About ten to fifteen years ago I had lunch almost every week in Malahide and frequently my mother would join me but she will be 103 years old next May.
The Irish Sea has played a major role in the development of tourism in the Malahide. The extensive Velvet Strand stretches to the horizon and is extremely popular with bathers, walkers and water sports enthusiasts.
Walking from the town centre along the beach you’ll come to the wide velvet strand along the Mouth of the Estuary, from here the beach leads to Low Rock, a popular swimming section of the beach. After this the beach gets more rocky as you approach High Rock, for a more challenging swim and eventually if you continue on you will find yourself at Portmarnock beach where the sandy strand opens wide in front of you once more.
From Malahide Beach you can also take the coastal walk on the footpath all the way to Portmarnock but beware, it’s 5km away and that did catch me by surprise back in 2008 … I was exhausted and had to get a taxi back to the train station.
ATTRACTIVE POST OFFICE IN RATHFARNHAM – MAIN STREET RATHFARNHAM VILLAGE
Today I surprised myself when I discovered that I was in Rathfarnham Village. I must admit that I had thought that the area surrounding the Yellow House Pub was Rathfarnham Village.
I was in Bushy Park and left it via the new pedestrian bridge bridge which lead to Dodder View Road. I looked up and noticed a church tower at the top of the hill across the road and as I did not know what church it was I decided to investigate. I walked up Church Lane only to arrive at the main street in Rathfarnham, a street that I have never visited before.
Rathfarnham Protestant Parish Church on the Main Street was built in 1795 to replace the church in the old graveyard. Beside the church is the old schoolhouse that dates from early in the nineteenth century. Immediately adjoining is Church Lane at the corner of which is a bank built on the site of a Royal Irish Constabulary barracks that was burned down by Anti-Treaty IRA forces in September 1922 during the Irish Civil War. In the lane is an old blocked up doorway of an early eighteenth-century type. Church Lane leads to Woodview cottages, which are built partly on the site of an old paper mill. The mill race previously mentioned passed under Butterfield Lane to the paper mill and continued on below Ashfield to turn the wheel of the Ely Cloth Factory. It was later turned into the Owen Doher River at Woodview Cottages. Until recently, when the new road was made to Templeogue, the old mill race could still be traced through the grounds of Ashfield where its dry bed was still spanned by several stone bridges.
The paper mill, of which some old walls and brick arches still survive, has been described as the oldest in Ireland but there does not appear to be any evidence to support this. The earliest reference to a paper mill here is 1719 when William Lake of Rathfarnham presented a petition for financial aid but we hear of one at Milltown as far back as 1694. In 1751 William and Thomas Slater whose works were destroyed by fire in 1775 made paper here. Archer’s survey of 1801 mentions two paper mills here, Freemans and Teelings, and both Dalton in 1836 and Lewis in 1837 state that one paper mill was still working and from 1836 to 1839 the name Henry Hayes, Rathfarnham Mill appears in the directories. If this can be identified with the mill at Woodview cottages it must have become idle soon afterwards as it is designated “Old Mill” on the 1843 edition of the O.S. map. In 1854 when this mill had neither water wheel nor machinery an attempt was made to re-open it for the manufacture of paper but it came to nothing. The mill race has now been completely removed to make way for a housing development.
At the end of the main street, on the right, the road to Lower Rathfarnham passes the site of the earliest Constabulary barracks. This closed down in 1890 when the establishment was transferred to a house named Leighton Lodge near Loreto Abbey.
As my grandmother lived on Frankfort Avenue in Rathgar I would have expected Frankfort Park to be nearby but today I discovered that it is some distance away in Dundrum but it was originally considered to be situated in the village of Windy Arbour. As it is a cul-de-sac with access only from Dundrum Road it is somewhat detached from Windy Arbour village.
Many of the houses in Dundrum date from the 1950s or later and it would appear that houses on Frankfort Park date from the 1950
Windy Arbour is a small suburban village in the Dundrum area of Dublin, Ireland. Situated between Dundrum and Milltown, along the banks of the Slang River.
I plan to explore the area in greater detail later this month or in June.
My 2012 Christmas was more or less cancelled because many of my family were ill so I spent most of the time photographing the towns and villages of Dublin. On the 9th of January I visited Malahide and the weather was amazing.
I miss my regular visits to Malahide. About ten years ago myself any my mother had lunch in Malahide on the first Saturday of every month and my mother’s favourite restaurant was Cruzzo [no longer trading] but we did try other restaurants. My mother will be 101 in May and is no longer fit enough to visit Malahide.
There are two sailing clubs situated on the estuary; Swords Sailing & Boating Club and Malahide Yacht Club. The inner, Broadmeadow (Bromwell) estuary is also the home of Fingal Sailing School and DMG Sailsports based in the 350-berth marina.
DR ISSAC WILLIAM USHER MEMORIAL – DIED AS THE RESULT OF ONE OF THE FIRST CAR ACCIDENTS
Note: It’s about 150 years since the world’s first-ever death due to a motor car accident. Irish scientist Mary Ward died on August 31, 1869, in Birr, Co Offaly. She died instantly when she fell out of her cousin’s steam-powered car and under its wheel.
Dr Isaac Usher was a popular resident of Dundrum at the beginning of the 20th Century. He did a lot for the town but unfortunately he was killed in one of the first accidents involving a motor car in Ireland, when a car struck him while reversing near the station in 1917. The residents decided to build a monument to honour him.
The monument was a stone obelisk with a source of water and a trough to provide drinking water for passing horses. There were also brass cups on chains which could be used for drinking by humans. The monument was placed right in the middle of the northern crossroads.
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