The Little Book of Dundrum

by Hugh Oram

Overview

The Little Book of Dundrum is a compendium of fascinating, obscure, strange and entertaining facts about this vibrant suburb of Dublin. This book takes the reader on a journey through Dundrum and its intricate past. Here you will find out about Dundrum's famous sons and daughters, its churches, pubs, shops and great houses, its industries and its natural history. You will also glimpse a darker side to Dundrum's past with a look at crime and mayhem in the district. A reliable reference book and a quirky guide, this can be dipped into time and time again to reveal something new about the people, the heritage and the secrets of this south Dublin suburb.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780750962865
Publisher:	The History Press
Publication date:	12/01/2014
Series:	Little Book Of
Sold by:	INDEPENDENT PUB GROUP - EPUB - EBKS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	144
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

HUGH ORAM was an author, broadcaster and journalist with countless articles and books to his name, who lived and worked in Dublin for many years.

Read an Excerpt

The Little Book of Dundrum

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By Hugh Oram

The History Press

Copyright © 2014 Hugh Oram
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7509-6286-5

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CHAPTER 1

TIMELINE

Seventh century The original St Nahi's (St Nasi's) church is built. Frequent raids into what is now the Dundrum area by Wicklow tribes, including the O'Byrnes and the O'Tooles; these continue until the sixteenth century.

1178 First mention of Tawney or Taney parish.

1179 Papal Bull mentions 'the middle place of Tighney'.

Twelfth century Soon after the Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland in 1169, the lands at Dundrum and Taney were assigned to the de Clahull family. However, their tenure lasts less than a century.

1268 The lands at Dundrum come into the possession of Sir Robert Baggot of Baggotrath.

Thirteenth century The original Dundrum Castle is built close to the site of the present Holy Cross Catholic church; the name Dundrum comes from the Irish for 'fort on the ridge'. The castle had been built to keep the Wicklow tribes at bay.

Fourteenth century In the earlier part of this century, Ireland was in a state of lawlessness and the lands between Dundrum and Dublin were completely devastated. The Fitzwilliams, who came from around Swords, take control of the lands in the Dundrum area.

1593 New version of Dundrum Castle is built by Richard Fitzwilliam.

1640 The Dundrum population included thirty-three Catholics and fourteen Protestants.

1653 The last of the Fitzwilliam family to have lived in Dundrum Castle, William, had departed, although they retained control until the late eighteenth century.

1730 Mill House, in its present form, was built, although some reports say it was built earlier.

1791 Earliest surviving original records of Taney parish.

1801 Dundrum has an iron mill and a paper mill, both on the River Slang.

1813 Original Catholic church is built on Main Street.

1818 Present Taney Church of Ireland church is built.

1850 Central Criminal Lunatic Asylum is opened at Windy Arbour.

1853 Queen Victoria visits William Dargan, Ireland's great railway builder, at his home, Mount Anville.

1854 The Dublin and South Eastern Railway, later known as the Harcourt Street line, arrives in Dundrum. The railway station opens on 10 July 1854.

1856 Dundrum Courthouse is built.

1866 Extensions to Mount Anville as the present school opens in the former house of William Dargan.

1878 Holy Cross church opens in Dundrum and the parish created the following year.

1892 Dundrum is recorded as having a population of 540; the village consists of little more than the main street.

1894 Trevor Overend, a Dublin solicitor, buys an eighteenth-century farmhouse at Balally, which after reconstruction, became Airfield.

1901 Census: Farranboley (Windy Arbour) had twenty-six houses.

1903 Dun Emer Press, in which W.B. Yeats and some of his family were closely involved, opened in Dundrum.

1907 King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra visit the races at Leopardstown, returning to Dublin via Balally and Dundrum, bedecked in Union Jack flags for the occasion.

1911 Census: Dundrum has 140 houses.

1912 During the visit to Ireland of King George V and Queen Mary, they visited Leopardstown Races. Coming back from the racecourse, the route included Dundrum's Main Street, festooned for the occasion with Union Jack flags, as in 1907.

