Mount Merrion

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Mount Merrion (Cnoc Mhuirfean in Irish) is a predominantly middle-class suburb roughly 5 miles (7km) south of Dublin City centre, Ireland, situated on and around the hill of the same name, which forms the first foothill of the Dublin Mountains. Mount Merrion is situated two miles southwest of Merrion itself. The lands originally came into the possession of Fitzwilliam of Dundrum in the mid-late 14th century, and were built up as a residential area in the 1900s.

1 Mount Merrion House
2 Deer Park
3 Mount Merrion the Old
4 Recent history
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Mount Merrion House

The Norman family of Fitzwilliam came to Ireland in the year 1210. They built a castle on the lands which are today the property of the Sisters of Charity and St Marys Home and School for the Blind. In 1710, Merrion Castle was in such a bad state of repair that Richard, the Fifth Viscount Fitzwilliam, selected 100 acres (0.4 km²) on which he built Mount Merrion House, surrounded by an eight-foot high granite wall.

The house was completed in 1711 and served as a new seat by the 5th Viscount Fitzwilliam on the hill at Mount Merrion. The Fitzwilliam family left for England around 1726. Although the family no longer lived in Mount Merrion House, they retained possession of it, and rented the house out.

The next Fitzwilliam to take a major interest in Mount Merrion was Richard, the Seventh Viscount, who remained a bachelor all his life. It was he who willed 100,000 to build the Founders Museum in Cambridge, his former university. Prior to his death in 1816, he bequeathed his vast estates to his cousin, the 11th Earl of Pembroke. Mount Merrion was occupied for a time by Sidney Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Lea, and later by Sir Neville Wilkinson, from 1903 to 1914.

[edit] Deer Park

Deer Park was landscaped by the 5th Viscount Fitzwilliam. The park lands are comprised of the area behind the site of Mount Merrion House. The park is now open to the public. It was created in 1971 from a collection of open public spaces and some acquisitions of private land. The park contains both sporting facilities (Soccer and Gaelic Football pitches and Mount Merrion Tennis Club) and landscaped land for more informal leisure pursuits. Its location and altitude also provide it with a great view of Dublin city, which is often used by photographers for panaromas and also by developers to assess the impact of development on the cityscape. Crowds also gather in Deerpark to look out at the annual Skyfest fireworks display around St. Patricks Weekend. It is claimed that Strongbow's white stallion is buried somewhere in Deer Park.

"Perhaps the most interesting remaining part of the 18th century development is the landscape element. The present Deerpark is a public park to the west of the house and included a wooded area which corresponds exactly to the walled woodland area laid out with radial paths shown on the earliest map (1757). The position of the 'gazebo' is now a platform with an assembly of cut stone elements lying on the ground, the origin of the material is not known to me. I believe that the radial form of the landscape can still be detected and consider that this may offer scope for an exercise in landscape conservation." (From historical research, carried out by Denis Cogan, 1999)

[edit] Mount Merrion the Old

Between the Convent of Mount Anville, above Dundrum, and the broad high road which leads to the village of Stillorgan, rises the wooded hill of Mount Merrion, the centre of the landscape over Dublin Bay, which gradually becomes defined as the opalescent mists of the Irish sunrise fade away.

It is a landscape known to every visitor to Ireland who has stood on deck as the Holyhead mail steamer passes the Kish lightship. Around the wood some 300 acres (1.2 km²) of the richest grazing land in County Dublin slope gently to the high stone wall which surrounds the demesne. To the south and south-west the horizon is bounded by the swelling outline of the Wicklow and Dublin Hills. To the north the long low line of the Mourne Mountains, 60 miles (100 km) and more away, are clearly visible when recent rains have left the washed air clear, while the islands of Lambay and Ireland's Eye give an added beauty to the sea-scape which lies beyond the wind-blown causeway which leads on and up to the rhododendron covered slopes above the ancient castle of Howth.

A double avenue of beech trees shades the roadway which runs, straight as a rule, for a full quarter of a mile to the entrance gates on the Stillorgan Road. This roadway, whose immaculate pebbled surface was raked daily, had a broad border of century old shaven turf, the pride of the Scottish gardener; so tended, brushed and rolled was it in those days that the most careless visitor would have hesitated to sully the velvety perfection of the surface with a profane foot. Yet the gardener, his voice, with its rich Highland brogue quivering with fury at the bare recollection, would tell how a distinguished citizen of Dublin, having ridden to pay his respects to his lordship, had, on departing, cantered gaily down the sacred border, divots flying from his horse's heels; so that the whole length was scarred and pitted with hoofmarks, as though the plague had passed over it, and it was only after months of patient labour that the unbroken serenity of the surface was restored.

Sourced to "Mount Merrion the Old", by Sir Neville Wilkinson

[edit] Recent history

The estate at Mount Merrion started to be sold off to property developers Mount Merrion Estates c.1925, as this area of Dublin rapidly built up with suburban housing in mid-20th century. Mount Merrion House itself was sold to the Catholic church 1936. The main house was converted for use as a Catholic church, and a new church was built beside it in 1956. Much of the house was demolished in the late seventies. However, the front block of the house was retained and a new community centre was built onto the back of it. The plans for recent construction work on the community centre originally involved demolition of the house, however the plans were amended due to protests. The stables survive, beside the church. The original granite gateway were salvaged and now stands as the entrance to Willow Park School on the Rock Road (ironically Willow Park's own original gateway on Booterstown Avenue was later removed). Part of the estate eventually became the prestigious mens only Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club[1] on the Appian Way.