North Dublin’s Sandy Shore – 8: Raheny

After Dollymount’s wooden bridge, the coast road has a more inland feel about it. The sandy Bull Island traps a narrow lagoon within its five kilometre span, and midway along a causeway connects with the mainland. Here we reach the borders of Raheny, five miles from Dublin city centre. The name derives from the Gaelic for an ancient ring fort, or rath, and here signifies the fort in the marsh. The old centre of Raheny is further inland and can be reached via St Anne’s Park or Watermill Road. Alternatively, it can be reached directly from the city by Dart. 

The Dart stop is just north of the main road linking Dublin and Howth. The Howth Road now ploughs straight past what was once a small village remote from the city. Previously the road headed sharply seawards here, as Main Street still does. Then, in the early nineteenth century, the Telford Engineering Company were commissioned to construct the new Howth Road along its modern lines. William Dargan, having worked with Scottish Englineer Thomas Telford on the London to Holyhead Road from 1819, was placed in charge of the project in 1824. Dargan would soon graduate to the building of railways. From 1834, for two decades, the land of Ireland was well ironed, much of it thanks to Dargan. The Dublin to Drogheda railway was completed in 1844 and would ultimately connect to Belfast. Daniel O’Connell was on the first train to stop at Raheny railway station which dates from 1844. The Liberator would have been nearing seventy at the time, but still at the height of his powers as a nationalist and abolitionist. But he only had three years left to live, dying in Genoa in 1847, while on pilgrimage to Rome. 

Coming from the Dart station, on the left eight cottages arranged in a crescent are Raheny’s oldest surviving dwellings. They were built in 1790 for the estate workers of Samuel Dick. He was a wealthy linen merchant who became governor of the Bank of Ireland. He also built a school, Dick’s Charity School, in 1787 for the poor children of the parish, located a little further on at the rath in the centre of the village. It is now a Pakistani Restaurant, the Mint Cottage.

At the Manhattan pub, you reach the Howth Road. If you follow the Howth Road northwards, it soon merges into a stylish streetscape. The houses are white, Art Deco, particularly suited to a seaside environment, even one as bracing as North Dublin,  There’s just a hint of Miami in the air, giving the area a vaguely exotic twist.

The village plaza is on the seaward side. This is centred on what remains of the ancient rath, consisting largely of old church ruins. Raheny is first noted with the establishment of Christianity in the area in 570AD. By 1179 Pope Alexander III granted ownership of the local chapel to Christchurch Cathedral. A church, dedicated to St Assam, was erected in 1609 after the Protestant Reformation and rebuilt in 1712. In 1889 the Church of Ireland decided to abandon the old church, and moved south along the Howth Road where a new church was built. The ruins of the old church remain.

The Roman Catholic church, completed in 1864, was also called St Assam’s and lies just across Main Street from the rath. Designed by Patrick Byrne, a prominent church architect of the time, who died the year it opened. In 1962 it was replaced by the huge modernist hulk, the church of Our Lady, Mother of Divine Grace across the main road. The old church continued to function as a parish social centre und was only recently deconsecrated and earmarked for office development.

The new Church of Ireland venue, All Saint’s Church, is further south along the Howth Road. It was designed by Irish architect George Coppinger Ashlin. It is cruciform, built in the modern gothic style in Wicklow granite with limestone dressings and an octagonal spire. It is where Bono and Ali Stewart were married in 1982, with Adam Clayton as best man. The church is set within its own narrow parkland which connects to St Anne’s Park. I note a crossing road is called All Saints Drive, but not all drivers are saints.

