Sir, – I can understand John O'Brien's (April 28th) reaction to seeing the name St Pancras attached to a new housing development in that most aspirational of Dublin postcodes, 6W.
Walking past the hoarding on Harold's Cross Road, I too was struck by a sense of the incongruous. Suspecting an irrelevant and pretentious association with the well-known London place name, and irritated by this marketing fluff, the faux-grandeur of Celtic Tiger revival, I almost felt an letter to The Irish Times coming on, along the lines of developers getting "above their station".
However, when I researched the local history, I found Ordnance Survey (OS) maps of 1878/82 showing the name of St Pancras assigned to a building previously called Mount Tallant Lodge in the Survey of 1843. OS maps from the 20th century show St Pancras Works on the Mount Tallant Avenue site.
In the 1920s the house known as St Pancras became the offices for the adjacent Clarnico-Murray confectionery plant.
The Clarnico Mint Cream was one of the company’s most popular products, and the name was retained by Bassett’s when Clarnico ceased manufacturing in the 1970s.
The name St Pancras has the merit of historic authenticity. I imagine the developers expect to make a mint as well. – Yours, etc,
ALAN SWEETMAN,
Dublin 12.