There is a building on Upper Rathmines Road which was opened as a Protestant And Orange Hall in November 1890.
The Westminster parliamentary borough of Rathmines had a unionist majority up to independence in 1922. The last Member of Parliament it returned was Maurice Dockrell.
For several hundred years Rathmines was the location of a "spa" - in fact a spring - the water of which was said to have health-giving properties. It attracted people with all manner of ailments to the area. In the 19th century it was called the "Grattan Spa", as it was located on property once belonging to Henry Grattan, close to Portobello Bridge. The "spa" gradually fell into a state of neglect as the century progressed, until disputes arose between those who wished to preserve it and those (mainly developers) who wished to get rid of it altogether. In 1872 a Dr. O'Leary, who held a high estimate of the water quality, reported that the "spa" was in "a most disgraceful state of repair", upon which the developer and alderman Frederick Stokes sent samples to the medical inspector, Dr. Cameron, for analysis. Dr. Cameron, a great lover of authority, reported: "It was, in all probability, merely the drainings of some ancient disused sewer, not a chalybeate spring." Access to the site was blocked up and the once popular "spa" faded from public memory.
I have never been able to decide if there are three distinct lakes or one lake divided into three sections by walls and waterfalls but there are two separate bridges. To the best of my knowledge, the water for the lake(s) is fed from an underground supply and flows downhill [of course] in the same direction as the River Dodder.