Arthur Guinness, Baron Ardilaun, sponsored the building of All Saints. He was the great grandson of Arthur Guinness who founded the brewing company in 1759. Ardilaun owned extensive lands throughout the country including Muckross in Killarney and Ashford Castle in County Galway. Raheny was his Dublin residence. It had been purchased in 1837 by his father Benjamin who changed the name from Thornhill to St Anne’s. Arthur became renowned as a philanthropist and patron of the arts. Having bought St Stephen’s Green, he landscaped it and donated it to the citizens of Dublin in 1880. His statue stands, or sits, on the southwestern side. When approached by Sir Hugh Land to have a modern municipal gallery built there he stormed: “Are you mad? I will not have myself stand sentry to a picture palace like some giddy huckster!” The gallery eventually was established in Parnell Square, and Ardilaun was pilloried by Yeats. He died in 1915 and is buried at All Saints. The estate was eventually acquired by Dublin Corporation in 1939 and developed as St Anne’s Park. The big house itself burned down in 1943. The Guinness estate in total measured some 500 acre of which about half 240 acres has been used for St Anne’s.

I stop for a coffee in the village, at Perky’s coffee house with its pleasant little garden at the rere. Perked up, I then turn onto Watermill Road at the bottom of Main Street and stroll towards the park. From this entrance, a long, straight, pleasantly gloomy avenue of trees bisects the playing fields. There is a rough path down to the Nanikin River. Wilderness encroaches but this is balanced by a few picturesque follies. These are vestiges of the old Guinness estate. 

The Herculanean Temple is one of a number of follies with a Roman theme The temple of Isis by the pond nearby takes its inspiration from Pompeii. The false ruins would make an ideal backdrop for a Romantic painting, with cavorting heros and nymphs. Today, two Goth couples lounge by the water smoking the herb. So, more of a Manet then. My journey becomes ever more winding, and I eventually gain the seafront across an Impressionist meadow. 

Further south, I head back inland and underneath the Annie Lee Tower and bridge which suggests medieval times. It was named for Benjamin Guinness’s daughter who became Lady Plunket. Though it would pass for an ancient park gate it also dates from the 1890s as the Ardilauns continued to embellish their estate.

Lady Ardilaun was a guiding force in developing the gardens in the manner of French classical garden design. Lady Ardilaun, Olivia Guinness, was born in 1850, daughter of the Earl of Bantry. She was a keen artist and became a member of the Water Colour Society of Ireland. Her passion for horticulture has seen plants named for her. The annual rose festival at St. Anne’s is also a testimony to her work. Amongst the many beautiful gardens that remain is the Walled Garden marked by its landmark clock tower. The Chinese Garden is adjacent.

The Red Stables is the only surviving building of the demesne. This red brick stables was built in the Tudor style so popular in the late Victorian period, and also designed by George Coppinger Ashlin. Today the building houses artists residences and workspace, with a gallery and cafe. The cafe, Olive’s Room, is named for. Lady Ardilaun. Beside the gallery, there’s a a concise history display with a model of the Big House. The Red Stables is adjacent to the car park off Mount Prospect Avenue, taking you to the seafront and Clontarf Rad. The majestic central avenue leads westwards to Vernon Avenue which connects to Contarf Village. Due north, paths will lead you back to Raheny, via Watermill Road or All Saints Church.

Wicklow’s Wonderful Coast – 1

Bray Harbour and Seafront

In the beginning, cross the Dargle River at the harbour, tiptoe past the swans, and head south past the Harbour Bar. Well, you don’t have to pass it, but if you want to walk Wicklow’s Wonderful Coast, you will eventually have to leave it behind. The building dates back to 1831, and twenty years later it became a licensed premies. That would be about the time the railway was built. It’s thirsty work. Before that, I’d say it served the odd salty dog sheltering from a storm. They still do a good pint and a decent fish and chips. Sea shanties can oft be heard, ringing in the rafters.

