The Liberties

This guide to the Liberties in Dublin centers on the night of June 18th 1875, when fire broke out in a bonded whiskey warehouse on Chamber Street and thousands of casks began to explode, sending a burning river of spirits down Ardee Street, Cork Street and Mill Street toward the Coombe. It follows the firefighters, soldiers and police who reached the blaze within minutes and found that water only made things worse, and the tenement residents of these streets who came out to see it. Even a dog reportedly went mad on the fumes that night.