“At the corner of George’s Street, he met two friends of his and stopped to converse with them.”
– James Joyce “Dubliners”.
George’s Street is well known for it’s long and illustrious history and character. George’s Street Arcade opened in 1876. While it succumbed to a devastating fire in 1892, it was rebuilt and has become one of the oldest shopping markets in the world. George’s Street is a place soaked in history and a melting pot of culture, as well as a site of many firsts. Home to the first ever department store (Pims) in 1856, the background of famous books and stories, it was referenced in James Joyce’s “Dubliners”, Eveline works in “the stores”, long thought to be, either the South City Markets (George’s Street Arcade) or Pim’s Department Store, both of which were located on the historic street. Over a hundred years later it became to site of the first Japanese restaurant, the first Mexican restaurant and the first Gay club in Dublin, drawing natives and tourists alike with its charm and quirky characters.
The building where the Chelsea Drugstore resides, was originally a pharmacy at the turn of the 1900s, it was first opened by Messers Whisby and later taken over by Hayes, Conyngham, and Robinson, Ltd. Messers Whisby were famed around Dublin, for researching the healing power of cocoa and were the first people to sell it from their pharmacy for medicinal usage!