Bray got its harbour in the 1890s. Before that a small dock provided some haven for fishing boats and other small seaborne craft. The harbour had a lighthouse at the end of the South pier, but the fearsome sea hereabouts soon claimed it. The development of the seafront as an urban resort came with William Dargan. Dargan, born in Carlow in 1799, became Ireland’s leading railway entrepreneur in the Age of Steam. A self made man, who worked initially as a road contractor, by 1853 he had built six hundred miles of railway track. He organised and funded the Great Dublin Exhibition of 1853, which spawned the National Gallery. A statue of Dargan stands at the Gallery entrance on Merrion Square, but a greater monument was in embryo. Already responsible for the transformation of Dun Laoghaire, then Kingstown, with Ireland’s first railway connecting to Dublin in 1834, and such grand developments as the Royal Marine Hotel, Dargan determined to develop Bray as a resort for the quality along the lines of Brighton.

Bray, in his eyes, was ‘unsurpassed for beauty in the whole civilised world’. The hand of nature having done so much already, as he put it, he resolved, in typical Victorian style, to further improve on it. Incidentally, Queen Victoria herself had visited Dargan’s home during the Great Exhibition and offered him a title, but as a patriotic Irishman he refused. 

His outline for Bray imposed a rational and elegant urban development between old Bray and the coast. Relatively unique in Ireland, the plan featured straight thoroughfares meeting at right angles. Lined with fine terraces and villas, shaded by plane trees, Dargan created an attractive suburban environment for new residents. Dublin’s middle classes flocked to the town, availing of the railway’s provision of a forty five minute commute to the capital. Bray, already a thriving town of four thousand souls, would double in population by the end of the century. 

The centrepiece was the development of a seafront Esplanade, stretching along Strand Road for about a mile between the harbour and Bray Head. As with the lighthouse, the sea had other ideas. Throughout the sixties, the Esplanade was flooded on three occasions and a remedy was urgently required. The sea wall was built to stand proud before the waves and tall enough to shelter the Esplanade. Atop the wall, the Promenade assumed its commanding position, the definitive, iconic feature of Bray’s seafront. Here, the great and the good of society displayed their plumage, preening and promenading in the bracing sea air.  

The Prom points arrow straight to the foot of Bray Head. Framing this northern end is Martello Terrace. The attractive terrace of eight three storey houses is set off by distinctive cast-iron veranda with timber fretwork railings and first floor balcony taking full advantage of the fantastic view. It was one of Bray seafront’s earlier terraces, being built around 1860. 

From 1887 for four years, number one was home to the peripatetic Joyce family. John Joyce was a rate collector, though wound up in Stubb’s gazette in the early nineties and was dismissed, sending the family into a tailspin of genteel poverty. Young James’s memories would be mixed. Aged only nine, Joyce wrote a poem on the death of Charles Stewart Parnell which so pleased his father that he had it published. This launched the literary career of Ireland’s Modernist giant. Payback is provided in an early scene from Portrait of the Artist, set in the drawing room at Martello Terrace. It is Christmas 1891, seen through the eyes of Joyce’s alter ego Stephen Dedalus. Over Christmas dinner, talk turns to the death of Parnell, Ireland’s great leader of the previous decade. Stephen’s father is inflamed by the treatment Parnell has received from conservative society, the press and the Catholic hierarchy. The experience is perplexing for Stephen, but carefully rendered by Joyce.

Some effects of Bray’s bracing atmosphere haunted the writer.  The snot green scrotum tightening sea was an expression that perhaps gestated here. Certainly the sea can be a fearsome presence. When first I came to town, the wall confronted the waves directly, storms thumping relentlessly against it, sending marine fireworks skywards in spectacular plumes of foam. Seafront protection has pushed the beach further out, and the walk is now calmer, if less exciting. 

The young Joyce acquired astraphobia, a fear of thunderstorms; induced, it is said, by a pious aunt who told her young charge that thunderstorms were a sign of God’s wrath. I suspect that the thumping of the raging sea against the gable walls of number one can’t have helped either. 

