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HALLOWEEN AT MULVEY PARK

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TODAY I WALKED FROM WINDY ARBOUR TO ROEBUCK ROAD

Today, Halloween, I used my iPhone 12 Pro Max. I use the Pro Max as a backup camera but this could well be coming to an end as I have ordered a DJI Osmo Pocket 3. I will discuss this at a later date.

Celebrating Ireland as the birthplace of Halloween, Púca is an authentic, immersive, and otherworldly festival. It took place in festival hubs Trim and Athboy in County Meath from Friday, 27 to Tuesday, 31 October 2023. However, there were many events associated with Halloween here in Dublin.

Mulvey Park in Dundrum is named after Joseph Mulvey, a local councillor who served on the Dublin County Council from 1945 to 1955. He was also a member of the Dundrum Town Commission. Mulvey Park was developed as a council estate in 1948, and Mulvey was instrumental in its development. He was also a strong advocate for the local community, and he worked tirelessly to improve the lives of the people of Dundrum.

When I was young there was a local joke that when they built the mental hospital in Dundrum they they had intended to include Mulvey Park but they ran out of funds. I suspect that as the hospital predates Mulvey Park and if that is true the joke does not really work.

The hospital originally opened as the Central Criminal Lunatic Asylum for Ireland at Dundrum in Dublin in 1850. This was an early move of an ideological initiative throughout the United Kingdom and its colonies which included the building of the infamous Broadmoor Hospital in England. The site was originally chosen to be soothing to mental health patients and was intentionally not linked to any particular prison service to maintain the distinction between criminality and illness.

The Health Service Executive (HSE) announced in February 2012 that the hospital would relocate to the former site of the old St. Ita’s Hospital in Portrane in the north of County Dublin. The construction works were undertaken by Rhatigan OHL at a cost of €140 million. The new facility opened in November 2022.

BRAM STOKER LIVED AT NO 16 FOR A PERIOD

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HARCOURT STREET

I mentioned Bram Stoker, who lived on Harcourt Street, in my captions because I just received the press release shown below:

Bram Stoker Festival celebrates the legacy of one of Ireland’s most beloved and iconic writers. Now entering its tenth year, the festival draws inspiration from Stoker, his life, his work, the Dublin of his time and celebrates the Gothic, the supernatural, the after-dark and the Victorian. Over the years, we’ve presented major outdoor spectacles and installations; intimate experiences on hallowed grounds; world premieres of new scores for classic films and award winning theatre productions; outdoor circus at night in dark, foreboding forests; comedy in nightclubs; choral ensembles in darkened libraries; food tours where participants dined on custom menus; elaborate banquets in sacred crypts. We’ve taken over cathedrals, parks and squares; entertained thousands of Dubliners and visitors with parades, fire gardens and illuminated, water-based installations; delved into Stoker’s literary impact, dissecting everything from his life and city to his work as a critic and entertained little monsters with kid-friendly discos, workshops, face-painting, performances and more at Stokerland and beyond. In 2023, you can expect more deliciously dark treats on the streets and in venues across Dublin.

Monday 30 October
Gather from 6.30pm, Parade starts at 7pm

We are so excited to welcome Macnas back to Dublin for a brand-new, haunting and hair-raising parade of otherworldly magic to close this year’s festival.

Join us as dusk falls on Monday 30 October for Cnámha La Loba, an unforgettable spectacle that will transform the streets as day turns to night and darkness descends on Hallowe’en Eve.

Macnas Parade Route: The parade will start on Moore Street, turn onto Henry Street and travel up to Mary Street, before turning right onto Capel Street, then left onto Little Britain Street and left again onto Halston Street. The parade ends halfway down Halston Street.

Harcourt Street is a little over 0.6 kilometres (0.37 mi) in length with its northerly start at the south-east corner of St Stephen’s Green and terminates in the south at the point where Adelaide road becomes Harcourt Road, near Harcourt Terrace.

