1 JANUARY 2025

Many years ago, I photographed an official sign that read “FORTY FOOT MEN ONLY”. My account of the area should explain why this was considered amusing.

Sandycove Avenue forms three sides of a rectangle, bounded on the south by Sandycove Terrace (part of Sandycove Road). Originally, Sandycove Avenue East was a cul-de-sac leading to the Martello Tower (Joyce’s Tower, Sandycove), as shown on maps from 1820. By 1860, only two houses stood on Sandycove Avenue East. Ten years later, significant building had occurred, including three houses designated Ellerslie Terrace, alongside detached and terraced houses. The 1901 census recorded 27 houses, five of which were vacant, with 98 occupants. Five houses were classified as first class. In 1884, the first meeting of the Dublin Bay Sailing Club took place at Number 7 Sandycove Avenue East, the home of Major Edward White. St Kilda’s, a villa-style house on the east side, was owned by Francis Falkner, a grocer with shops in Grafton Street and London.

Sandycove Avenue West runs north from Sandycove Road towards Sandycove Point. It features an attractive wall-mounted post box bearing the Saorstát Éireann signage. Four terraced houses and two large houses, Cove Castle (Number 9) and St Michael’s, predate 1860. Most of the remaining east side was completed within the following decade.

Sandycove Point is a residential area on a northerly headland between Bullock Harbour and Glasthule. The area boasts outstanding built heritage, including Victorian terraced and villa-style residences, an acclaimed International Modernist house designed by Irish architect Michael Scott, and various maritime, defensive, and bathing-related structures. The headland offers a sheltered harbour on its west side, along with a park and beach providing recreational facilities.

Before the 19th century, the Sandycove area, between Glasthule and Bullock, was largely uninhabited. The rough terrain was scattered with rocks and disused, water-filled quarries. Primarily a local fishing spot, old sketches depict humble cottages in sheltered locations with timber fishing boats drawn up on the rocks. A lifeboat service was established in Sandycove in 1803, housed in a boathouse now part of Neptune Lodge.

The Martello Tower, one of 74 built around the Irish coast (mainly south and east) to defend against a threatened Napoleonic invasion, was erected between 1801 and 1804 in about six months. Many, like this one, were attached to a battery or fort. These stone towers were forty feet high with eight-foot thick walls. The entrance was typically ten feet above ground, protected by a machicolation from which scalding water could be poured onto attackers. Sandycove’s is one of the most famous, as James Joyce briefly resided there. The opening scene of Ulysses is set on its gun platform, hence its name, Joyce’s Tower. Since 1964, it has operated as a Joycean museum and visitor centre, owned by Dublin Tourism Enterprises.

The battery, a massive cut-stone bulwark, was built shortly after the tower. Bedrock rises within the fort, forming its highest point. A flagstaff likely stood at the battery’s centre, communicating with the old telegraph station on Dalkey Hill. During the Second World War, searchlights and guns were stationed here. The battery is now part of a private house converted in 1955 from the existing garrison building. In its prime, it housed 36 artillerymen.

The harbour, completed in 1864 to support boating and fishing, fell into disrepair by the late 19th century as Dublin Port and Docks Board ceased its use. However, the area remained popular for bathing, particularly at the Forty Foot. It is believed the army presence at Sandycove Point established this all-male bathing tradition.

The name “Forty Foot” has various explanations: the fortieth foot regiment stationed at the battery, the forty-foot wide Marine Road in Dún Laoghaire, or the sea’s depth. However, Pearson suggests it derives from the area being called “Forty Foot Hole” since around 1800, a common term for deep-water fishing pools around the Irish coast.

Despite being a long-established bathing spot, facilities were limited until around 1880, when the Sandycove Bathers’ Association was formed. In 1909, the local authority won a case forcing the association to spend nearly £2,000 on improvements: removing dangerous rocks, carving steps, installing ladders, building screen walls, and repairing storm damage. Since then, it has been well-maintained and is now enjoyed by both men and women.

References to hot and cold baths in Sandycove date back to 1838. Owned by Mr John Walsh, they were initially Walsh’s Baths, then the Sandycove Ladies’ Baths, located north of Sandycove Park. The 1844 railway extension to Dalkey and the subsequent Sandycove station boosted the district’s residential development and popularity, coinciding with Dún Laoghaire’s Victorian boom. Land was sold to speculative builders, much of it once belonging to the Proby Estate. The Proby estate at Sandycove and Dalkey originated from a Proby marriage to the Allen estate heiress of Stillorgan in the late 18th century.

The Allens, Dublin builders, acquired much land in south County Dublin, including Sandycove, during Charles I’s reign. In the early 19th century, Admiral Proby made five leases of coastal land in Sandycove, where villas and terraced houses were built.

The first Proby leases in Sandycove appear around 1803. Many houses built between 1830 and 1850 were rented to summer visitors for high prices. These middle-class merchants or professionals, living in city-centre terraced houses, sought the fresher air of coastal towns like Sandycove during summer. Eventually, tenants bought the freeholds from the original leaseholders, making them permanent residences.

While most houses date from the Victorian speculative building boom, there is impressive architectural diversity from before and after this period. One example is ‘Geragh’, built by Michael Scott in 1936 as his own residence at Sandycove Point.

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