The Smock Alley was the first Theatre Royal built in Dublin. John Ogilby opened it in 1662 as part of the Restoration of the British monarchy and King Charles II in 1660, along with the London's Drury Lane (1662) and the Lincoln's Inn Fields (1661). It was the first custom-built theatre in the city and still remains in substantially the same form, making it one of the most important sites in European theatre history.
The Smock Alley was the first theatre outside London to receive the title of Theatre Royal, but because it had been built on land reclaimed from the Liffey the building was unstable and the gallery collapsed twice, being rebuilt in1735.
In the mid 1740's Thomas Sheridan took on the role of manager of Smock Alley and made many improvements to it. While it was in operation as a theatre, it gave the world the plays of George Farquhar, Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and the brilliant performances of Peg Woffington, Thomas Sheridan, Spranger Barry and Charles Macklin. It was on this stage that David Garrick, the greatest actor of the 18th century, first played Hamlet.
The theatre closed in 1787. The building was then used as a whiskey store until Fr Michael Blake bought it to set a church that would work between 1811 and 1815. When the bell tolled in 1811, 18 years before the Catholic Emancipation; this was the first Catholic bell ringing in Dublin in nearly 300 years. The boasts ornate stained glass windows and the original ceiling plasterwork remain in the Smock Alley as a witness of this time.
In 1989, the church was deconsecrated due to falling numbers of parishioners. It was then redeveloped into the 'Viking Adventure', as part of the Temple Bar rejuvenation scheme, closing down in 2002.
The building is now in the safe hands of Smock Alley Theatre Ltd., which aims to bring it back to its original function. In 2009, the old Smock Alley theatre was found underground, adding to the project an even higher value as part of the theatre history in our country.
Besides recovering its old purpose, the Smock Alley will also be the new house of The Gaiety School of Acting – The National Theatre School of Ireland, and its first phase should be over by the end of 2010.
For more than a century, the Smock Alley put Irish theatre on the European map, acting as the very core of an Ireland striving to find its own voice. If we are to ask historically what makes theatre such an important part of culture today, we would need to go back more than two centuries before the founding of The Abbey Theatre, to the Smock Alley Theatre of the 17th century.
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