The River Stein, an underground river, runs underneath the upper section of the street.

The street was created during a period of street construction and improvement overseen by the Wide Streets Commission in 18th century, extending from St Stephen’s Green towards the Circular Road to the south. It was laid out from 1777 by John Hatch. The street first appears on maps in 1784, and is named after Simon Harcourt, 1st Earl Harcourt. By 1791, Hatch had secured enough land to develop the street to its full intended length. In 1843, it had 72 houses.

Unionist politician Edward Carson was born at no. 4 and there is a plaque located at the house. John Scott, 1st Earl of Clonmell, known as Copper-faced Jack, lived on the street at no. 17 and Bram Stoker lived at no. 16 for a period.

No. 6 is a building with many historical connections including as headquarters of Arthur Griffith’s Sinn Féin. It was donated by the state to Conradh na Gaeilge in 1966 on the fiftieth anniversary of the Easter Rising. This was to mark the contribution of Conradh na Gaeilge to the nationalist movement, six of the seven signatories of the 1916 Proclamation having been members of the Conradh. The building was the subject of a documentary Uimhir 6.

The street is a largely intact Georgian one. Harcourt Street station, the former railway station, is a prominent building on the street.

As of 2018 the road is overlaid with a Luas tram line and traffic is single direction only outwards from the intersection with Charlotte Way. There is a Luas stop outside the old railway terminus towards the south end of the street. The street is known for its numerous bars and nightclubs, including Tripod and Copper Face Jacks.

SOUTH RICHMOND STREET AND PORTOBELLO AREA

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STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS

Today [22 October] many of the derelict buildings are gone and some of the major construction projects have been completed or are in the final stages but the extended area could still be described as a work in progress.

Work Continues for New €40m Hotel at Portobello Harbour. Construction is well underway for the €40m boutique Hotel Development located at Portobello Harbour in Dublin 8. The 175-bedroom hotel development will span 6 storeys in height and feature a bar, restaurant, gym, meetings rooms, and a business library.

Last December A €2.6 million redesign of Portobello Plaza, which became a focus of anti-social behaviour during the Covid-19 pandemic, is to be undertaken by Dublin City Council. The new plaza would involve the pedestrianisation of Richmond Row from the canal bridge at Rathmines Road to Portobello Harbour, the road which runs in front of the Lower Deck pub. Dublin City councillors have been told it could take up to 18 months before construction begins. However, the plans have been criticised for the lack of greenery and too much “concrete”.

A few years ago I said that ” South Richmond Street is at the same time interesting and ugly mainly because there are so many buildings that are derelict or in very poor condition but also because it has been a building site for many years”.

“The built environment in Dublin is changing faster than I can photograph the changes and there is an area on South Richmond Street that caught me by surprise earlier this year as many of the restaurants and shops had closed or disappeared. According to many the Bernard Shaw was a huge loss to the area but I am not convinced and some of my friends who live in the area were pleased to see it go elsewhere.”

“Richmond Villas [now shown as Richmond Street South on Google Maps] was a place to visit if you were interested in Street Art but now it is dominated by a huge construction site [Charlemont Square where Amazon will be located] and I assume that the laneway will no longer exist once the building project has been completed. I am assuming the the Bernard Shaw and nearby buildings will soon be demolished.”

“Amazon employs more than 2,500 people in Ireland and announced plans last June to create another 1,000 jobs over the next two years, most of which will be located Dublin at Blanchardstown, Tallaght, North Count Dublin and the Portobello area of Dublin.”

“The Charlemont Square project was due to be completed this year but because of the current lock down completion may be delayed. This mixed-use development is the second phase of a city centre regeneration project.”

“My understanding is that there will be a total 79 social housing units.There will also be 184 private residential units, bringing to 263 the total number of homes in the complex, in addition to significant commercial office space and retail units.”

