Malahide Historical Society has recently unearthed wonderful images of ‘Hogan’s Top Shop’ Hogan’s grocers, wine and spirits merchants stood for many years on Main Street at what is now Malahide Credit Union premises. Locals called it Hogan’s Top-Shop to distinguish it from Hogan’s Bottom-Shop, their other premises on New Street (now Fowler’s pub).

Two of these three fascinating images have just recently come to light showing deliveries in the early 1900s. The truck is a Guinness lorry outside the premises circa 1910. (photo courtesy of Richard McAllister)

The third image, also from about 1910, shows a cart with the name ‘Bewley & Draper, Ink Makers’. This was a business owned by a branch of the famous Bewley coffee family which imported chemical and ink supplies as well as, unusually, mineral waters. It is likely the cart was being used to deliver not ink but mineral waters to Hogan’s as indicated by the crates on the footpath under the awning into which a worker appears to be peering.

Thanks to Malahide Historical Society.

Calling all history buffs! Join us at Malahide Castle for an Oral History Open Day in celebration of Heritage Week 2024 on Saturday 24th August. This is a fantastic opportunity to share and listen to stories about the Talbot family and Malahide Castle from yesteryear in an open mic-style setting.

Here’s what you can expect: Share your personal stories: We want to hear your unique perspectives on Malahide Castle’s rich history. Uncover hidden gems: You might be surprised by the fascinating stories waiting to be unearthed! Connect with the community: Bond with fellow history enthusiasts and create a tapestry of Malahide Castle’s past. Contribute to history: Your story becomes part of the ongoing narrative of Malahide Castle.

Got some pictures and memories? - We want you to share them with us!

Help us build our understanding of the castle’s history by adding to the narrative. Whether you have a story to tell or just want to listen, everyone is welcome.

The event is free but spaces need to be booked by visiting: www.malahidecastleandgardens.ie/heritage-week-oral-history-open-day

Courtesy of Malahide Historical Society

At this time of year in the 1830’s, it was popular in the past to take ‘the pledge’ after the Christmas excesses. The Pledge was a commitment not to take alcohol and was inspired and promoted by The Total Abstinence Society founded by the famous Fr Theobald Matthew in 1838. He paid a high profile visit to Malahide as part of the celebrations for the opening of St. Sylvester’s Church in July 1846, as recounted in the Freeman’s Journal:

“We perceive that the new Catholic church of Malahide will be dedicated upon Sunday next. The ceremony—the most interesting, perhaps, of all those by which the Catholic church stimulates—and elevates the piety of her children, will be performed by the venerated prelate of this diocese, the most Rev. Dr. Murray. The dedication sermon will be preached by the Very. Rev. T. Matthew. We understand that the completion of this holy edifice depends in a great degree upon the amount of the contributions which the congregation on this occasion may be pleased to bestow.The district of Malahide is far from wealthy, and the people have contributed already to the full extent of their means. The Right Hon. Lord Talbot De Malahide, with great liberality, as well of means as of mind, generously contributed one hundred pounds to the building fund, and we understand his Lordship has promised a further subscription at a future period. We have no doubt that the appeal of Sunday next will enable the excellent Catholic rector, the Rev. Mr. Fleming, to proceed in his good and pious work, and to complete a beautiful edifice dedicated to the service of the Almighty Father of all.

A Select Choir will attend, under the management of Mr. Gormley, of Saints Michael and Johns’ Church. Admission to the Sanctuary for a family of Five is £1; Individuals are 5s. each Admission to the body of church, 2s/6d each. The Very Rev. Mr. Matthew will administer the Pledge after the ceremonies of the day. Increased accommodation will be afforded on the Railway”. It is not recorded how many took the pledge in Malahide that day but at its height, just before the Great Famine of 1845–49, his movement enrolled some 3 million people, or more than half of the adult population of Ireland.

Courtesy of Malahide Historical Society

The current movie blockbuster on the life of Napoleon Bonaparte reminds us of Malahide’s (slight) Napoleonic connections.

On Church Road, Manor Books is housed in Manor House, which dates from the late 1700s and was the one-time office in the village for handling the affairs of the Lord of the Manor, Lord Talbot de Malahide, who owned the ground rent and much of the properties. Lord Talbot’s agent or bailiff would manage village affairs such as collection of rents and meetings with tenants. Up to the early 1800s it was the site of the Manor Court which dates from a time when the local landowner held a degree of legal jurisdiction over his properties and tenants and was the lowest level in the courts system. In here, minor legal and petty crime cases would be heard and when the building was being refurbished in the 1990s the remains of a holding cell were found.

