News

Fingal County Council has granted Part 8 planning permission for the Harry Reynolds Road Pedestrian and Cycle Route in Balbriggan which will provide safe, segregated cycling and pedestrian routes for residents and schoolchildren.

Fingal County Council is partnering with Cardiff University to host Coastal Communities Adapting Together (CCAT), a free online conference for sharing knowledge and best practice in coastal management running each morning from 17 to 19 November 2020.

Fingal County Council has launched its draft Tree Strategy entitled “Forest of Fingal, A Tree Strategy for Fingal – Draft Document”.

Members of community groups and organisations across Fingal are being invited to let their creativity and imaginations run wild, dust off the disappointment of 2020 and begin to plan for next year.

Fingal County Council’s Arts Office & the Association of Local Authority Arts Offices (LAAOs), in collaboration with the Arts Council, present PLATFORM 31

Fingal County Council are delighted to fund a creative writing project for people who are over 50, living in Fingal.

James English RHA, an artist from Loughshinny was the awarded the 2020 Fingal County Council Graphic Studio Award.

Fingal County Council has provided funding for a new film ‘’Dear Fingal” featuring a stellar cast and crew of homegrown talent as it continues to support and assist the Arts sector during the difficult Covid-19 period.

A great resource for old photos of places in Fingal is www.digital.libraries.dublincity.ie 

Find out more about the architectural heritage of Fingal from the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage.

Every field in Fingal, and across Ireland, has a name or had one in the past.

Aerial Photography provides us with a fascinating record of the changes to Fingal’s landscape over the years.

Ireland is home to 28 species of land mammal, over 400 species of birds, more than 4,000 plant species and over 12,000 species of insect.

Fingal has about 50 holy wells. The veneration of water had its origins in prehistory, when people threw offerings into sacred springs, rivers and lakes-a tradition we mirror when we throw coins into a fountain

There are 54 historic graveyards within Fingal which form a significant element of the county’s heritage. Many are still in use. Some such as Lusk, Swords, St Douloughs and Grallagh are associated with saints and date from the earliest periods of Christianty. Others like Cloghran, Holmpatrick and Mulhuddart are medieval parish graveyards.

Mary Ellen (Molly) Adrien was born on 25 September 1873. She is remembered as one of Fingal’s ‘Revolutionary women’. Molly joined Cumann na mBan after its establishment in April 1914 and is said to have been instrumental in forming the Lusk branch. On Easter Sunday 1916, Cumman na mBan were ordered to assemble at Black Church Phisboro, an order countermanded and were sent away to await recall. However Molly remained in the city and was chosen to bring the order to rise from Pearse to the leader of Irish Volunteers Joseph Lawless and then to Thomas Ashe Commandant of the North County Brigade.

Saturday the 16th May is National Drawing day which brings to mind the importance of illustrations, drawings and paintings of our heritage sites that have survived through the ages. In the 18th century the fashion for drawing antiquities was exemplified by Gabriel Beranger whose paintings of his Rambles thro’ the County of Dublin in 1770s beautifully recorded now long gone castles and monuments in Fingal.

Fingal has an ancient and varied maritime history from Viking raids and the medieval havens of Howth where the pague arrived, to the pirates of Lambay and the smugglers of Rush and Loughshinny. By the later fourteenth century the mouth of the Liffey had silted up and merchandise had to be landed elsewhere along the coast.

Contrary to popular belief most of Ireland’s natural forests were cleared before 1600, much of this clearance in prehistoric times. In medieval times there were scattered woods and copses throughout Fingal but forest cover reached a critical low in the 17th century. Much of present day Blanchardstown was covered in woodland known as the Great Scaldwood. There was an organised wolf cull in the Great Scaldwood in 1652.

Hundreds of sites in Fingal are both archaeological monuments and protected structures. Take Brazil house (as the archaeologist’s recorded it) or Brazeel House (according to the architects).  This was the former residence of the Bolton family, many of whom had distinguished legal careers, including Sir Richard Bolton, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, in the reign of Charles the First.