Tallaght
Tallaght is a southwestern outer suburb of Dublin, Ireland. Tallaght, which is the county town of the South Dublin County Council local authority area, was the site of a monastic settlement from at least the 8th century, which became one of medieval Ireland's more important monastic centres.
Up to the 1960s, Tallaght was a small village in the old County Dublin, linked to several nearby rural areas which were part of the large civil parish of the same name—the local council estimates the population then to be 2,500. Suburban development began in the 1970s and a "town centre" area has been developing since the late 1980s. There is no legal definition of the boundaries of Tallaght, but the 13 electoral divisions known as "Tallaght" followed by the name of a locality have, according to the 2022 census, a population of 81,022, up from 76,119 over six years. This makes Tallaght the largest settlement on the island without city status, though there have been calls for it to be declared one.
The village core of the district is located north of, and near to, the River Dodder, and parts of the broader area within South Dublin are close to the borders of Dublin City, County Kildare, Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown and County Wicklow. Several streams flow in the area, notably the Jobstown or Tallaght Stream, and the Fettercairn Stream, while the Tymon River, the main component of the River Poddle, rises in Cookstown, near Fettercairn.
Tallaght is also the name of an extensive civil parish, which includes other areas of southern and southwestern Dublin, from Templeogue to Ballinascorney in the mountains. A book about the civil parish was published in the 19th century, The History and Antiquities of Tallaght in the County of Dublin, written by William Domville Handcock.
Etymology
The place-name Tallaght is said to derive from támh-leacht, meaning "plague pit" in Irish, and consisting of "támh", meaning plague, and "leacht", meaning grave or memorial stone. The earliest mention of a Tallaght is in Lebor Gabála Érenn, and is there linked to Parthalón, said to be the leader of an early invasion of Ireland. He and many of his followers were said to have died of the plague. The burials that have been found in the Tallaght area, however, are all normal pre-historic interments, mainly from the Bronze Age, and nothing suggesting a mass grave has so far been recorded here. The Annals of the Four Masters record the legendary event as follows:In translation:
The name in Irish, Tamhlacht, is found at other places, such as Tamlaght in Magherafelt District, Northern Ireland, though the mention of Eadoir, probably Binn Éadair in the passage below, suggests that Tallaght is the more likely location for this tale.
Places near Tallaght featured in the ancient legends of the Fianna, a band of warriors that roamed the country and fought for the High King at Tara. In Lady Gregory's Gods and Fighting Men, mention is made of, in particular, Gleann na Smól: in Chapter 12 "The Red Woman", on a misty morning, Fionn says to his Fians, "Make yourselves ready, and we will go hunting to Gleann-na-Smol". There they meet Niamh of the Golden Hair, who chose Oisín from among all the Fianna to be her husband, told him to come with her on her fairy horse, after which they rode over the land to the sea and across the waves to the land of Tír na nÓg.
History
8th to 12th centuries
With the foundation of the monastery of Tallaght by St. Maelruain in AD 769, there is a more reliable record of the area's early history. The monastery was a centre of learning and piety, particularly associated with the Céli Dé spiritual reform movement. It was such an important institution that it and the monastery at Finglas were known as the "two eyes of Ireland". St. Aengus, an Ulsterman, was one of the most illustrious of the Céli Dé and devoted himself to the religious life. Wherever he went, he was accompanied by a band of followers who distracted him from his devotions. He secretly travelled to the monastery at Tallaght where he was not known and enrolled as a lay brother. He remained unknown for many years until his identity was discovered by Maeilruain. They may have written the Martyrology of Tallaght together, and St Aengus also wrote a calendar of saints known as the Félire Óengusso. St. Maelruain died on 7 July 792 and was buried in Tallaght. The influence of the monastery continued after his death, as can be judged by the fact that, in 806, the monks of Tallaght were able to prevent the holding of the Tailteann Games, because of some infringement of their rights.In AD 811, the monastery was devastated by the Vikings but the destruction was not permanent and the annals of the monastery continued to be recorded for several following centuries. After the Anglo-Norman invasion in 1179, Tallaght and its appurtenances were confirmed to the Diocese of Dublin and became the property of the Archbishop. The complete disappearance of every trace of what must have been an extensive and well-organised monastic settlement can only be accounted for by the subsequent history of the place, the erection and demolition of defensive walls and castles, and the incessant warfare and destruction that lasted for hundreds of years.
