Martello tower

The National Monuments Service's description

Martello Tower No. 16 (Kerrigan 1995, 170), built on the sandy foreshore at Sandymount in 1804. According to Kerrigan (1995, 168) construction of the Dublin area Martello Towers and their batteries commenced in 1804 under the supervision of Colonel Benjamin Fisher of the Royal Engineers and by December 1805 all towers were armed and complete. Kerrigan (ibid., 170) recorded that; ‘The towers and batteries south of Dublin are numbered from 1 to 16, but there were only fourteen towers, as at two locations there were batteries only, while several of the towers were close to adjacent batteries’. Comprises a circular tower built of cut granite. The doorway in the W is defended by machicolation. A string course marks the parapet level, which held an armament of twenty four pounder guns on a traversing platform (Turner 1983, 94; Kerrigan 1996, 168, 174). In the mid -1860s the tower was disarmed and let to the Earl of Pembroke, landlord for the Sandymount area. It was later bought by Dublin Tramways Co. (Bolton et al 2012, 145).
Described by Kerrigan (1995, 174) as; 'the last tower south of Dublin, tower no. 16, at Sandymount. The two guns mounted here would have overlapped in their field of fire with the two-gun tower at Williamstown and with the guns mounted at the Pigeon House Fort just over a mile to the north across Sandymount Strand'.

See attached plan of Sandymount Martello Tower No. 6 courtesy of the Irish Military Archives - Archival Reference Code: IE/MA/MPD/AD119453-007

DU019-018----_02 Patrick Healy Collection, https://hdl.handle.net/10599/3169, © South Dublin Libraries, Local Studies Collection, County Library, Town Centre, Tallaght, Dublin 24

See attached Taylor's 1816 Map showing the location of the Martello Tower

Taylor, J. 1816 Taylor's map of the environs of Dublin: extending 10 to 14 miles from the castle, by actual survey, on a scale of 2 inches to one mile.

Compiled by Geraldine Stout

Revised by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of revised upload: 23 January 2023

References

Kerrigan P.M. 1995 Castles and fortifications in Ireland 1485-1945. Cork. The Collins Press.

Turner, K. 1983 If you seek monuments: a guide to the antiquities of the barony of Rathdown. Rathmichael Historical Society.

Bolton, J., Carey, T., Goodbody, R., and Clabby, G. 2012 The Martello Towers of Dublin. Dublin. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and Fingal County Council.