I’m not sure what got me thinking about this, but last night I was remembering the similarities in riverfront architecture in Savannah, GA and Dublin, Ireland.
Savannah’s Irish heritage is well-known. They have the nation’s second-largest St. Patrick’s Day Parade. I thought it was interesting in a historic cemetery that it was easy to tell which gravestones were Catholic. They would have a Latin quote like “Gloria in excelsis deo” or “Ave Maria gratia plena.” I also remember reading that the cobblestones for Savannah’s streets came from Ireland. They would weigh down the empty ships with stones for ballast. In Savannah, they would dump the stones and load the ships with cotton.
I’m surprised that I can’t find anything online about this architectural connection between Savannah and Ireland. The buildings in Savannah were once warehouses for cotton companies. One could imagine these buildings might have been built by the same companies on both sides of the Atlantic.
I saw an article mentioning the Dublin quays being architecturally similar to ones in Paris.
I’m not architecture expert, and I see the similarity, but I feel like Dublin and Savannah’s riverfronts look way more similar. Maybe all urban river docks from the early 1800 worldwide look similar. But I feel like this is an interesting Savannah/Ireland connection that may be little-noticed.
