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Description of : Dalkey | Street Listing Page : 1  2  

DALKEY, a parish and village in Rathdown barony, Dublin county, eight miles S.E. from the General Post Office, Dublin, comprising an area of 467 acres, of which 11 are occupied by the village. Population of parish, 1,449; of village, 304, inhabiting 47 houses.

It is picturesquely situated at the east extremity of Dublin bay, and appears from an early period to have been a town and port of some importance, having had a charter of incorporation, as is on record, by an enrolment of 33 Edw. III, dated 8 Feb. 1358, which styles its corporate officers as the "Provost and Bailiffs of the town of Dalkey," and from being the point of connexion between the two countries, its harbour must have been well frequented by shipping, as well as being the landing and embarking place of the several Viceroys:-

Philip De Courtney, Lord Deputy, landed here in : 1386
Sir John Stanley : 1387
Lord Furnival afterwards the celebrated Earl of Shrewsbury, landed here in : 1414
Sir Richard Edgccomb embarked here in : 1488
Sir Edward Bellingham landed here in : 1548
The Earl of Sussex embarked here in 1558
Sir John Perrott landed here in 1584

and down to the end of the seventeenth century it maintained the character of a port, and was protected by seven castles the remains of two of which are still to he seen on each side, of the village. The village comprises one main street. The only public building is the Roman Catholic Chapel. The Church of the district, recently erected near the coast, in a large and elegant building; and not far distant is the Loretto Convent, a handsome cruciform structure. There is a National School, and Coast Guard and Metropolitan Police Station. The government works and quarries, many years in operation, for the construction of Kingstown harbour, have considerably diminished the hills in this district.. The mechanical process of' raising the stone from the quarries, and bringing it to the level of the railway, is by three inclined planes and three large metal wheels, one having an immense chain over a groove, by which one man can move and manage six carriages, carrying about twenty tons of granite, that could not be done in the ordinary way by less than twenty seven horses. Dalkey island comprising and area of twenty-two acres, lies about three furlongs from the mainland. The only building on it is a Martello tower and battery of three twenty-four pounders, in charge of a few of the artillery. In the end of the last and beginning of the present, century, a convivial Dublin club used to assemble on the island annually in June and go through all the burlesque form and pomp of a mock coronation of "King of Dalkey," with officers of state &c.

The atmospheric railway, now a third year in operation, has its terminus near the entrance of the village. The mail from Dublin arrives at 9, A.m. and at 30 minutes past 1, p.m., and in despatched at. 45 minutes past 7, A M., and at noon.