Killiney

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Killiney
Cill Iníon Léinín

Location

WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates:
53.2651° N 6.1137° W

Statistics

County:

Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown

Elevation:

30m

Population (2002)
- Town:
- Rural:

10,600
n/a

Killiney Bay from Vico Baths. Irelandscape

Killiney (Cill Iníon Léinín in Irish, meaning "church of the daughters of Leinin") is a township in south County Dublin, Ireland on the outskirts of Dublin city within the administrative area of Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council. The area is by the coast, south of neighbouring Dalkey, and north to Shankill area in the most southern outskirt of Dublin.

Killiney Hill Park was opened in 1887 in honour of Queen Victoria's 50 years on the throne. The park boasts magnificent views of Dublin Bay, Killiney Bay, Bray Head and the mountain of Great Sugar Loaf (506 m), stretching from the Wicklow Mountains right across to Howth Head. The Park's topography is quite dramatic. Its highest point, at the obelisk, is 170 metres above sea level.

Other major and minor attractions include Killiney Beach, Killiney Golf Club, a local Martello Tower, and the ruins of Cill Iníon Léinín, the church around which the original village was based.

The coastal areas of Killiney are often favourably compared to the Bay of Naples in Italy. This comparison is reflected in the names of surrounding roads, like Vico, Sorrento, Monte Alverno, San Elmo, and Capri. On clear days, the Mourne Mountains of County Down can be seen, although this is less and less frequent due to air pollution. The park was once part of the estate of Killiney Castle, now a hotel.

North-eastern Killiney is one of Dublin's most exclusive residential areas. Famous residents include, Bono, The Edge, Pat Kenny, Enya and Van Morrison. Killiney is also home to a number of foreign ambassadors to Ireland.

For many centuries the major part of the district was the property of the Talbot de Malahide family, some of the original followers of the 1170 Norman invasion. By the 19th century, the areas to the north and east of the village were owned by Robert Warren, who developed many of the Victorian residential roads. The Warrens also sold the land required to extend the Dublin and Kingstown Railway to Killiney and ultimately Bray. Killiney beach was a popular seaside destination for Dubliners, and John Rocque's 1757 map shows bath houses near White Rock, on Killiney Beach. The coastline became even more popular once the railway opened, and the opening of Victoria Park in 1887 to commemorate the Queen's visit and the opening of Vico Road in 1889 appear to have increased this popularity further.

From 1900 until the late 1940s Killiney remained a near-rural area, despite its proximity to Dublin city. This lack of further development can be traced to the 35% fall in the non-Catholic population of Dublin from 1901 to 1926, followed by the recession caused by the Economic War and the restrictions on nonessential construction during The Emergency from 1939 to 1945. In the first half of the twentieth century, the Electoral Division of North Killiney still consisted of a small village at its center and a number of suburban roads lined with large houses. A few modest cottages were occupied by working class locals and bohemian residents such as George Bernard Shaw, whose house, Torca Cottage, is close to the boundary with Dalkey. South Killiney consisted of farmland(owned by hackett) uncultivated hillside and woodland, a few large country houses (Ballinclea House in particular, owned by the Talbot de Malahide family and destroyed by fire in the early 1970s, and Rochestown House, near to the contemporary Killiney Shopping Centre), the convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny, and Killiney Golf Club, a nine-hole course founded in 1903. Killiney's population grew substantially in the decades following The Emergency as the urbanization of Ireland and the suburbanization of Dublin progressed. The main sub-districts most locals will identify are Victoria (or Killiney Hill) Park, Roche's Hill (locally called Mullins Hill), Killiney Village, Cluny Grove, Killiney Road, Ballinclea, Killiney Hill Road, and the Vico Road. The last six of these areas are developed, most frequently with two-story housing, at average densities of 10 to 30 houses per hectare. The population, as recorded by the Census of Ireland, peaked in 1996 at approximately 10,800 and has fallen by about 12% since then, as falling average family sizes have outpaced residential construction.