Later resident, writer and politician, Liz McManus often welcomed Joyceans and literary enthusiasts to commemorative soirees, including re-enactments of the famous scene. Liz was also petitioned by all shades of Joyceans with queries and requests. Most were easily obliged. Mind, being Joyceans, there was also a request for details of the plumbing, regarding the toilet facilities experienced by young James. For some learned paper, no doubt. 

Another resident of the terrace was writer and film director, Neil Jordan, who lived next door in number two. Jordan once dressed the seafront in candyfloss pink, with a full circus in tow for his 1991 film The Miracle. The full menagerie was included: lions, horses and elephants. The film is set in contemporary Bray, though since Ardmore Studios, Ireland’s main film studios, is located in the town, Bray and its environs can stand for just about anywhere. Disconcertingly, at the same time as The Miracle, Ardmore were shooting episodes of Angela Lansbury’s Murder She Wrote, dressing adjoining streets as an American winter setting. So, one went from the heat and dust of elephants and lions in a psychedelic Victorian seafront, to twentieth century Maine, knee deep in fake snow. Bray can be anything you want it to be.

Storm clouds gather over the Prom

A more realist project of Jordan’s was the biographical film Michael Collins.Jordan decided that Bray Wanderer’s ground, just across the tracks from the seafront, would make a convenient double for Croke Park in the Bloody Sunday scene. A sizeable mob of townsfolk were dragooned as volunteers, resulting in the biggest crowd ever witnessed at the Carlisle Grounds. Bloody Sunday happened in November 1920 during the War of Independence. The day opened with Collins’s co-ordinated assault on top British intelligence operatives, the Cairo Gang, killing fifteen men. In retaliation, British Black and Tans killed fourteen civilians attending a GAA match. The scene generated some controversy. Jordan did point out that the actuality was probably more harrowing. In truth, film renderings of history are always different to some degree. Michael Collins, despite some glitches, gave a reasonable account of its subject, and was a critical and commercial success. In general, the Carlisle Grounds is a quiet enough spot. Even at home games. Built in 1862, it is the oldest soccer grounds in Ireland, though originally used for archery and athletics. Outside stands a Celtic cross, erected in 1929 as a memorial to those who fought and died with the British Army during the Great War.

When Jordan followed Bono up the coast to Killiney, Mary Coughlan took up residence. The original Galway girl made a huge impact with her debut album, Tired and Emotional. Released in 1985, it sold a colossal hundred thousand in Ireland. It blends blues and barroom balladry to conjure a tinted world of frontier saloons, smoky bars and an interior landscape of the wandering soul. The opening track, Double Cross, can be appropriated as a theme song by anyone in a particular state of mind.

Like my coffee I’ve grown cold

I stay behind and fade into the wall

I’m lost amongst the jostling crowds at lunchtime

I’m hoping you’ll come but I know that you won’t even call

Mary’s whirlwind career eventually deposited her on Bray’s stony shore, a boozy Boticelli babe, down to her last sea shell. But she could still calm the waves from her windows by the sea.  

Every hold that I had on time

Every dream that I thought was mine

Well, it’s all quite forgotten now

Lost without the double cross of you

Bray Seafront Evening

At the start of the 19th century, the recreational and romantic potential of the sea was just being discovered. Up till then, such benefits it gave were seen as limited to its harvest of food and its use as a transport route. Mostly it was regarded as an unpredictable menace; a source of storms, piracy and invasion. This is illustrated by the fate of Bray’s two Martello Towers, constructed in 1804 during the Napoleonic Wars. One, positioned at sea level  midway along the seafront, having fulfilled its original purpose was destroyed by storm some eighty years later. The other, atop a mound at the north end of the seafront, repelled Bonaparte but was occupied in the 1990s by another diminutive general, Bono. It survived. 

Meanwhile, the Romantic era recognised other qualities of life by the seaside. Besides health and wellbeing, the spiritual and aesthetic drama of seascape and shore would increasingly inhabit the human perspective.