13th to 20th centuries
Throughout the greater part of the 13th century a state of comparative peace existed at Tallaght, but subsequently, the O'Byrnes and O'Tooles, in what would become County Wicklow, took offensive action and were joined by many of the Archbishop's tenants. As a result of this the land was not tilled, the pastures were not stocked and the holdings were deserted. In 1310 the bailiffs of Tallaght got a royal grant to enclose the town. No trace of these defensive walls survive and there is no evidence of their exact location, except, perhaps, for the name of the Watergate Bridge which spans the Dodder on the Oldbawn Road. The continuation of such raids prompted the construction, in 1324, of Tallaght Castle, and it was finished sometime before 1349. Tallaght had become an important defensive site on the edge of the Pale. A century later the castle was reported to be in need of repair.The 17th and 18th centuries brought many changes to Tallaght. Many mills were built along the Dodder and this brought new prosperity to the broad area, which saw the building of many houses.
When Archbishop Hoadley replaced Archbishop King in 1729 he found the castle in ruins and had it demolished, building himself a palace at a cost of £2,500. By 1821 the palace too had fallen into ruin and an Act of Parliament was passed which stated that it was unfit for habitation. The following year it was sold to Major Palmer, Inspector General of Prisons, who pulled the palace down and used the materials to build his mansion, Tallaght House, as well as a schoolhouse and several cottages. Parts of Tallaght House, including one tower, were incorporated into St Joseph's Retreat House, situated on the grounds of St Mary's Priory; the rest was demolished. That tower contains a spiral staircase and was originally four storeys high but is now reduced internally to two. Attached to the castle was a long building that was used in the archbishop's time as a brewery and later as a granary and stables. When the Dominicans came, it was converted into a chapel and was used as such until 1883, when the new church dedicated to Fr Tom Burke was built.
The Dominicans came to Tallaght in 1855/6 and soon established a priory that was also a seminary for the formation of Dominicans in Ireland and on missions in Trinidad and Tobago, South America, Australia, India, and elsewhere. The cramped accommodation of Tallaght house was replaced by the austere priory in phases of 1864, 1903 and again in 1957. The work that goes on in these buildings is various: St Joseph's retreat house, the Tallaght parish, St Catherine's counselling centre, at least two publishing enterprises, individual writing and international research in several domains.
The grounds of the Priory, the old palace gardens, still retain older features such as the Archbishop's bathhouse, the Friar's Walk and St. Maelruain's Tree, a Persian walnut of the eighteenth century.
Along an old road from Clondalkin to Tallaght were the Commons of Tallaght, an area which had been enclosed in 1829. On these commons, horse races were frequently held until the mid to late 1800s.
The old constabulary barracks on the main street were the scene of the engagement known as the 'Battle of Tallaght', which occurred during the Fenian Rising on 5 March 1867. On that night the Fenians moved out to assemble at the appointed place on Tallaght Hill. The large number of armed men alarmed the police in Tallaght who sent a warning to the nearest barracks. There were fourteen constables and a head constable under Sub-inspector Burke at Tallaght, and they took up a position outside the barracks where they commanded the roads from both Greenhills and Templeogue. The first body of armed men came from Greenhills and, when they came under police fire, retreated. Next, a party came from Templeogue and was also dispersed. In 1936 a skeleton, sword-bayonet and water bottle were found in a hollow tree stump near Terenure. It is thought that these were the remains of one of the Fenians who had taken refuge there after the Battle of Tallaght and either died of his wounds or was frozen to death.