1914 Carnegie Library opens in Dundrum.

1917 A local GP, Dr Isaac Usher, is knocked down and killed by a car near the railway station and an obelisk with a fountain is later erected nearby in his memory.

1921 On 11 July 1921 a truce is declared, bringing the War of Independence to an end. A celebratory bonfire is lit at the crossroads in Dundrum that evening.

1923 On 24 May the Civil War, which had begun in June 1922, ends. Many of the negotiations to end it had been conducted in the Dundrum area.

1942 Manor Mill Laundry closes down after trading for nearly eighty years.

1943 Pye opens its radio factory in Dundrum, making wireless sets and similar appliances; in its heyday it was the largest employer in the area.

1959 1 January the Harcourt Street line, including Dundrum railway station, closes down.

1969 Dom Marmian Society opens to help the disabled, the old, the sick and the lonely in Dundrum.

1971 Dundrum Shopping Centre, one of the earliest in Ireland, opens on Main Street in Dundrum. It's now known as the Dundrum Village Centre.

1981 Jim Nolan publishes the first edition of his book, The Changing Face of Dundrum. It went through five editions to 1993.

1990 Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Council, which includes the Dundrum area, becomes one of three new councils formed to replace Dublin County Council.

2001 Dundrum by-pass opened.

2002 In October the Dargan Luas bridge opens.

2004 On 30 June the Luas Green Line opens, using the old track-bed of the Harcourt Street line.

2005 On 3 March the Dundrum Town Centre opens.

CHAPTER 2

BUILDINGS

CARNEGIE LIBRARY

One of the main focal points of the community in Dundrum, the Carnegie Library, was designed by an architect called Rudolph Maximilian Butler, who designed more libraries than any other Irish architect. The cost of building the new library in 1910 was a little over £1,500. It was created as one of a chain of libraries opened in Ireland and elsewhere, funded by the Scottish-American philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie.

The Carnegie Library in Dundrum was opened by the Lord Chancellor in August 1914, days after the start of the First World War. The two-storey building was, and still is, noted for the Doric columns on either side of its main entrance and the fine plasterwork on its façade. In 1973, an extensive renovation of the building was carried out by the then Dublin County Council, but the structural elements remained intact.

Today, the library has a fine array of facilities, in addition to its book collection and extensive material on local history and studies. In its earlier years, the library was also used as an entertainment centre. The upper floor had a stage, and concerts, dramas and dancing displays were put on there.

Beside the present-day library is a row of whitewashed cottages, which date from about 1850. Little changed on the exterior, they give a glimpse of what old Dundrum must have looked like in the earlier nineteenth century.

CRIMINAL LUNATIC ASYLUM

Now known as the Central Mental Hospital, this building owes its origins to the recommendations made by a parliamentary committee that had been set up in 1843 under Lord Sugden, the then Lord Chancellor. A similar facility at Broadmoor in southern England didn't open until 1863, nearly fifteen years after the opening of the institution at Windy Arbour. It took the ideological approach of treating crime and mental disorder as two sides of the same coin. The building in Windy Arbour became the first secure hospital of its kind in Europe.

Work on building the vast, forbidding block on a 14-hectare site began in 1847 and was essentially completed by 1850. The new hospital was designed by two architects from the Board of Public Works, now the Office of Public Works (OPW). One of those architects was Jacob Owen, born in Montgomeryshire in Wales in 1778. He was appointed architect and engineer of the Board of Public Works in 1832 and he remained there until his retirement in 1856.

Among the other buildings in Ireland he designed is what is now Garda headquarters in the Phoenix Park and Arbour Hill Prison. Owen was also instrumental in helping set up the Irish Civil Service Building Society in 1864, but in 1867, he left Ireland for good and settled in Hampshire. He died in England in 1870 and is buried in Dublin.

His fellow architect on the asylum scheme was Frederick Clarendon, who worked for the Board of Public Works from 1839 until he retired in 1887. His mother-in-law was a daughter of Jacob Owen.

The Central Mental Hospital site at Dundrum has long been considered unsuitable for purpose. Government policy is to sell off the site at Windy Arbour for development and relocate the hospital. Initially, the plan was to move it beside the planned new Thornton Hall Prison in north County Dublin, a plan that raised many objections and never materialised. A more recent plan is for the hospital to be transferred to a new building at Portane, also in north County Dublin.

