by Malahide Historical Society

Standing across the road from St. Sylvester’s Church, this elegant terrace of four three-bay three-storey 19th century houses is recessed from the street by a common garden fronted by railings set between stone pillars. Nos. 1 and 4 have bays extending the full height of their facades. Until recently, a curious damaged sculpture was to be seen on the roof parapet at the centre of the terrace which appeared to be a representation of a sea lion but this has lately disappeared. (Does anyone have information on its whereabouts?). The construction of No.1 commenced in 1842 and No. 4 was completed eight years later. Though a terrace, each house is slightly different. An 1850 watercolour (present whereabouts unknown) depicts the terrace with scaffolding around No 4. John Killeen of Millview House and later Seapark House built the terrace as a potential marriage dowry for his only child. However, she entered a religious order in Dumfries, Scotland, where she rose to the position of Abbess before her death in 1918. As a consequence, the terrace was sometimes referred to as the Dowry Terrace. However, by 1862, John Killeen was in financial difficulty as the Official Assignee was advertising the sale of : “the title and interest of the Bankrupt, John Killeen…in the two Plots of Ground situate at Malahide… with the four commodious and first-class dwelling houses thereon, with outhouses, offices and gardens, and known as Killeen-terrace (in the erection of which the bankrupt expended a sum of nearly £4,000), held under two leases from Lord Talbot de Malahide to the bankrupt, for 99 years from 1st May, 1849, at the yearly rents of £20 and £2 18s.; there is yet space for the erection of other houses. Three of the said houses are let to respectable tenants, and produce £162 10s annually. The fourth house is unlet, but was lately let at a rent of £60 a year.The local Presbyterian community, having unsuccessfully petitioned Lord Talbot in 1891 for a site for a church, shortly afterwards acquired an interest in No.2 Killeen Terrace. This remained their place of worship until they moved into their newly built church on the Dublin Road in 1956. This building was partly financed by the sale of No.2 Killeen Terrace. Our Photos show the terrace in the 1960s and 1970s.

Courtesy of Malahide Historical Society

Many will remember with great fondness Sammy Wells and family who ran a sweet factory and sweet shop from about 1948 at or about the former X-traVision outlet on Main Street. Sammy made the sweets from his own recipes which he had brought from England. The most popular sweets were his fruit bon bons, butter bon bons, liquorice, fruit drops, nougat bars and the most popular of all were his penny bars. The penny bars are said to have been his speciality. In those days the children of Malahide were able to walk safely from school to Sammy Wells sweet shop specially to buy those bars. Everyone used to pop in to buy their sweets on the way to Ma Walshe’s cinema. This was a big treat. To buy your sweets you had to go to the counter in the office and ring the bell for attention and when eventually someone came, the value given for one penny was well worth the delay, the best value in town! One former resident remembers that Sammy also sold fishing gear and “If you found a wasps’ nest and you told Sammy Wells, you would get a reward and he would send someone to remove it and use the grubs for bait.” Sammy and his family, including daughters Sally and Gwneth, lived at “The Haven” at the corner of Texas Lane and the Back Strand (upper Broadmeadows estuary). He became famous for his pigeon loft and was said to have been the first person to have pigeons in the area. He built the narrow concrete landing stage opposite his house, which is still used today and erected a pole with a disclaimer notice which was certainly there up to recently. The factory and shop closed in the 1960’s and the family left Ireland thereafter but we know that some of them follow this Facebook page so if you have memories to share with them please feel free to leave a comment.

Can anyone identify the staff members in the photos? If so please contact Malahide Historical Society at malahideheritage.com

According to Fingal Co. Co. planning guidelines, Councils can advise residents and developers of requirements for naming and numbering housing estates and approve the final proposals. The naming of mixed residential and mixed-use schemes should reflect local history, folklore and/or place names in accordance with Objectives of the Fingal Development Plan 2017-2023. Names can refer to historical buildings or structures, archaeological monuments or features, the local landscape, or an association with a significant local historical individual, custom or event. Local historical societies or Fingal Libraries may be able to offer advice. In particular, the use and promotion of historical and current townland and parish names in the urban and rural environment should be promoted. Here are the origins of some of Malahide’s residential estates.

The Bawn - stems from an Irish word to describe a protective enclosure for cattle often associated with a castle.- Gaybrook - built adjacent to the Gaybrook Stream formed by the confluence of steams flowing down from Feltrim and Drynam.- Killeen - after John Killeen, the railway engineer, who built Killeen Terrace opposite St. Sylvester’s Church as a potential dowry for his daughter. Milford - many hundreds of years ago where the nearby Gaybrook Stream enters the Broadmeadows Estuary there stood a ford and a cornmill worked by the ebb and flow of the tide. Later in 1782 a cotton mill was erected nearby. - Muldowney - a corruption of Maoil Domhnainn, an ancient name for a topographical feature in that part of the inlet, in turn named after an ancient people the Fir Domhnainn. -Texas Lane – believed to be named for a cobbler who once lived in the area who had a habit of holding a supply of tacks in his mouth as he used them to mend boots and so was nicknamed ‘Tacks’. It followed that the lane where he lived was known as Tacks’s Lane which eventually became Texas Lane. - Yellow Walls - the name predates the cotton industry established in this area in 1782 but is probably derived from earlier times when linen was woven from flax fibres and hung on local walls to bleach, staining the stone in the process.

by Malhide Historical Society

In an 1844 agreement between Lord Richard Talbot and James Fagan of Bridgefoot Street, Dublin, timber merchant, the Talbots agreed to lease to Fagan the land stretching from the lately built Royal Hotel (later Grand Hotel) hotel almost to the Diamond at a yearly rent of twenty-five pounds ten shillings per Irish acre. Under the agreement James Fagan was to be at liberty to build houses on the lands but he had first to submit the plans for approval by Lord Talbot. This led to the construction by Fagan of the houses on St. James Terrace. The Talbots agreed to build a road, from a fountain which then stood in the centre of the Diamond, to the hotel, enclose part of the area with railings, plant trees and shrubs therein and lay it out as pleasure gardens. When combined with the hotel gardens they extended to four or five acres from St. James’s Terrace, up to and around the hotel. The occupants of the houses were to have free use of the pleasure gardens as were the hotel guests. Other residents of Malahide could apply for a key to use the gardens at a fee of one pound per household or family per year.When the original planting matured the gardens contained elaborate wooded serpentine walks, pergolas, shady bowers and a croquet lawn and there was seating place all around the Park. The pleasure gardens later came to be known as the Band Gardens as police and military bands gave public performances there in the latter half of the 19th century on regatta days and other public occasions. The Dublin & Drogheda Railway occasionally engaged a military band to play on weekday afternoons and laid on a special train from and to Amiens Street. A former Malahide resident painted an idyllic picture of her memories of the Park as a 10 year old girl in about 1908: “There were three tennis courts and two croquet courts. Thick laurel and chestnut bushes made lovely “houses” for children to play about in. There were also numerous “weeping” elms which were very easy to climb and made lovely green “tents”; sweet smelling lilac and showers of laburnam bushes, as well as veronica and escalonia and lauristinus, and four or five arbutus bushes which produced the most realistic “dolls’” oranges. The middle of the park sank into a shallow dell where the trees were thicker and taller and the grass seldom cut, except before the annual Fingal Show; which made the Park a particularly happy playground - as long as the children were inside the park railings and kept away from the tennis courts they were looked on as “safe’ and allowed to run as wild as the space permitted. In the spring there were sheets of bluebells under the sycamores at the Terrace end of the square.” The gardens are now, of course, the location of Malahide Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club.