For a time in the early 1800s Manor House was home to an adventurer and United Irishman grandly named Herve Morres de Montmorency who fled to France after the failed 1798 rebellion and achieved a commission in the French Army under Napoleon Bonaparte who is said to have been an admirer of Napper Tandy and Montmorency and interviewed him personally. Up to his death in France in 1839 he remained wanted by the British forces.

At The Diamond, the house, which up to recently was the Ulster Bank, was in the 1780s the home of John Fortescue who was married to the sister of Arthur Wellesley, an officer in the British Army who later became the Duke of Wellington and defeated Napoleon at Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Wellesley is believed to have been a regular visitor to his sister in Malahide.

On the Coast Road, Hick’s Tower, with its ‘witches’ hat’ roof added in 1911, was a Martello Tower, one of around 50 such watchtowers around the Irish coast built by the British to watch out for French invasion forces during the Napoleonic wars.

By Jon Kavanagh

My earliest memory sees my mother lighting an oil lamp on a winters evening. It’s the 60s. JFK is in the White House, there are satellites circling the earth, radio Caroline is blasting out pop music from international waters and Bob Dillion tells us The Times They Are a-Changin’. But there’s not much evidence of change in our neck of the woods. Although the gate lodge where I’m spending my formative years is only a few miles from Swords and Dublin Airport, there is no running water or electricity. My father does a circus clown impression as he cycles home from the roadside pump, steering with one hand whilst precariously balancing a bucket of water with the other one. We toilet alfresco. Our humble abode which makes Steptoe and son’s den look like Home of the Year, consists of a kitchen and one tiny bedroom, separated by a wooden partition which stretches half way to the celling. The ice-cold blue flag stones on the kitchen floor serve as a barometer, turning damp when rain is on the way. An open fire multi tasks as a cooker, heater, clothes airer and bread toaster. Double glazing is a sheet of ice on the inside of the window. Home insulation is a sack slung across the bottom of the door to repel the easterly breeze. The duvet is an ill matched pile of blankets and overcoats. Heavy army coats are much sought after for bedding purposes. We live on the edge of a wood which has a healthy population of wild life. Bats, various insects including daddy longlegs, mice and the odd rat are familiar visitors. For reasons best known to himself, a rouge rodent decides to make off with my mother’s false teeth. Luckily, his lack of manual handling skills does not allow him to manoeuvrer them through his exit point and he is forced to abandon his loot. There is a temptation to look back through the lense of today and feel one had less than an ideal childhood. But my rustic upbringing gave me a reservoir of resilience. A resilience I was very glad to tap into when the covid lockdowns came.

There have been TV and radio programmes recently featuring the late Dr. Noel Browne. As Minister for Health, Browne is credited with waging a successful total war on Tuberculosis. However, his attempt to implement the Mother and Child Scheme in effect brought down the First Inter-Party Government of Taoiseach John A. Costello in 1951 and remains one of the greatest political controversies in modern Irish political history. One radio programme included Liveline on RTE Radio 1, Wednesday August 2nd., featuring artist Robert Ballagh, whose portrait painting of Noel Browne is hidden away in storage. Among other details mentioned in that broadcast was that Dr. Noel Browne lived in Malahide for 6 months each year! Does anyone know or have any more details/information on where in Malahide he lived or any details of his life here? If you have you can contact Malahide Historical Society on their email at: malahidehistoricalsociety2@gmail.com (courtesy of Malahide Historical Society)

By Malahide Historical Society

A recent rescue of swimmers in the deep narrows channel in Malahide had a happier outcome than this sad event which was reported in the press 101 years ago.

Titled “MALAHIDE DISASTER”
“Three Dublin men, who were fishing from a boat in Malahide Creek, lost their lives on Sunday through the upturning of the boat, in an attempt to float through one of the arches of the railway bridge. Their names are Thomas, Ryan, 47 York St. , John Somerville, Manor Place and Richard Tisdall, 143 Gt. Brunswick St.With them in the boat was Robert Wilson of Robert St. The four were members of a fishing party organised by the Knights of the Silver Hook Sea Anglers. Several boats, in each of which there were four competitors, set out and took up their separate positions.

