Thomas Street runs past the Guinness brewery's brick sheds, and Sing Street shot its park scenes in the churchyard behind St. Catherine's Church.
What The Liberties looks like
Thomas Street runs 600 metres from Cornmarket to St James's Gate, twelve metres wide and one of only four streets in Dublin where street trading is still legally permitted. Market stalls stand outside the brick shopfronts, some with roller shutters down and one boarded up behind steel props.
At the western end the street runs along the brewery's own brick perimeter, gates and railings fencing it from the pavement, with the Storehouse's glass tower rising behind. Vat houses and sheds continue the block in dark brick, taller than the terraces around them.
Behind Thomas Street, and carry the same brick fronts at a smaller scale, red and brown brick with a few rendered Georgian houses among them. Cobbles still run under some of the side lanes, including the gap behind Fumbally Lane. Number 130 Thomas Street, a small brick house dated to around 1640, sits low among the later buildings.
St. Catherine's Church stands at the western end of Thomas Street, a stone portico and a small churchyard behind iron railings. and stand toward the street's eastern end, their towers visible above the market rooftops.
Shot in The Liberties
For Sing Street (2016), the production shot two scenes in the area. Conor and Raphina's scenes together were filmed in the small churchyard beside St. Catherine's Church on Thomas Street, doubling as a park in the film, and the band stops at Fusco's takeaway on Meath Street after finishing their music video.
Sing Street, 2016
The churchyard beside St. Catherine's Church stands in as a park in the film, where Conor gives Raphina his tapes and she teaches him about love. Iron railings and the church's own stone portico face onto Thomas Street, with trees inside the yard behind them. Street View
Ancoats's red brick cotton mills went up from the 1790s, thick walled and built wide for heavy machinery, close in scale to the brewery's own sheds and vat houses on Thomas Street. Murray's Mills on Union Street are the nearest match for that industrial bulk. Ancoats's mills stand taller and closer together than the brewery's low sheds, so a tight lens keeps the surrounding towers out of a wide shot. Try searching red brick mills now.
Georgetown in Washington, D.C.
Georgetown's Federal rowhouses date from the 1790s through the 1810s, brick fronted and set close to cobblestone streets, a similar scale to the brick fronts on the side streets here. Smith Row on N Street is the clearest run from that period. Georgetown's streets run wider and its old canal towpath has no equivalent here, so a tight frame on one block reads better than a wide one. Try searching Federal rowhouses now.
Fell's Point in Baltimore, Maryland
Fell's Point's waterfront runs on cobblestone streets lined with Flemish bond brick rowhouses from the eighteenth century, a similar working scale to the brick fronts and market stalls on Thomas Street. Houses there run two and three storeys, close to the terraces here. Fell's Point runs flat to the harbour with no equivalent to the brewery's industrial bulk, so keep any brewery scale building out of a Fell's Point read. Try searching cobblestone streets now.
