PORTMARNOCK

'Portmarnock' (''Port Mearnóg'' in Irish) is a small suburban village with extensive housing estates to the north and west, north of the city of Dublin in the part of County Dublin now known as County Fingal, Ireland.

Contents

Location and access

Name and history

Portmarnock Strand

Amenities

Points of note

External links

References

Location and access

Portmarnock lies on the coast and, owing to its proximity to Dublin city, is a form of dormitory town north-northeast of the city centre. In the 2002 census the population was 8,376, although this shows a decrease to 7,973 in the preliminary 2006 census statistics.
Portmarnock is situated between Malahide and Baldoyle, along the northern commuter railway line out of Dublin (also the Dublin-Belfast line); Portmarnock railway station opened on 25 May 1844, ^[1] is now on the DART network.^[2] At sea, Portmarnock could be said to border Sutton and perhaps Howth in the form of the Howth family's Ireland's Eye.

Name and history

The district's name derives from the Irish word ''port'' – meaning port – and Saint Marnoch or Mernoc, said to have arrived in what is now Portmarnock in the 5th century AD.
The area had been settled thousands of years before, in Neolithic times. A number of remains of activity in the Portmarnock area from those times is still evident today, with flints and other tools having been excavated at the northern fringe of Portmarnock, while the remains of a ring fort are visible from the air at the south of the town. The son of Queen Maedhbh of Connaught - Maine - is also said to have been buried locally.

Portmarnock Strand

Like many of Dublin's coastal settlements, it is home to a Napoleonic Martello tower.
Portmarnock is famous for its world class golf course which formally opened on December 26 1894, while another links course, opened in the 1990s, was designed by German golfer Bernhard Langer. That golf course and hotel are built around the former home of the Jameson distilling family. Anne Jameson's son was Guglielmo Marconi (she married Giuseppe Marconi). Guglielmo, of course, invented the wireless and carried out the first transatlantic morse code transmission in 1902 from Nova Scotia, Canada to England.

Portmarnock's beach was the starting point for two aviation firsts. On 23 June 1930 Australian aviator Charles Kingsford Smith and his crew took off in the Southern Cross on the first westbound transatlantic flight (to Newfoundland, Canada). The first ''solo'' westbound transatlantic flight also began from Portmarnock beach as on 18 August 1932 Jim Mollison, a British pilot, took a de Havilland Puss Moth from Portmarnock to Pennfield, New Brunswick, also in Canada.
Portmarnock's beach areas are becoming (2000's) popular with wind surfers and kite surfers.

Amenities

Today Portmarnock's village is a single main street, with shops, one of the two Roman Catholic churches and other facilities. Further along the same road are the two local hotels and some small office buildings.
There are in all two primary schools - St. Marnock's and St. Helen's - and also a post-primary school, Portmarnock Community School. There are several active sports clubs, such as Portmarnock Tennis Club, Portmarnock A.F.C., Naomh Mearnóg GAA, and the Portmarnock Sport & Leisure Club which encompasses 16 sporting activities.

Points of note

Portmarnock was the home of the late Eamon Andrews and is also home to TV personalities Marty Whelan and Aeongus McAnally (The Lyrics Board).
Portmarnock has two hotels, The White Sands, hosting the night club "Tamango's", and the Portmarnock Hotel & Golf Links.
There is a good mix of housing in Portmarnock ranging from small apartments to detached "villa"-style homes, and there is also a mix of people from many ethnic backgrounds. In general Portmarnock might be described as an upper middle class suburb.

External links

★ Portmarnock Sub-Aqua Club

★ Portmarnock Tennis Club

★ Naomh Mearnog GAA

★ Histoy Portmarnockwaves

★ 2006 Census

★ St Helens S.N.S

★ Portmarnock A.F.C.

★ Portmarnock Community School

References

1. Portmarnock station
2. See rail transport in Ireland for more.