In 1888 the Dublin and Blessington Steam Tramway opened and it passed through Tallaght Village. This provided a new means of transporting goods and also brought day-trippers from the city.
Modern development
In 1821, the population of the civil parish of Tallaght was 4,348 people. By 1961, more than a century later, the population had remained practically static at 4,565.While no plan was formally adopted, Tallaght was laid out as a new town, as set out in the 1967 Myles Wright masterplan for Greater Dublin. Many of the social and cultural proposals in this plan were ignored by the Dublin local authorities, and contrary to planners' suggestions, Tallaght and the other "new towns" were not provided with adequate facilities. Characterised by the same problems associated with poorly planned fringe areas of many European cities, during the 1970s and 1980s Tallaght became synonymous with suburban mismanagement.
The development of high-density housing in Tallaght began about 1969, and by 1996 had become Dublin's largest suburb with a population of 85,000, with many residents having been prompted to move to Tallaght from substandard or overcrowded conditions in inner-city areas of Dublin, whilst others moved to Dublin from rural parts of Ireland in search of better opportunities. In a Dáil Éireann debate in May 1996, it was noted that "Tallaght the size of Limerick — 97,000 people live there".
In January 1985, the Community Training and Employment Consortium was established in Tallaght by the Youth Employment Agency, with its objective being to "to bring together and coordinate the work of manpower and education agencies in the area, and to promote community involvement in local provision of manpower services."
The lack of amenities or job prospects in Tallaght afforded to the sudden influx of newcomers was still being felt into the early 1990s, with people complaining of isolation, in an area that felt like it was composed solely of 'the houses and the mountains' according to one resident. John Reid, a staff member at Tallaght Community Workshops, spoke in 1992 of the failures of planners as he saw it:
I believe the Government is certainly responsible for some of the things that have happened, particularly in west Tallaght. They've created ghettos, in that all the unemployed people are in the one area, because about five years ago the Government offered a £5,000 grant for people to give up their County Council or Corporation houses, and move to a private housing estate, with the result that all the people that couldn't afford to do that, such as the unemployed people, are all stuck together in the one area. And everything is doom and gloom then, because there's no jobs to look forward to, there's no neighbours to look at to say 'Well they have a job, now if they have a job, I can go out and get meself a job'.
Peggy Towers of Killinarden Community Centre, speaking in 1992, noted that the community "definitely needed more employment" as around "50 to 60% of men in Killinarden" were unemployed and "an awful lot of children that are over the age of 18 are unemployed as well". Secondary school students interviewed at the same time noted that some employers were discriminating against potential candidates from Tallaght as the area had a negative reputation, which further limited their job prospects.
Brian Hayes, a Fine Gael politician, noted in Dáil Éireann in 1996 that the "Kiltalown site in west Tallaght takes up 20 acres. Most of the area has unemployment rates of 80 per cent, there are connected large-scale problems and the social amenities are minimal." Tallaght Rehabilitation Project, a local drug and alcohol rehabilitation service was set up in 1997, initiated by the Tallaght Drugs Taskforce, in an effort to support local Tallaght residents suffering from drug addiction. The organisation have used Kiltalown House near Jobstown as their headquarters since July 2005.
While it was absorbed into the larger suburban area of Dublin, Tallaght has developed a distinctive identity, arising largely from its rapid growth during recent decades, and now has active local arts, cultural, sports, and economic scene.
Tallaght's Civic Square contains the seat of the local authority, County Hall, a modern and well-equipped library facility, a theatre building and a "cutting edge" 4-storey arts centre named "Rua Red". This facility offers activities in the areas of music, dancing, art, drama and literature. Along with other local libraries and arts groups, it also has another theatre building and a homegrown youth theatre company. It is also the home to the Tallaght Swim Team, Tallaght Rugby Club, the National Basketball Arena, Shamrock Rovers F.C., and several martial arts schools and Gaelic Athletic Association clubs.