The Little Book of Bray & Enniskerry

By Brian White

The Little Book of Bray & Enniskerry is a compendium of fascinating, obscure, strange and entertaining facts.Here you will find out about Bray and Enniskerry's history, their famous faces, their buildings and streets, their sporting heritage and their myths and legends. Through main thoroughfares and twisting back streets, this book takes the reader on a journey through the area's past.A reliable reference book and a quirky guide, this can be dipped into time and time again to reveal something new about the people, the heritage and the secrets of these ancient settlements.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Sep 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9780750969345

Book preview

12.   Wildlife

1

GEOGRAPHY AND HISTORY

The development of Bray was overseen by Lord Meath, and the development of Enniskerry was carefully planned by Lord Powerscourt. Both lords were granted their properties in the 1600s.

The coming of the railway to Bray in 1854 divides the old era from the modern era of the town. Prior to 1854, Bray was only a small fishing village. It was granted township status in 1866, and following the Public Health Act of 1875 the death rate fell and the town became one of the healthiest towns in Ireland. Victorians were encouraged to leave the city smog and take the sea breezes at Blackrock, Kingstown and Bray. The town council provided musical events on the Esplanade and the railway company provided bathing boxes. The hotels and boarding houses offered mainly Scottish, Welsh, English and Northern Irish visitors ‘A Céad Mile Fáilte’ (‘100,000 welcomes’). Each grouping had set weeks that they came, from May to the end of August. The population of the town doubled during the summer months. Bray soon won the title of the ‘Irish Brighton’. Commerce was driven by the railway, with many shops refunding railway fare if a patron spent more than £2.

Aside from tourism, the printing trade was the mainstay of the town until the Solus Teo lamp factory was opened in 1935. The next wave of development came in the 1950s, with the opening of Industrial Yarns and Ardmore Studio. The town prospered between the end of the Second World War and the mid-1960s when the British tourists started taking charter flights to the Spanish resorts.

Bray fortunes declined and it eventually became a commuter hub for Dublin. In 1984 the railway line between Dublin and Bray was electrified and the service is now called the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transport).

BRAY

Bray is a coastal town 20km south of Dublin. It is the largest town in County Wicklow. The town of Bray is the ninth largest urban area in Ireland, with a population of 31,872 as per the 2011 census. The area has four limits:

(1) Bray Civil Parish

(2) The Bray Township area

(3) The Municipal District

(4) Bray Postal Area

The Bray Civil Parish is an area in the centre of the town covering 425 acres.

The chief inhabitants of Bray, using the Town Improvements (Ireland) Act of 1854, incorporated themselves into a governing body on 9 October 1857. Bray was granted township status on 23 July 1866 and included the following townlands: Bray Civil Parish, Little Bray, Ravenswell, Killarney, Kilbride, Oldcourt, Ballwaltrim, Springfield, Ballymorris, Newcourt and part of Old Connaught.

Bray Municipal District was incorporated in 2014 and comprises all the townlands in Bray Township, Enniskerry, Kilmacanogue and Powerscourt.

The Bray Postal area begins one mile south of Shankill County Dublin and extends southwards to Glendalough. The West boundary is Kippure Mountain and the border to the east is the Irish Sea. Towns included are Bray, Enniskerry, Roundwood, Laragh, Kilcoole, Greystones and Newtownmountkennedy.

ENNISKERRY

Enniskerry is a townland in the Parish of Powerscourt. The village of Enniskerry is made up of three townlands: Cookstown, Knocksink, and the townland of Enniskerry. Both Bray and Enniskerry are in the half-barony of Rathdown.

The whole of Enniskerry has developed under the guidance of the Wingfield family, and the area has remained an agricultural area mainly consisting of small farm holdings. Forestry has long played a vital role in the Glencree Valley.

POWERSCOURT TOWNLANDS

The spelling of the Powerscourt townlands has changed over the past 400 years. Mervyn Wingfield, the 7th Lord Powerscourt, listed the changes in 1903 in his book, A Description of Powerscourt.

BRAY TIMELINE

ENNISKERRY TIMELINE