The men set their baits and, after some time, that occupied by Ryan, Somerville and their companions drifted towards the railway bridge, known as the “Eleven Arches.”’ With the falling tide a strong current flows there and, carried away by a strong wind, the small boat capsized at a point which may be described as a waterfall. The occupants of the boat were thrown out, and quickly carried away into deep water. Wilson succeeded in clinging on to the boat and was rescued by other fishermen. The occurrence was witnessed by a lady looking from a window in the vicinity. She raised the alarm, but owing to the distance from the village, before help could reach the bridge the three men were carried away to death by the flowing waters. When Mr. Wilson was brought ashore he was in a state of exhaustion.The body of Ryan was recovered and taken charge of by members of the I.R.A but the other bodies have not yet been recovered. Mr. Ryan was an employee of Messrs. West and Son, goldsmiths and jewellers, Grafton St., Dublin. Mr. Wilson is Hon. Secretary of the Knights of the Silver Hook Sea Anglers’ Club”.Source: Southern Star newspaper 1 July 1922

Malahide Abbey ruins stand adjacent to the Castle. Their size suggest that it was no private oratory or chapel. The surrounding cemetery would indicate that it probably served the people of Malahide from the 12th to 16th Century. In 1630, the Abbey was stated to be in a ruinous condition. When Cromwell installed Myles Corbet in Malahide Castle for a brief period, tradition has it that Corbet used the Abbey as stables and stripped the lead off the roof to make bullets. The present structure consists of a late fifteenth-century nave and a sixteenth-century chancel. The east wall of the chancel features a fine three-light window whilst the west gable of the nave is surmounted by a three-arched bell turret with an access stairs and a triple window beneath. It is likely the bells were fixed and the bell-ringer climbed the stairs and sat or stood beneath the bells and struck them with a hammer. Within the Abbey is the fine deeply carved 16th. Century tomb of Maud Plunkett who was “maid, wife and widow” on the one day, her husband having been killed in battle on their wedding day. On the North-East angle of the Abbey opposite the Avoca entrance may be seen a Sheela-na-gig, a grotesque stone carving, whose function it was to warn the faithful of the terrible results of sin and excess. Generations of Talbots lie buried in the surrounding cemetery and the last local burial took place here in 1960.

A great occasion was held recently with the official opening of our refurbished local history museum at the Steward’s House, Malahide Castle. Over 100 members and friends of Malahide Historical Society turned out to see Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, and local lad, Darragh O’Brien, T.D. unveil a plaque in the presence of the Mayor of Fingal Howard Mahoby and the CEO of Fingal County Council Anne-Marie Farrelly. In a speech, Malahide Historical Society President Paddy Ryan thanked the committee and Minister O’Brien and Councillor Eoghan O’Brien for their support for the project and the management and staff in Fingal County Council without whose unstinting support the project would never have got across the line. The museum is now open on weekend afternoons and will soon open from Tuesday through to Sunday and admission is free. Our Pictures show the event as well as the Steward’s House in the 1960s with members of the Raeburn and O’Neill families who lived there when the estate was still owned by Lord Milo Talbot.

For our next talk on April 26th in the Bracken Court Hotel at 8pm we are delighted to have a very special visiting speaker of note, Rory Golden, Diver, Speaker, Explorer with a talk titled ‘TITANIC - Search, Discovery and Diving to the world’s most famous shipwreck.’ Member International of the Explorers Club of New York, Vice Chair of the Great Britain and Ireland Chapter of the Explorers Club, and a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society. Rory Golden became the first Irish diver to visit the site of RMS TITANIC, in August 2000. This expedition recovered 800 artifacts from nearly 4,000 metres deep. His dive was in a Russian submersible, and he left a memorial plaque on the wreck on behalf of the people of Ireland from Cobh. He also spotted the main ship’s wheel which was recovered on the dive. He returned in August 2005, leaving two more memorial plaques from Belfast on the ship. This expedition was broadcast as a wonderful detailed documentary, “A Journey to Remember”, on BBC with veteran journalist Mike McKimm .youtube.com/watchv=EGoJMc7hXDA. In July 2021 he was contracted by OceanGate Expeditions to be on the 2021 Titanic SurveyExpedition as the on board content expert. Other duties included assisting in the surface support dive ops and preparation of the revolutionary 5 person carbon fibre TITAN submersible. In June and July 2022 he was again a team member for the second OceanGate expedition to the wreck site as a content expert and surface dive support co-ordinator. He made his third dive to the ship during this trip in the 5 person submersible TITAN oceangateexpeditions.com/titanic He has spoken at multiple venues and events, including: a 15 date UK tour, Titanic Belfast,The National Museum of Ireland, Belfast City Council, Belfast Titanic Society, The Explorers Club, Dive shows, schools and colleges, after Dinner functions, and during the Covid era, on ZOOM presentations for outreach programmes. For more information see rorygolden.com.As always members are free and anyone can attend for €5, see balbrigganhistory.com.