Santo Domingo Square

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Squares, streets & markets

The square at Santo Domingo is possibly one of the best places to understand the history of the neighbourhood.

Firstly, the oficial version. This square, next to the church it presides, is the only vestige we have left of the powerful Dominican convent of San Pedro Mártir, and is where the long somber shadow of the Inquisition was projected, right nearby. On 22nd February 1614, it was burnt alive by the secular arm of Dutch seaman Gaspar Nicolás Claysen. The orchards of the Dominican convent, nowadays occupied by the feligresía de Santo Domingo, was the site chosen for such a gruesome show. The square is full of stories of friars jealous of their privileges, forever up against the Cathedral Cabildo government or against their Agustino rivals from lower Vegueta. Stories of an old convent which was expropriated, turned into a leprosy refuge and mental hospital, and finally demolished. 

Santo Domingo is also, however, part of the daily history of this old district, a square of Canary stone benches with volutes which served as improvised desks for school studies. Or Indian laurel trees providing cool shade for locals to get together and put the world to rights. A square to come and eat some pastries, cakes and crusty bread, or snack out on sardines, limpets with rum, at "La Vieja" and "La Africana". A stage set for fiestas now harking after the old pilgrimages to the Virgin of El Rosario, under bright street lights. Or the San Blas days, with miraculous thread collars that were said to act as a vaccine against the much feared croup illness. A great Easter square, with drums hailing a "gathering" in Santa Ana or a stormy afternoon where a "flogged Christ" became the "Jesus of Hail".

Santo Domingo is the perfect spot for kids to run around, with the façade of the church used as goalposts. One of the few places in the neighbourhood where it didn't matter where you were from, but how you kicked the ball.

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