Malone Gardens

Nanny Doolin at Malone Gardens 1969

The following extract is by Rose Doyle, a writer for the Irish Times.

"The Ringsend/Sandymount area of Dublin is changing with a speed that is both exciting and intimidating …………….

My neighbourhood is old and gloriously worn with Dublin life, the city’s history writ everywhere in the streets and landmark buildings.

Beggars Bush Barracks (built in 1827 for infantry soldiers) is metres from my doorstep. The Grand Canal Dock (completed in 1796 as a traffic route to the west) is a short trot in the other direction. Balls Bridge (re-built after a storm in 1835) is just around the corner. The brown waters of the Dodder flow through it all

… Nowhere in town do houses in such variety sit cheek by happy jowl. My cul-de-sac of modest, latterly much extended and sort after two-up-two-down houses was built c1931 named after Michael Malone - who died in the siege of nearby Northumberland Road in 1916 – they’ve grown comfortably with the neighbourhood…

… Bath Avenue, our elegantly eccentric main boulevard, was the first road built after the Dodder delta was reclaimed in 1792."

Click here to look at the article in full.

In 1936 when Eva was nine years old, and the same year that Teresa was born, the Doolin family moved to Malone Gardens, SandyMount. This house was about one mile away from Turners Cottages and all the family’s possessions were moved by handcart.

The houses in Malone Gardens were built in 1931 for one family to live in. They had two bedrooms upstairs and two rooms downstairs. The family now had their own front door and an outside toilet of their own. The house also had a garden at the back and the front. Christy, the last child of Richard & Elizabeth Doolin, was born in Malone Gardens in 1938. The family didn’t move again. Brigid died here in 1945 at the age of twenty-one and her father Richard died in 1947.

The remaining children grew up, married and moved on leaving Elizabeth and Christy (who never married) living in the house until Elizabeth died in 1976. Christy continued to live in Malone Gardens until he died in 1988.

To complete the story of Turners Cottages and Malone Gardens and bring it up to date in 2005, Richard and Berna Doolin moved into Malone Gardens in 1988 and continue to live there today.

Click here to see a family photograph album