Killiney Hill Park

Park with a scenic views

Killiney Hill

Killiney Hill and Dalkey Hill are both part of Killiney Hill Park, a small public park overlooking the villages of Dalkey to the north and Killiney to the west. In 1887 it was dedicated to public use by Prince Albert Victor of Wales, in memory of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee, and called Victoria Hill. The park is crossed by various walking tracks, and with its spectacular views in all directions, is a popular destination for walkers and hikers from the surrounding areas.

Bray Head and Wicklow

Killiney Hill (Irish: Cnoc Chill Iníon Léinín) is the southernmost of the two hills which form the southern boundary of Dublin Bay (the other being Dalkey Hill). Crowned by an obelisk, the hill is 153 meters high and offers beautiful views over the surrounding areas : Dublin to the northwest; the Irish Sea and the mountains of Wales (on a clear day) to the east and southeast; and Bray Head and the Wicklow Mountains to the south. The hill was higher in the past but material was removed from the summit for the construction of the pier at Dún Laoghaire.

Dublin Bay

Killiney Hill stands in the former townland of Mount Mapas, or Scalpwilliam, first mentioned under that name in the beginning of the 17th century. Former residents included Captain Edward Maunsell, who served as High Sheriff of the County Dublin in 1755, followed by Colonel the Hon. Henry Loftus, MP for Bannow, County Wexford. Loftus planted the hill and built nearby roads. In 1790 Lord Clonmell lived here and constructed a park which he filled with deer.

The Obelisk bears the inscription: “Last year being hard with the poor, walks about these hills and this were erected by John Mapas, June 1742.”

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

St Stephen’s Green

St Stephens Green

St Stephen’s Green is a city centre public park in Dublin.

Spring is officially here

The current landscape of the park was designed by William Sheppard, which officially opened to the public on Tuesday, July 27, 1880.

Stephens Green Shopping Centre

The park is adjacent to one of Dublin’s main shopping streets, Grafton Street, and to a shopping centre named for it, while on its surrounding streets are the offices of a number of public bodies and the city terminus of one of Dublin’s Luas tram lines. It is often informally called Stephen’s Green.

Photoshoot

Until 1663 St Stephen’s Green was a marshy common on the edge of Dublin, used for grazing. In that year Dublin Corporation, seeing an opportunity to raise much needed revenue, decided to enclose the centre of the common and to sell land around the perimeter for building.

Easter Egg Hunt

The park was enclosed with a wall in 1664. The houses built around the Green were rapidly replaced by new buildings in the Georgian style and by the end of the eighteenth century the Green was a place of resort for the better-off of the city.

Enjoying February

After the death of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria suggested that St Stephen’s Green be renamed Albert Green and have a statue of Albert at its center – a suggestion rejected with indignation by the Dublin Corporation and the people of the city, to the Queen’s chagrin.

Bower

Access to the Green was restricted to local residents, until 1877, when Parliament passed an Act to reopen St Stephen’s Green to the public, at the initiative of Sir A.E. Guinness, a member of the Guinness brewing family who lived at St. Anne’s Park, Raheny and at Ashford Castle. He later paid for the laying out of the Green in approximately its current form, which took place in 1880, and gave it to the Corporation, as representatives of the people.

Spring

One of the more unusual aspects of the park lies on the north west corner of this central area – a garden for the blind with scented plants, which can withstand handling, and are labelled in Braille.

Ornamental Gazebo

Further north (and spanning much of the length of the park) is a large lake. Home to ducks and other water fowl, the lake is fed by an artificial water fall, spanned by O’Connell bridge, and fronted by an ornamental gazebo. The lakes in the park are fed from the Grand Canal at Portobello.

Lake

The Fusiliers’ Arch (first termed “Traitors Gate” by Redmondites) at the Grafton Street corner which commemorates the Royal Dublin Fusiliers who died in the Second Boer War

The Fusiliers’ Arch

All information comes from Wikipedia.