Bray, remote and battered gatepost at the southern end of the Pale, attracted romantic and prosperous souls to its dramatic combination of mountain and coast. By the mid 19th century, the expanding town was being connected to the city of Dublin to the north by rail. The town’s population grew as did the seasonal tide of visitors. William Dargan, the railway entrepreneur, undertook the ambitious conversion of Bray into the ‘Brighton of Ireland’. Amongst his plans was the development of the seafront. The Esplanade, almost a mile in length, was laid out with a Promenade to the base of Bray Head. Constant flooding resulted in the construction of the sea wall, with the Promenade on top, in the 1890s. The Harbour was completed at the end of the century, separated from the Esplanade by Martello Terrace.

1 Martello Terrace features in James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist. Joyce lived here as a child. Longtime resident, former Government Minister Liz McManus, reckons it may also have inspired the phrase found in Ulysses: the snot-green, scrotum tightening sea.

In this view we look south along the length of the Esplanade. The Harbour and Martello Terrace are behind us. A foursome heads out on, or continues, a night out. Just ahead, to the right, is the Silver Strand Amusements, formerly the Fun Palace, setting for my first Bray short story: Coda. To the left is the Sealife Centre, with the lights of Butler and Barry’s Bar and Grill. Further on, the bright lights glow and beckon revellers to the nightspots: The Martello, the Porterhouse and Jim Doyle’s. This is where stories begin, of sex and drink and rock n roll.

Bray – a Short History.

Bray – History.

Bray is a direct translation from the Irish ‘Bré’, meaning a hill. For some time, however, the Irish version was given as Brí Chualainn whose meaning is disputed. In general it is taken to derive from Ui Bhriain Chualainn, the land of the O’Byrne’s of Cuala. The O’Byrnes, usually styled Byrne, are a significant Wicklow name, along with Cullen, O’Toole and Kavanagh. These clans disputed coastal Wicklow with the Danes and subsequently the Normans.

St Sarain’s Cross at Fairyhill

There are some remnants from the early Christian era, dating from the fifth century onwards. The ruins of Raheen a Chluig, the Little Church of the Bell, are on the lower, northern slopes of Bray Head. Two well-weathered early Christian crosses survive, at Fassaroe to the north, and Fairyhill to the south. This latter cross, situated in a hilltop stand of fir trees at the entrance to a modern estate, is attributed to Saint Saran. The saint is further commemorated in the name of nearby Killarney Road, the southwestern approach road to the town.

Bray, as a definite location was established by the Normans under Richard de Clare (Strongbow), at the fording point of the River Dargle near where the town bridge now stands. The location was of importance since it marked the southern extent of the Pale, the area of Norman influence around Dublin. As such, Bray was a frontier fortress, sporadically attacked by native clans from the south. The castle was built just west of where St Peter’s church stands. Other castles, or tower houses, were established at Castle Street north of the Dargle, and Oldcourt further south. Only the ruins of Oldcourt Castle remain.

The lands south of Bray were granted to Walter de Riddlesford, one of Strongbow’s loyal adventurers in the invasion of 1169. This led to the establishment a large demesne centred on Kilruddery, the Church of the Knight. The route between this estate and Bray Castle established the line of Main Street. Thus, Bray grew as a typical manor town of the era. Agricultural produce, milling, brewing and a freshwater fisheries maintained the economy of the town over the next few centuries.

Kilruddery House and Gardens

The Brabazon family had come into ownership of the estate in the early 16th century through William Brabazon, Lord Justice of Ireland. Brabazon gained favour through his zealous support for Henry VIII as King and head of the Irish church. The title Earl of Meath was granted to his great-grandson William in 1623. Kilruddery House had to be rebuilt following destruction in the Cromwellian wars of the mid century. The current building is largely an 1820s reconstruction in the gothic Tudor revival style. The original gardens remain, designed by the French gardener Bonet, they are a unique example in Ireland of eighteenth century design. An eerie, placid beauty attaches to them, the most notable vista is presented by the parallel canals running south of the house. Adjacent to this gothic realm, classically inspired additions were added in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