DUNDRUM COURTHOUSE, UPPER KILMACUD ROAD

This building dates to around 1856. It was designed by two of the most distinguished Victorian architects working in Ireland, Deane and Woodward. It's sometimes said locally that the plans went to India by mistake, so that India got what should have been Dundrum's courthouse, while Dundrum got the present building, which should have been a school in India. Rebuilt after being burned down in 1923, the courthouse remained in use until the mid-1990s, but was then derelict for over a decade.

Refurbishment didn't begin until 2012 and what was once the courthouse now provides an extension of facilities for the Garda station next door, itself once described as one of the worst equipped in the country.

DUNDRUM RAILWAY STATION

This station was designed by William Dargan, built for the opening of what became the Harcourt Street line. Dargan lived nearby, at Mount Anville, and he used the station regularly to travel in and out to Dublin city centre. His involvement meant that the station was better designed and more comfortable than any of the other stations on the old line, with plenty of waiting room space and ticket offices on both sides the platform. The old station on the Taney Road side of the line survived various changes of use and still exists for the Luas line; it now houses a café. But the station building on the Dundrum Main Street side of the line has long since been demolished, as has the old footbridge.

GORT MUIRE, BALLINTEER

What is now the Gort Muire Carmelite centre and friary was designed in 1860 – its original name was Gortmore – by a renowned architect of the time, John Skipton Mulvany. He also designed the big house at Mount Anville, which became the home of William Dargan. As for Gortmore, it was such a colossal house it took ten years to complete. In 1944, Gortmore was taken over by the Irish Province of Carmelites, which had been based in Rathgar, where they were rapidly running out of space. Their Rathgar site became the original site of Mount Carmel Hospital, which closed down in 2014. Mount Carmel Hospital has now been purchased by the Health Service Executive as a step-down facility. At Gort Muire, the order started major extensions in 1946, while the new oratory was completed in 1948. For this oratory, a painting of the Scapular vision was created by renowned artist Seán Keating. A new conference centre was opened at Gort Muire in 1975 and today, the place still has a student novitiate, with Irish clerical students and indeed students from all over the world.

TANEY PARISH CENTRE

This centre was created in 1991 and is beside the existing Church of Ireland parish church at Taney. The new centre is approached by a small courtyard; light fills the courtyard from the large glazed screen and the fine stained-glass windows in the church. The interior was designed by DMOD architects to withstand heavy usage. The centre also includes a sports hall. Since its inception, the parish centre has become a very popular community venue for a wide range of local activities.

CHAPTER 3

CHURCHES

ARMENIAN

The St Hripsime Armenian Sunday School was established in 2009, meeting in the Taney Parish Centre, where the Sunday School and other community celebrations are staged on a regular basis. Between 150 and 350 Armenians live in Ireland, so the Taney Parish Centre is a social and religious hub.

ASYLUM SERVICES

In 1867, a licence was given for Divine Service at the then almost new Criminal Lunatic Asylum in Windy Arbour. Today, Church of Ireland services are still held at the Central Mental Hospital. However, the original Church of Ireland chapel at the hospital was donated to the local Catholic parish in the late nineteenth century.

BAPTIST CHURCH

Hope Baptist Church, which is just behind the Garda station on the Upper Kilmacud Road, has been established for over ten years. Its lively congregation is led by the pastor, Dan Canavan, and among the facilities is a crèche for the children of parents attending services. People who believe that each person must experience individual salvation through a personal faith in Christ alone have met up in various forms in Dundrum from the mid-1990s onwards. In September 2004, they were organised into the Hope Baptist Church at Shamrock House on the Upper Kilmacud Road, Dundrum. By November 2011, the congregation had grown so much it moved to Taney Hall, less than 50 metres from the old place of worship.

CHRIST CHURCH, TANEY

Business and professional people started moving out of Dublin city in the eighteenth century to live in quieter rural areas and by the early nineteenth century, the move of new residents into the Dundrum area was well under way. As a result of this population shift, the new Church of Ireland church (Christ Church) at Taney was opened in 1818, becoming the principal church of the parish.

