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Kilmainham

Coordinates: 53°20′35″N 6°19′17″W / 53.3431°N 6.3215°W / 53.3431; -6.3215
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For the place in Meath, see Kilmainhamwood.

Kilmainham
Irish: Cill Mhaighneann
Inner suburb
Clockwise from top: The gardens at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham; Heuston South Quarter; the Irish Museum of Modern Art at Royal Hospital Kilmainham
Clockwise from top: The gardens at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham; Heuston South Quarter; the Irish Museum of Modern Art at Royal Hospital Kilmainham
Kilmainham is located in Dublin
Kilmainham
Kilmainham
Location in Dublin
Kilmainham is located in Ireland
Kilmainham
Kilmainham
Location in Ireland
Coordinates: 53°20′35″N 6°19′17″W / 53.3431°N 6.3215°W / 53.3431; -6.3215
CountryIreland
ProvinceLeinster
CountyDublin
CityDublin
Government
 • Dáil constituencyDublin South-Central
 • Local authorityDublin City Council

Kilmainham (Irish: Cill Mhaighneann, meaning "St Maighneann's church") is a south inner suburb of Dublin, Ireland, south of the River Liffey and west of the city centre. It is in the city's Dublin 8 postal district.

History

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Origins

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Kilmainham's foundation dates to the early Christian period, with the monastery of Cell Maignenn (Cill Mhaighneann in modern Irish) established by the year 606.[1] By 795, the ecclesiastical site, located on the ridge of land at the confluence of the Liffey and the Camac, may still have been the only substantial structure along the Liffey's banks.[2]

The Kilmainham Brooch, a late 8th- or early 9th-century Celtic brooch of the "penannular" type (i.e. its ring does not fully close or is incomplete) was unearthed in the area.

In the wake of the Viking settlement of nearby Dublin from 841, Vikings were present in Kilmainham too, one of a number of villages that stretched up the river bank to Clondalkin.[3]

Viking cemeteries at the site of the monastery and at nearby Islandbridge were discovered during gravel quarrying, railroad works and the preparation of the War Memorial Gardens. Dozens of pagan burials with grave goods, dating to the 9th century, have been recorded.[4] The burial sites taken together constitute the largest known Viking cemetery in western Europe outside Scandinavia.[5]

The Battle of Islandbridge took place in the area in 919, with Viking forces under Sitric Cáech defeating Gaelic Irish forces under high king Niall Glúndub. In 1013, Murchad, the son of Brian Boru, is recorded by the annals as having raided into Leinster as far as Kilmainham.[6]

In the 12th century, in the wake of the Norman invasion of Ireland, the lands on the banks of the Liffey were granted to the Knights Hospitaller.[7] Strongbow erected for them a castle about 2 kilometres or 1 mile distant from the Danish wall of old Dublin; and Hugh Tyrrel, first Baron Castleknock, granted them part of the lands which now form the Phoenix Park. The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem remained in possession of the land until the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century.[8]

Until the time of Queen Elizabeth, when Dublin Castle became the centre of English power, the Lord Lieutenants often held court at the manor of Kilmainham. In 1559, Thomas Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex, on being again appointed Lord Lieutenant, found that the building at Kilmainham had been damaged by a storm, and had to hold court at the palace of St. Sepulchre. The following year Elizabeth ordered that Dublin Castle be upgraded to enable the Lord Lieutenant to reside there, and Kilmainham fell out of favour.[8]

The Manor of Kilmainham formed a liberty outside the jurisdiction of the city of Dublin, with its own rights and privileges. The manor took in parts of James's Street and side streets and stretched as far as Lucan and Chapelizod.[9] After the Reformation, former lords (or chairmen, as they were later called) of this manor included Lord Cloncurry and Sir Edward Newenham. John "Bully" Egan, from Charleville, County Cork, was chairman from 1790 to 1800. These manorial rights were abolished after the Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act 1840, and much of the area was included within the city.