The 1837 Ordnance Survey map showed one building on the western side of Richmond St. (excluding property belonging to the Portobello Hotel), which corresponds to no. 34, which was the Caroline Records shop (closed in 2003).

The hotel at the nearby harbour was opened in 1807 (the architect was James Colbourne). In 1858 it was taken over by a Catholic order of nuns, who used it as an asylum (St. Mary’s) for blind girls. A few years later they successfully appealed to the Guardians of the South Dublin Union for some finance (it cost £10 to keep a girl for a year), though the Irish Times in an editorial frowned upon this proselytising by “Romanists”, while they lauded the efforts of the Protestant-run “Home for Orphans” at 7 South Richmond Street (which advertised frequently for “fresh souls to save” in the same newspaper).

Ten years later the Asylum was sold to a Mr. Isaac Cole, who renovated it and returned it to its original function as a hotel, to accommodate 100 persons. It was popular among officers visiting the nearby Portobello Barracks (who would occasionally pop across South Richmond Street to the Grand Canal Tavern for a drink) and claimed it was the nearest hotel to the Royal Dublin Society grounds. However, it was slow in providing catering facilities – in 1871 a Rathmines businessman, in a letter to the Irish Times, lamented the absence of restaurants in the neighbourhood, and enjoined upon Mr. Cole to provide same, preferably a two-course meal for two shillings (the price to include beer and punch).

ST GALL GARDENS SOUTH

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I DID NOT EXPLORE ST GALL GARDENS NORTH

St Gall Gardens South is a residential area in the suburb of Milltown in Dublin, Ireland. It is located in the D14 postal district. There is not much of interest on the street except for a Marian Grotto at one end and the green postbox.

As a matter of interest St Gall is the name of a wheel shaped hard cheese made from the milk of Friesian cows, which won a Gold Medal at the World Cheese Awards held in Dublin 2008.

Gall (Latin: Gallus; c. 550 – c. 646) according to hagiographic tradition was a disciple and one of the traditional twelve companions of Columbanus on his mission from Ireland to the continent. However, he may have originally come from the border region between Lorraine and Alemannia and only met Columbanus at the monastery of Luxeuil in the Vosges. Gall is known as a representative of the Irish monastic tradition. The Abbey of Saint Gall in the city of Saint Gallen, Switzerland was built upon his original hermitage. Deicolus was the elder brother of Gall.

A SMALL SECTION OF CLOGHER ROAD

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CRUMLIN AREA OF DUBLIN

I was in the area as I wanted to photograph Ceannt Public Park but Clogher Road is a road that I have yet to explore in detail.

Crumlin is home to Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin, the largest children’s hospital in the country, which opened in 1956.

A number of roads are named after some of Ulster’s towns and various Irish towns associated with pagan or religious sites/towns. There’s a statue of the warrior Cúchulainn situated opposite St. Mary’s Church at the junction with Bunting Road. The statue is for Oisín, a Kildare man who played hurling in the Crumlin area. Cúchulainn, his father, was from the Cooley mountains around Louth, South Armagh where the Cooley Road in Drimnagh gets its name.

Some of the local amenities in Crumlin, such as Pearse College on Clogher Road and Ceannt park, are named after some of the 1916 Rebels who had a training camp in nearby Kimmage at Sundrive crossroads.

Having been predominantly rural, the character of Crumlin changed dramatically from the 1920s onwards. The Corporation of Dublin built 702 new houses around this time to resolve overcrowding in the city centre, along with Iveagh Trust, who built 136 houses on a 30 acres (12 ha) site off Crumlin Road. In 1935, a further 2,915 properties were constructed after the Corporation had been given additional compulsory purchase powers, following by a further 2,416 in a site off Kildare Road by 1945.

The old church of St Mary the Virgin stands on a site of a 12th century property. In 1942, following the rapid housing development, it moved to a new site designed by McDonnell and Dixon in yellow brick. The other local church is St Agnes’s, which opened in 1935.

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