Shankill, Dublin

Shankill is a suburb of the city of Dublin at the southern boundary of County Dublin, Ireland. It nestles on the Irish Sea coast between Killiney and Bray, with the Dublin Mountains behind it to the west. Shankill is named from the Irish Sean Cill, and the village dates from at least the 18th century, although little remains of any older architecture. There are several antiquities in the area including ruined churches and standing stones. Several castles and defensive type structures remain, including Puck's Castle, Shankill Castle, Shanganagh Castle (ruins) and Martello Tower (ruins).

Some houses of architectual note include Clontra, a coastal Gothic mansion, Crinken Castle House, the Crinken House (formerly a hotel and prison), and Shanganagh House, an imposing mansion now surrounded by housing estates built during the 1960s. Clontra was built for Dublin solicitor James Lawson and designed by eminent 19th century architects Sir Thomas Newenham Deane and Benjamin Woodward in their trademark Italian medieval style. They are better known for their work on the Kildare Street Club and the Museum building at Trinity College. The local library is itself of note, formerly a courthouse it is built in an old Victorian style of granite and mock Tudor features. There are also some follies such as a mock round tower built of red brick in the Castle Farm Farmyard.

Traces of South Dublin's industrial heritage remain, such as the Ballycorus Leadmines, site of the longest continuous stone flue, and ancillary lead ore smelter. Other features of note include the 'upside down' houses by the Harcourt Street Line bridge, which was the site of the original post office, and has its guest rooms downstairs, and its kitchen and living room upstairs. Shankill was accessible via the original Kingstown-Bray train line, which is now 5 metres from the sea in some places. A coastal wall was built from Killiney to Bray to try stop the erosion; traces of this can still be seen along the beach.

The village of Shankill is a case study on the successive waves of development to wash over the small towns and villages of rural Ireland. What was once a rural village with a "traveller inn", the Shanganagh hotel, surrounded by large estates and country houses gave way to development of housing estates, split roughly 50/50 between private developments and council schemes. About 15 houses of architectural note were demolished in the 1960s to 1980s, the last victim being Dorney Court, its woods of 100-year-old trees saved only by eventual parliamentary protest. In recent years, Shankill has played host to more development, with newly built apartment blocks controversially increasing the density of buildings in the village. The aforementioned grounds of Clontra are the most recent candidate, and are again up for sale for as much as €15m. As with many towns and villages around Ireland, the property developments were unmatched by commensurate investment in the village environs and amenities until recently.

There are three pubs in Shankill; Brady's, Mickey Byrnes, and The Crowbar Tavern, and the village is well served by grocery and convenience stores. There is also a public library, several schools and, until recently,one of Dublin's few official campgrounds - the site of which is being developed for housing. The village has a Catholic church; the church in nearby Rathmichael is Church of Ireland. Like its namesake, the Shankill district of Belfast, Dublin's Shankill also has its own Falls Road. Occasionally the primary schools and community groups in both Shankills hold football or other sporting events to promote better North-South relationships.

There is also a Dublin Area Rapid Transit (DART) station in Shankill. It is the third last stop on the south side of the line. The old Harcourt St railway line also connected close to the village centre. The Dublin Transportation Office's Platform for Change strategy envisages reopening this as a metro connection, connecting with the existing Luas red line. The N11 national route used to run through the village, until the M11 bypass was built nearby. The newly completed south east motorway section of the M50 connects to the M11 at Rathmichael, a neighbouring townland.

Shankill is administered by Dún_Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council.

This article is licenced under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Shankill, Dublin".

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