The portion still outside the city in the latter part of the nineteenth century was within the township of New Kilmainham, a municipality governed by town commissioners, first under the Towns Improvement (Ireland) Act 1854 and then under a local act, the New Kilmainham Township Act 1868.[10] From 1868, New Kilmainham comprised the townlands of Kilmainham, Goldenbridge North, Inchicore North, Inchicore South, and Butchers Arms. Its total area was 580 acres (230 ha) and the population was 5,391 in 1881 and 6,519 in 1891.[11] It became an urban district under the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898.[12] In 1900, the urban district was abolished and the area was transferred from the county into the jurisdiction of the city of Dublin as the New Kilmainham ward.[13][14]

Places of interest

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Interior of Kilmainham Gaol

The area is best known for Royal Hospital Kilmainham, constructed on the site where the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem had their priory in Dublin. It now houses the Irish Museum of Modern Art. The Richmond Tower marks the junction between the formal pedestrianised avenue leading to the Royal Hospital, and the South Circular Road.

Nearby is Kilmainham Gaol, where the executions of the leaders of the Easter Rising took place.

Kilmainham is home to an important Viking Age burial site, part of a complex of cemeteries which also includes finds at the War Memorial Gardens. The artefacts, mostly discovered in the 18th and 19th centuries, during industrial, transport and park works, are now part of the collection at the National Museum of Ireland.

The River Camac runs through Kilmainham and is crossed by bridges at the South Circular Road, Rowserstown Lane and Bow Lane.

Railway station

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The Dublin Heuston railway station, one of Dublin's three main railway stations, is nearby.

Notable people

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Former or current residents of the town have included:

References

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  1. ^ Barrow, G. Lennox (1985). "The Knights Hospitaller of St. John of Jerusalem at Kilmainham". Dublin Historical Record. 38 (3): 108–112. ISSN 0012-6861.
  2. ^ de Courcy, Sean (1995). "Looking at the Liffey in 795". Archaeology Ireland. 9 (3): 16–18. ISSN 0790-892X.
  3. ^ Curtis, Edmund (1942). "Norse Dublin". Dublin Historical Record. 4 (3): 96–108. ISSN 0012-6861.
  4. ^ O'Brien, Elizabeth (1995). "A Tale of Two Cemeteries". Archaeology Ireland. 9 (3): 13–15. ISSN 0790-892X.
  5. ^ "The Vikings beneath modern Dublin". The Irish Times. Retrieved 28 February 2024.
  6. ^ "The Annals of Ulster". celt.ucc.ie. Retrieved 28 February 2024.
  7. ^ McNeill, Charles (1924). "The Hospitallers at Kilmainham and Their Guests". The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland. 14 (1): 15–30. ISSN 0035-9106. JSTOR 25513314.
  8. ^ a b Walter Harris: The History and Antiquities of the City of Dublin
  9. ^ D'Alton (1838). History of the County Dublin. p. 301.
  10. ^ "New Kilmainham Township Act 1868 [31 & 32 Vict. c. cx]". The local [and personal] acts passed in the thirty-first and thirty-second years of the reign of Her Majesty Queen Victoria (PDF). Eyre and Spottiswoode. 13 July 1868. pp. 1521–36. Retrieved 29 June 2017.
  11. ^ "I. Area, houses, and population; Table V: Area, houses, and population of parliamentary divisions, municipal boroughs, and of towns of 2,000 inhabitants and upwards, together with the number of electors in each parliamentary division in 1891". Census of Ireland 1891; Vol.I: Leinster; No.2: Dublin. Command papers. Vol. C.6515–I. 1892. p. 73. Retrieved 3 July 2017.
  12. ^ Clancy, John Joseph (1899). A handbook of local government in Ireland: containing an explanatory introduction to the Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898: together with the text of the act, the orders in Council, and the rules made thereunder relating to county council, rural district council, and guardian's elections: with an index. Dublin: Sealy, Bryers and Walker. p. 427.
  13. ^ Dublin Corporation Act 1900 (63 & 64 Vict. c. cclxiv)
  14. ^ Ó Maitiú, Séamas (2003). Dublin's Suburban Towns, 1834–1930: Governing Clontarf, Drumcondra, Dalkey, Killiney, Kilmainham, Pembroke, Kingstown, Blackrock, Rathmines, and Rathgar. Four Courts Press.
  15. ^ Hayden, Jackie (11 December 2008). "At Home with Katherine Lynch". Hot Press. Retrieved 11 December 2008.
  16. ^ Gallagher, Alanna (16 June 2022). "Maeve Higgins's former Dublin home, a sensitively converted church in Kilmainham, for €800,000". The Irish Times. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
  17. ^ Barter, Pavel (3 September 2023). "Gina Moxley, forever raising hell". The Times. London.
  18. ^ a b Nolan, Larissa. "Where it's hip to be square".
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