The River Poddle runs through it, though largely in an underground culvert, and it holds a major cemetery, Mount Jerome, and Our Lady's Hospice.

Harold's Cross is situated north of Terenure and Rathgar, west of Rathmines, east of Crumlin and Kimmage, and directly south from the Grand Canal at Clanbrassil Street.

At the southern end of the district, the river's course splits at the centuries-old "Tongue" or "Stone Boat" with part of its flow diverted underground into the "City Watercourse" culvert, while the mainline continues overground, passing through ponds.

Debating the question is considered a good way to start an argument in the area, since there is no clear or contemporaneously recorded answer, with many authoritatively and insistently stated, albeit significantly different explanations since the 19th century, with at least some tenuous justification to each.

An aspect of the name theories is that Harold’s Cross lies on the ancient Slíghe Chualann, a major South to North route and one of the ‘Five Great Roads’ of medieval Ireland and a key southern entry point into Dublin City via Clanbrassil Street.

Harold’s Cross lies on the medieval Slíghe Chualann, of the Five great roads of Ireland, and thus would have been an important entry point into Dublin from the South.

[7] The 1916 Volunteers, who had a training ground in nearby Kimmage, are said to have paid a visit to Mount Argus Church to pray just before taking part in the 1916 Easter Rising.

O'Connor's Jewellers on Harold's Cross Road was the location of one of two robberies carried out by the notorious Dublin criminal Martin Cahill in the 1980s.

Honour Bright, a prostitute (real name Elizabeth (Lily) O'Neill) was murdered in June 1925, and her body found in the mountains.

[9] Dr Patrick Purcell, a medical doctor in County Wicklow, and Leopold J. Dillon, a Garda, were put on trial charged with the murder but were acquitted.

There was a well-established community of Quakers in Harold's Cross that operated a number of industries in the locality including cotton, paper and flour milling during the 19th century.

[11][12] Quaker brothers Thomas Pim and Robert Goodbody decided to relocate Goodbody Tobacco manufacturing to Greenville near Harolds Cross after a disastrous fire in their Tullamore premises in 1886; as a result, most of their employees were also relocated to the area, where red brick terrace housing was built in the area by the Dublin Artizans' Dwellings Company, in which the Pim family were prominent members.

See the discussion above) In 1804 the sisters of the order of St. Clare[16] moved to the village to run a female orphanage (named after San Damiano), founded the previous year.

At one side of Harold's Cross is Mount Jerome Cemetery, as mentioned in Joyce's Ulysses, originally one of the residences of an extensive family named Shaw.

She bought a large Georgian house at Greenmount from an abolitionist family called Webb who were members of the Society of Friends (Quakers),[22] after she offered more than a rival bid from Mount Jerome cemetery.

[citation needed] Harold's Cross Stadium was one of two main greyhound racing stadia in Dublin, the other being Shelbourne Park in Ringsend.

[33][34] Shelbourne FC, the League of Ireland side, played at the Harold's Cross greyhound stadium during the period 1975-77 and again from 1983 to 1989 before moving to the refurbished home ground of Tolka Park.

[citation needed] St Patrick's Athletic also played at the greyhound stadium from 1989/90 up to November 1993, while work was being done to its Richmond Park home.