By the end of the eighteenth century, Bray’s development as a resort had begun. The Romantic movement inspired people to regard the sea as beneficial to health, of body and of spirit. Contemplation of beautiful scenery and engagement with nature was also encouraged. Bray was ideally situated, close to these benefits and also convenient to Dublin. Novara House, an early beach lodge, lying at the southern end of Novara Avenue, dates from this time, though it has been extensively modernised. Originally known as Bay View, it is sited a half mile inland from the seafront itself. The early nineteenth century saw the building of three Martello Towers to guard against the Napoleonic threat. One of these survives on the crag overlooking the harbour at the north end of the seafront. In the 1980s this became, for a time, the residence of that other wee general, Bono of U2. The harbour itself would not be constructed until the second half of the century, such sea traffic as there was unloading at a small dock at the mouth of the Dargle opposite the Harbour Bar. This popular, atmospheric pub from the 1840s is one of the few buildings on the seafront to predate the coming of the railway.

The Turkish Baths from 1859

The railway transformed Bray. The Dublin-Kingstown (now Dun Laoghaire) was opened in 1834, however, twenty years passed before it was extended to Bray. Railway engineer and developer William Dargan, was instrumental both in bringing the railway to Bray and in developing the town into a major attraction for visitors and new residents. The area between Main Street and the seafront was developed with straight, tree-lined avenues lined with elegant Victorian terraces. Dargan had an exotic Turkish Baths constructed in the Moorish style on Quinsboro Road. It was a startling addition to Bray’s streetscape for over a century before its sad demise in the 1970s. Another of Dargan’s initiatives was the National Gallery of Ireland facing Merrion Square in Dublin. A statue of the indefatigable entrepreneur and patron stands in its forecourt. In Bray, he is commemorated in the name of a terrace on Quinsborro Road, and in a mural at Bray Dart station.

Bray Town Hall, completed in 1881

Major hotels were established to cater for the influx of tourists and day-trippers. Quin’s Hotel, overlooking the Dargle at the north end of Main Street was transformed from a small town inn. It is now the Royal Hotel and Leisure Centre. Other hotels sprang up on the seafront and adjacent to the railway station. The International Hotel, facing the station’s west frontage, was the largest hotel in Ireland on its completion in the 1860s. The development of the Esplanade with its seawall Promenade, and the Harbour came soon after. Bray, once the small manorial village, was transformed into a thriving resort for the quality, and dubbed the Brighton of Ireland. By the end of the century, the town’s population approached the ten thousand mark, whereas most Irish towns, in the aftermath of the Famine, showed declining populations. During the Edwardian era, Bray continued to epitomise the stylish resort.

The Cross on Bray Head

After Irish independence, it began to drift downmarket. Fashions change, and holiday resorts now catered for a more egalatarian population. Amusement arcades mushroomed, an increasingly raucous brand of fun was demanded. Big band music, cinema, donkey rides were all part of summer at the seaside. Blackpool of Ireland, might have been more appropriate as a nickname. After the hiatus of World War Two, British holidaymakers returned in the fifties. Bray Head acquired its crowning stone cross in the Holy Year of 1950. This has become an iconic image of the east coast. A chair lift brought people to the summit. It’s long gone, though the cross remains. Top Irish showbands such as the Royal and Miami played the Arcadia ballroom on Adelaide Road in the late fifties and throughout the sixties.

Ardmore Studios were opened in the early sixties, bringing a touch of silver screen glamour to Bray. The studios, on Herbert Road, hosted major American and British productions, the industry grew to provide television and advertising facilities. While Wicklow’s lovely scenery was a big draw for producers, Bray’s versatility also came into play. Over the years, the town has stood in for smalltown Vermont, a typical Irish western town or the heart of the English Home Counties on the large and small screens. Neil Jordan painted the seafront pink for The Miracle, he also used it for Dublin in the film Michael Collins, the Carlisle Grounds standing in for Croke Park during the War of Independence.