The church was extended considerably in the 1860s and 1870s, being finally consecrated in 1872. On 11 June 1872, The Irish Times reported on the consecration of the church the previous day by the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin. The news report said that the church was 'situated in the midst of a beautiful country, prettily studded with trees and well watered: the day was on the whole very fine, a few slight showers occurring at intervals but not sufficient to mar the success of the interesting ceremony. After the proceedings were over, everyone repaired to the nearby home of Henry Roe, the wealthy Dublin whiskey distiller, who had paid for the cost of the church's renovation, the building of a new chancel and the installation of a new organ. Henry Roe lived at Mount Anville Park, where magnificent entertainment was provided for 250 people.'

This period of expansion also saw the opening of a parish school, as well as a Sunday school, and the proliferation of social clubs and other parish organisations.

Christ Church is an imposing building, both inside and out. It was designed in the Gothic Revival style and its main external feature is the square bell tower on the north side. It was designed in a cruciform shape, with fixed pew seating and a central aisle running the length of the church up to the altar. There are two timber panel-fronted balconies facing each other across the main aisle and another at the back, facing the chancel. Access to the south balcony is by the timber staircase leading from the south aisle. This staircase was dedicated as a memorial to Canon Orr, rector, 1935-1958, in October 1966, when six collecting plates were given to the church by Canon Orr's widow and family. The north balcony is reached by an elegant stone spiral staircase in the porch, under the bell tower.

The pulpit is located on the north side of the nave and beside it is the baptistry, with its carved stone font. Within the church, there are many interesting memorial plaques and windows, including, on the north wall of the chancel, a large brass memorial to the twenty people from the parish who died in the First World War. There's also a brass plaque to Everard Hamilton of Ballinteer Lodge, who died in 1925, his wife Elinor, their son Gustavus and their daughter Helen. Everard Hamilton was a solicitor, who was also a churchwarden from 1883 to 1887. He also assisted Francis Elrington Ball in writing the first history of Taney parish, published in 1895. Much more recently, in 1981, Letitia Overend from Airfield dedicated the church clock in her memory, while the chimes were presented to the church by her sister Naomi Overend.

CHURCH OF THE ASCENSION OF THE LORD, BALALLY

This parish was constituted in 1977 from Sandyford parish and it takes its name from the townland of the same name in the ancient deanery of Taney. The old Gaelic form is Baile Amhlaoibh, meaning the 'town of Olaf', a reference to the area's Norse heritage. The parish runs from the Slang River at Ardglas to the M50 motorway at Sandyford and takes in the housing estates on both sides of Sandyford Road, as well as estates on the Ballinteer Road, the Gort Muire conference centre and the Sandyford and Stillorgan industrial estates.

The parish has about 2,000 home and some 9,000 residents. For the first few years of the parish, St Olaf's National School was used as a Mass Centre. The strikingly modernistic church, circular, with a pink façade, was designed by renowned architect Liam McCormack, and was dedicated by the then Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dermot Ryan, in October 1982. Due to severe financial constraints, some parts of the church weren't finished until recent years. But when the Green Luas line was being built in the early years of the twenty-first century, the church got a windfall from the sale of some of its land to build the Luas line. This money was used to complete the church and add a new sanctuary. The church was rededicated on 1 October 2006. The first parish priest was Fr Sean Cleary, from 1977 to 1979, now deceased. He was succeeded by Fr Eddie Randles who served until 1992, when the present parish priest, Dr Dermot Lane, took over. Religious sisters connected with the parish include the Sisters of Marie Reparatrice and the Faithful Companions of Jesus.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Little Book of Dundrum by Hugh Oram. Copyright © 2014 Hugh Oram. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Title,
Acknowledgements,
1. Timeline,
2. Buildings,
3. Churches,
4. Crime and Mayhem,
5. Houses and Mansions,
6. Natural History,
7. Pubs, Restaurants and Leisure,
8. Well-Known Residents,
9. Schools,
10. Shopping,
11. Sport,
12. Transport,
13. Work,
Further Reading,
Copyright,