FX30

CLONSKEAGH AREA OF DUBLIN

Bird Avenue in Clonskeagh is home to a huge red brick church known as the Church Of The Immaculate Virgin Mary Of The Miraculous Medal which is a rather long and complicated name.

The Church was built in 1965 and it has an interesting history. Back in 1954, a competition was held to design a Catholic Church in Clonskeagh. It had to be large enough to accommodate 1,700 people, and cost no more than £150,000. More than a hundred submissions were received which was a record at the time. All shortlisted proposals were modernist designs but, mysteriously, the building that was eventually selected by Archbishop John Charles McQuaid was not one of them.

Clonskeagh is primarily a residential area, developed in the early decades of the 20th century. It has a small village green with a few local shops. The district has changed in character as population growth in greater Dublin has imposed increasingly intensive use of land and the nearby Luas light railway has improved commuter access to central Dublin.

In the mid-1970s, Clonskeagh consisted of low-density housing with significant areas of private open land, largely owned by the Catholic Church. Since then, the closure of the Masonic Boys’ School has led to commercial redevelopment north of Clonskeagh Road and former church land adjacent to Bird Avenue and Roebuck Road now has housing. Since 2000, housing development has intensified land use further by building in larger gardens, replacing houses by apartments and adding storeys to properties.

IS MUCH LONGER THAN I THOUGHT AND THE BUS SERVICE IS POOR

One section of Roebuck road is served by the 17 bus which is supposed to run every twenty minutes but based on my experience over the last twelve months, I am in the area twice every week, the scheduled bus is frequently cancelled or does not arrive at the bus stop or is between ten and fifteen minutes late. Another section of the road is serviced by the 11 bus as well as the 17 but the 11 runs every thirty minutes and is frequently full.

Roebuck, also originally known as “Rabuck”, is a townland and the name of a former estate in the baronys of Dublin, Uppercross, and Rathdown in Ireland.

The townland incorporates roughly all the land in the triangle between Clonskeagh, Dundrum and Mount Merrion. Historically significant buildings which exist (or existed) in the area include Mountainville House, Mount Anville, St. Thomas’s Church, Owenstown House, Roebuck Hill, Hermitage House, Friarsland House, Prospect Hall, Froebuck Park, Belfield House and Harlech House. Today I decided to walk to the tram stop at Windy Arbour rather than wait for the 17 to show.

Roebuck became established as a location shortly after the Norman invasion of Ireland (from 1169). In 1261, it was owned by Fromund Le Brun, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and a castle was built there in the 13th century, which was badly damaged in the Irish Rebellion of 1641. It was pictured in a ruinous condition by Gabriel Beranger around 1768. It was sold by Nicholas Barnewall, 14th Baron Trimlestown, to James Crofton, an official of the Irish Treasury, in around 1800.

In 1466, Elizabeth le Brun, the last of Fromund’s family, married Robert Barnewall, 1st Baron Trimlestown. The Irish Civil Survey of 1654-56 recorded that the estate consisted of around 500 acres. It remained in the hands of the Trimlestown family until the early nineteenth century when parts were sold off.

The surgeon Solomon Richards acquired land in the area of the estate known as Roebuck Grove from Baron Trimlestown in 1812.

The estate was acquired by the Westby family in 1856 and from 1943 until 1985 it was owned by the Little Sisters of the Poor. It later became part of the University College Dublin campus.

A QUICK VISIT TO BIRD AVENUE

ROEBUCK ROAD