Shandon is a small collection of roads on Dublin’s Northside within the district of Phibsboro. It consists of three terraces of Edwardian (Victorian style) houses along the banks of the Royal Canal, built around 1926.
The area was expanded in 1952 by the addition of a terrace of concrete houses, Shandon Gardens, and more recently Shandon Crescent and Shandon Green.
The area is home to Shandon Pitch and Putt Club, an 18-hole course affiliated to the Pitch and Putt Union of Ireland.
The canal passes through Maynooth, Kilcock, Enfield, Longwood, Mullingar and Ballymahon has a spur to Longford. The total length of the main navigation is 145 kilometres (90 mi), and the system has 46 locks. There is one main feeder (from Lough Owel), which enters the canal at Mullingar.
The Royal Canal was originally planned to terminate in Dublin at Broadstone [where I live], to serve the then fashionable area of residence, as well as King’s Inns and the nearby markets, but it was extended so that now, at the Dublin end, the canal reaches the Liffey through a wide sequence of dock and locks at Spencer Dock, with a final sea lock to manage access to the river and sea.
The Dublin – Mullingar railway line was built alongside the canal for much of its length. The meandering route of the canal resulted in many speed-limiting curves on the railway. The canal was bought by the Midland Great Western Railway to provide a route to the West of Ireland, the original plan being to close the canal and build the railway along its bed.
The canal travels across one of the major junctions on the M50 where it meets the N3, in a specially constructed aqueduct.
PENCIL BOLLARDS ALONG ST. MARY’S PLACE NORTH AT THE BLACK CHURCH
As already mentioned the Pencil Bollards are popping up faster than I can photograph them.
As a matter of interest the School Zone Pencil Bollards are provided by Shergan Traffic Solutions based in Mullingar Co Westmeath. www.shergansolutions.com/about-us
ST. MARY’S CHAPEL OF EASE LOCALLY KNOWN AS THE BLACK CHURCH
Local lore says that you will summon the devil if you run around the church anticlockwise three times at midnight. I ofter wonder if anyone has ever run around the church in order to meet the devil.
St Mary’s Chapel of Ease, also known as “The Black Church”, is a former chapel in Dublin, Ireland. Now deconsecrated, it was a church of the Church of Ireland located on St Mary’s Place, Broadstone, Dublin. It is constructed from local calp limestone which takes on a dark hue when wet. This is the origin of the building’s nickname. A chapel of ease is a church building, other than a parish church, that is located within the bounds of a parish for the convenience of those who cannot conveniently reach the main church. The parish’s main church, now also deconsecrated, was St Mary’s on Mary Street.
Wilton Square has three sides rather than four sides [Wilton Terrace and Wilton Place which forms two sides of the triangle]. Back in 1982 when I was employed by a small start-up hi-tech company based at Wilton Place the area had two personalities. During the day it was an up market office area and at night it was a very active red light area. In fact nearly all staff were unwilling to be in the area after 7pm and this was especially true for female members of staff. We moved to a horrible industrial estate.
The central feature is a small park which was intended to be part of a larger scheme, devised c. 1830 by Arthur Neville, for a broad crescent framing a semi-circular park overlooking the canal. Delayed and then revised due to failed negotiations over land acquisition, six townhouses, Nos. 1-6 Wilton Place, were finally built in 1841, at which time the park was also laid out. The water for the fountain was originally supplied from the nearby canal.
Nearby there was a large building, Fitzwilton House, which was home to the IDA and the Australian Embassy. It was constructed in the early 1960s and should have been 16 floors rather than 13 but in my opinion it ruined the local Georgian landscape. The building and others have recently been demolished and as a result the whole area is effectively a massive construction site in suspension since March 2020.
You must be logged in to post a comment.