Changing fashions saw the postwar tourist boom fade too. Foreign destinations became a bigger attraction for summer holidays. Tourism was further eroded by the oil crisis and recession of the seventies. Bray experienced an unfortunate depredation of many of its attractions and landmarks. The Internatinal Hotel was destroyed by fire in 1974. The vacant lot festered for a decade or more, eventually taken by a bowling alley. The Arcadia became a cash and carry. In 1980, the Turkish Baths were demolished in the crass, shortsighted civic vandalism that prevailed.

There was light at the end of the tunnel, and it was an oncoming train. The electrification of the suburban rail system initiated the Dartline in 1982. Bray Daly station was once more a key focus of the town. In the 1990s, a project sponsored by Bray Community Arts Group, commissioned a painted mural on the eastern platform. The mural depicted the history of the town and the railway decade by decade from the 1950s to the present day. Brunel, Dargan, Oscar Wilde and James Joyce are all featured. Wilde’s father had property in Bray and the writer was to suffer an early, unfortunate trial at the Courthouse. James Joyce has a stronger association. He lived at Martello Terrace, hard by the waves pounding the Promenade. The house features in Portrait of the Artist, while the phrase, “snot-green, scrotum-tightening sea” may owe something to the location. The mural has been badly weathered by the briny air,  so original artists, Triskill Design, have undertaken a replacement project using tile mosaics.

The rejuvenation of the railway brought a population boom to Bray. By the end of the century the population had doubled to over thirty thousand people. The new residents were housed, for the most part, in suburban estates south of the town. New schools and industry followed. The protection of the sylvan setting has helped soften the impact of such an extensive building development. Still it grows, and new estates and roads now crowd to the edge of the lands of the Kilruddery estate.

Hail, rain or snow, crowds gather for the annual New Year Swim

If the amusement arcades have waned, the seafront remains a magnet for all those seeking rest and recreation. Bars and restaurants now cater to the fashion of al fresco drinking and dining throughout the summer. The annual festival has hugely expanded its carnival attractions, drawing thousands over the St Patrick’s day festival and the Summer Festival throughout July and August. The Fireworks display and the Air-show have seen crowds approaching a hundred thousand throng the length of the Esplanade. Returning Olympic hero, boxing gold medallist Katie Taylor, drew a massive crowd of wellwishers to the Esplanade in 2012. For fitness fiends and boulevardiers, the amenity of the seafront Promenade and Bray Head is popular year round. The National Sealife Centre, north of the Bandstand, is one of Ireland’s most popular visitor attractions. An unimpressive pile at its inception, it has developed into a sleek modernist building, with restaurant, ice-cream parlours and cafes, augmenting the wet zoo at its core.

The Civic Centre at St Cronin’s, off Main Street, was a major project of the late century. This included the Civic Offices and the Mermaid Arts Centre, incorporating a gallery, theatre and workshop space for several arts disciplines. The Mermaid brought to fruition a long campaign to establish a designated arts centre from artists and groups including Signal Arts and the Bray Arts Group. The Centre is an important focus for the arts in Bray, however the arts scene thrives at several venues around the town, with music, theatre and literature particularly strong. The Bray Jazz Festival in early May is in its fourteenth year, bringing top national and international musicians to a dozen or so stages from Main Street to the Seafront.

Storm clouds gather over the Prom

The financial collapse of 2008 stymied commercial growth in the town centre. Proposed shopping centres, north and south of the bridge, failed to materialise. Town centre businesses in Bray, as elsewhere throughout Ireland, are on the retreat as out of town retail parks and on-line shopping erode their customer base. Bray also lost its town council, it being subsumed into Wicklow County Council. Whether this will prove unsympathetic to Bray’s future needs remains to be seen.