, Dublin

Pearse Street is one of the longest streets in Dublin and varies in use along its length. Its western end meets College Street near Townsend Street. Trinity College, Dublin forms its southern side here, with a Garda station to the north. As one proceeds east, Tara Street joins it along with a fire...

. This would be the headquarters of the Fire Brigade until a new headquarters was opened in Townsend Street in 1998. The brick watch tower at the intersection of the two streets is now a protected structure.

During the Easter Rising

Easter Rising

The Easter Rising was an insurrection staged in Ireland during Easter Week, 1916. The Rising was mounted by Irish republicans with the aims of ending British rule in Ireland and establishing the Irish Republic at a time when the British Empire was heavily engaged in the First World War...

, British artillery shelled Liberty Hall

Liberty Hall

Liberty Hall , in Dublin, Ireland is the headquarters of the Services, Industrial, Professional, and Technical Union...

 from Tara Street, though the road surface made it difficult.

Tara Street was widened in 1932 after Butt Bridge

Butt Bridge

Butt Bridge is a road bridge in Dublin, Ireland which spans the River Liffey and joins George's Quay to Beresford Place and the north quays at Liberty Hall....

 was changed from a swing bridge to a three span fixed structure.

In October 2006, the Irish Times

The Irish Times

The Irish Times is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Kevin O'Sullivan who succeeded Geraldine Kennedy in 2011; the deputy editor is Paul O'Neill. The Irish Times is considered to be Ireland's newspaper of record, and is published every day except Sundays...

 moved to new headquarters in Tara Street. Previously, it had been based on D'Olier Street

D'Olier Street

D'Olier Street is a street in the southern city-centre of Dublin, the capital of Ireland. It and Westmoreland Street are two broad streets whose northern ends meet at the southern end of O'Connell Bridge over the River Liffey...

Literary connection

Leopold Bloom

Leopold Bloom

Leopold Bloom is the fictional protagonist and hero of James Joyce's Ulysses. His peregrinations and encounters in Dublin on 16 June 1904 mirror, on a more mundane and intimate scale, those of Ulysses/Odysseus in The Odyssey....

 used the Tara Street public baths in the Lotus Eaters section of the novel Ulysses

Ulysses (novel)

Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...

.