Donaghmede

Donaghmede
Domhnach Míde
Suburb
Donaghmede

Location in Ireland

Coordinates: 53°23′41″N 6°9′43″W / 53.39472°N 6.16194°W / 53.39472; -6.16194Coordinates: 53°23′41″N 6°9′43″W / 53.39472°N 6.16194°W / 53.39472; -6.16194
Country Ireland
Province Leinster
County County Dublin
Time zone WET (UTC+0)
  Summer (DST) IST (WEST) (UTC-1)
Holy Trinity Parish church (Roman Catholic), Donaghmede

Donaghmede (Irish: Domhnach Míde, meaning "St. Mide's Church")[1] is a residential suburb of on the northern side of Dublin, Ireland.

Location

Donaghmede is situated approximately 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) to the north east of the Dublin city centre, and is in the constituency of Dublin Bay North. It lies within the jurisdiction of Dublin City Council and the postal district Dublin 13. Donaghmede lies north of Raheny, west of Baldoyle from which it was largely formed, east of Coolock and Balgriffin and south of Portmarnock.

Access

Road

Donaghmede is served by Grange Road (to Baldoyle and Howth) and N32 from the Malahide Road and M50 and M1, to the north, and the Tonlegee Road to the south.

Railway

In the south eastern corner of Donaghmede is Howth Junction & Donaghmede railway station, situated on the Dublin–Belfast railway line and served by Dublin Area Rapid Transit (DART) and occasional InterCity (Iarnród Éireann) trains, while in the northern part is Clongriffin railway station.

Bus

Dublin Bus provides services on routes 29A (from the city centre), 17A from Kilbarrack Industrial Estate to Blanchardstown Shopping Centre via (Coolock, Santry, Ballymun and Finglas), 15 from Clongriffin to Ballycullen Road (via Malahide Road, City Centre, Rathmines and Terenure), and the 29N Nitelink service with late night service from D'Olier Street to Baldoyle Road, stopping on Grange Road.

Historical features

Running through the southern parts of Donaghmede is a small local river, the Kilbarrack Stream and/or Daunagh Water. This is currently culverted as it heads towards the coast, and reaches the sea at two points in lower Kilbarrack / Bayside.

The once popular Saint Donagh's Well, a holy well, was regularly visited for hundreds of years. It is said that the waters of Saint Donagh's Well healed eyes and rejuvenated eyesight. Saint Donagh's Well was once one of three local holy wells which were visited in procession .

In the northern part of Donaghmede is Grange Abbey, historically "a small church within the Grange of Baldoyle" which once may have served as a chapel for the lands of the Priory of All Saints (now site of Trinity College Dublin). The chapel, which once hosted a small parliamentary meeting, has been in ruins since at least 1615.

Facilities and amenities

Parks

The redeveloped Fr. Collins Park was officially opened by the Lord Mayor of Dublin in May 2009 and is Ireland's first "sustainable park" with five 50KW wind turbines protruding from the central linear water feature and providing power for public lighting, maintenance depots and football club changing rooms. The park also features a skate-park, 2 playgrounds, 6 playing pitches, picnic areas with outdoor chess/draughts boards, natural woodlands and a peripheral running/cycling track. Further information on the park including pictures, opening times etc. can be found on the Dublin City Council website.

Other green spaces lie around the main complex of schools, around the church and along the Kilbarrack Stream and above its culverted course.

Civic facilities

There is a Dublin Public Libraries branch library in the main shopping centre.

Education

There are four primary (two junior, Scoil Bhride and St. Kevin's, two senior, Holy Trinity and Naomh Colmcille) and three secondary schools (Grange Community College, Donahies Community School and Gaelcholáiste Reachrann) in the area, and a vertical school – catering for children from Junior Infants to Sixth – St. Francis of Assisi Primary School – in the Belmayne estate in nearby Balgriffin.

Sport

There are a number of soccer and Gaelic football clubs in the area along with the local Sports and Leisure Centre (http://trinitysportsandleisure.ie/). These include Wyteleaf United, Trinity Gaels GAA club, and Trinity Donaghmede FC (previously called "Donaghmede Celtic and Trinity Sports and Leisure Football Club")as well as new club Carndonagh Athletic Football Club and Grange Abbey Boys FC. The area is also well served by the famous Trinity Boys Boxing Club.

Retail

Donaghmede Shopping Centre stands on the site of the original Donaghmede House. Dunnes Stores is the anchor tenant along with 50 other shops along with a cafe and a branch of Dublin City Libraries.

Currently, the centre is being improved and redeveloped. However a number of local residents groups, such as the Donaghmede Estate Residents Committee, and some public representatives, have opposed the developments.

The Donaghmede Inn Public House and some other shops have direct access from outside.

Religion

Holy Trinity Parish Church, a distinctive cruciform building with a triangular profile, is Roman Catholic. Located on Grange Road, Holy Trinity Church serves the combined ecclesiastical parish of "Donaghmede-Clongriffin-Balgriffin" in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin.[2]

Politics and community representation

Since 2016, Donaghmede has been part of the Dáil Éireann constituency of Dublin Bay North.

Donaghmede is part of the Beaumont/Donaghmede electoral ward for Dublin City Council, which also includes neighbouring Coolock, Artane, Edenmore, and Kilbarrack.

The Beaumount/Donaghmede electoral ward has nine elected local councillors with Sinn Féin being the largest party, taking more than 35% of the first preference vote and three seats in the 2014 local elections. Fianna Fáil, People Before Profit, Fine Gael, the Anti-Austerity Alliance and Labour Party secured one seat each, along with an independent councillor.[3]

Residential

Unlike many other suburbs of Dublin, Donaghmede was not a village absorbed by suburban sprawl; rather it was an area of farmland, with a number of large houses with attendant worker's cottages (many of these latter survive along the Hole in the Wall Road that leads to Portmarnock, but none of the original "big houses" exist today).

Within Donaghmede are a number of housing developments, notably Donaghmede Estate, Grangemore, The Donahies, Grange Abbey, St Donagh's, Millbrook, Newgrove Estate and Howth View. The bulk of these developments were constructed between circa 1970–1974. Newer developments included apartments at Priory Hall, and opposite those a number of developments forming Clongriffin.

Priory Hall

The modest apartment development at Priory Hall in northern Donaghmede was evacuated by order of the High Court made 14 October 2011, to allow for emergency fire safety works. The 294 residents were originally due back by 28 November 2011, but have not been able to return as of January 2013. The landowner and Tom McFeely, the owner of the construction company, are both bankrupt. While most of the former residents were originally placed in a hotel, many were later rehoused in National Asset Management Agency property a couple of hundred metres to the east in Clongriffin, or to the west in the Belmayne development, south Balgriffin.[4][5]

Notable residents

This list includes notable persons who were born or have lived in Donaghmede.

See also

References

  1. Placenames of Ireland (Government database) retrieved 25 October 2011
  2. Dublin diocese - guidebook
  3. http://electionsireland.org/result.cfm?election=2014L&cons=5026
  4. Kelly, Olivia (21 October 2011). "Council plan for Priory Hall residents under way". The Irish Times. Dublin. Retrieved 23 February 2012.
  5. Lyall, Sarah (3 September 2012). "In Ruined Apartments, Symbol of Ireland's Fall". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 September 2012.
  6. Jonathan Powell (18 September 2010). "Wild child Cathy Gannon shows her tough side as she tames the jockey world". Daily Mail. Retrieved 19 June 2012.
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