Fairview-Marino.com

The little village of Fairview which until the end of the 18th Century was known as Ballybough, has down the years seen the coming and going of many varied groups, sects, landowners, scholars, farmers, industrialists, law enforcers, wayfarers and colourful characters.

Croydon Park House at the top of Fairview Avenue (now Richmond Avenue) was once the home of Thomas Clarke, the 1916 treaty signatory and Cathal Brugha lived on Richmond Avenue. Indeed the Fairview area was a hot bed of activity during the 1916 Rising, and many locals gave the supreme sacrifice. The sombre connection with the Ballybough of the day was further emphasised by the presence of the Suicide’s Plot situated on the corner of Clonliffe Road and Ballybough Road. Here it was the practice in the 18th and 19th centuries, to bury suicides, highwaymen and robbers and drive a wooden stake through their hearts, lest their spirits were wont to rise and terrorise the locals. Is it any wonder then that another famous son of Fairview, Bram Stoker wrote such blood curdling stories as Dracula?

Not that the area was particularly known for it’s spirits and spectres, apart from the usual ‘apparitions’ around the many livery hostelries towards the Midnight hour, on the contrary, the name Fairview accurately reflected the splendid view that the area afforded out over the Bay. In fact ‘The Strand’ as it was popularly known up and ’till the building of Annesley Bridge in 1797, was a favourite haunt for the ‘Gentry’ and fashionable nobility of the day to parade their victories, valuables and vanities. Dean Swift and Mrs. Delaney of Delvüle in Glasnevin, were among the regulars who could be seen taking the airs’ on horseback along what is to-day Fairview Strand. The view they would have enjoyed then, was one of an uninterrupted vista of Dublin Bay from Howth Head to the Dublin Mountains on the south, with the thriving Dublin Port thronged with hundreds of sailing vessels of every description and origin.

Another long gone sight which was available to them was the 4 acre island nestling just off the northern shore, roughly where Goulding’s Fertiliser factory was. Clontarf Island as it was called was part of the Vernon estate and was mentioned by historians during the Battle of Clontarf in 1014. Although this ‘landmark’ disappeared from view forever in the worst storm ever recorded by the Port of Dublin in 1844, drowning it’s owner Christopher Cromwell and his ten year old son, another fixture replaced the Fair View, when the Dublin and Drogheda Railway embankment was built across the Bay from Amiens St. to Clontarf Road in 1843. Again in 1954 Fairview was once again overwhelmed by floods, when the Tolka burst it’s banks and left the whole area resembling an eighteenth map of the place, when Mother sea owned most of what we know as Fairview to-day.

The Ballybough / Fairview area had just as any other it’s fair share of tragedy and suffering. Apart from the confiscation of the great monastery of St. Mary’s, and the granting of the lands of Ballybough to the Earl of Desmond and another Géraldine supporter Walter Peppard, renting asunder the harmonious and fruitful relationship the local people enjoyed with the monks for centuries, the predominantly agricultural area felt the full ferocity of Cromwell. One peculiarity of Cromwell which later affected the locality, was his remarkable regard for the Jews. Perhaps he admired their business acumen. He attracted large numbers of them to England and some to Ireland, posing the suggestion among some London Jews the possibility of proclaiming him the Messiah, so apparent was his favour towards them. The arrival of Jews to the Ballybough area coincided with a marked upsurge in the industrialisation of the district.

From the end of the 18th century, and right through the 19th century the area of Ballybough grew more and more as a manufacturing district. This was particularly so in the business of flint glass. There was at one time in the 18th century a glass factory near Ballybough Bridge whose products included “a set of fine lustres for Dublin Castle. Where the Ballybough flats stand today once stood a glass factory that made plate glass for coaches, polished it and exported it to the Continent. Perhaps the most celebrated glass factory to exist in the area was Chebsey’s glass house which produced the magnificent 1,233 piece glass chandelier for the Irish House of Parliament in College Green (now the Bank of Ireland). Murvanney’s Glass factory was another example of the extent of the industry in the district. To emphasise the industrial nature the locality attained in the mid 18th and 19th Centuries, the little lane now known as Esmonde Avenue, was then known as “Factory Lane, “such was the abundance of manufacturing and obviously employment, in the area.

Just as Clontarf Island disappeared in a deluge and floods overwhelmed the Fairview area on the 8th of December 1954, some thirteen years previous to this watery wake, on a gloriously sunny Whit weekend, four German bombs rained death and destruction down on the North Strand just a fin tail away. In that same year a former resident of Fairview who had an inordinate life long interest in the Jews, departed this life. Living as he had done in Stella Maris, 29 Windsor Avenue, (1896-1899), Convent Avenue, (1899), Richmond Avenue, (1899-1900), and Royal Terrace (now Inverness Road), (1900-1901), Fairview; James Joyce had ample Jewish culture and customs to exercise his interest in same.

Besides the glass making factories, there were a number of other industries extant from the 1830’s in the Ballybough / Fairview area. These mostly were concerned with the making of agricultural instruments for the inhabitants of the area, which apart from the Mill at Ballybough, and the glass making industry, was still almost completely rural. There was also a small factory for printing linen which was much admired by the previously mentioned Mrs. Delaney of Delville.

Thanks to “5618 and all that” for this information. Most of my editing is in brackets.