Martello tower

The National Monuments Service's description

Tower (DU023-052003-) and Battery No. 13 (Kerrigan 1995, 170) stood N of Crofton Road and York Road on the coast. 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’. A martello tower (DU023-052003-) was built at the N end of Clarence St with a battery (DU023-052004-) to the NE as shown on Taylor's 1816 Map of Dublin. This tower was possible built in the centre of a promontory fort (DU023-052001-) noted by Reverend Stokes (1893, 347) as the 'Dun of Dunleary'. According to Stokes (ibid.) 'the Martello Tower stood on the spot where now there exists an unused bridge [Battery Br.] across the railway close to the Kingstown coastguard station'. 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. The tower and battery at Dun Laoghaire was armed with four 24 pounder guns, one 18 pounder gun and two 10-inch mortars (ibid.,170). The martello tower was demolished in 1836-7 by the construction of the Dublin-Kingstown railway line (De Courcy 1996, 134). No surface remains visible today of Martello Tower and Battery No. 13.
Martello Tower No. 13 described by Kerrigan (1995, 174) as; 'tower no. 13, with the battery about 200 yards away on the shoreline to the north-east. The tower was demolished when the railway was constructed in 1834; the battery is depicted on early nineteenth century maps on or near the site of the present Irish Lights depot. The tower and battery protected the original Dunleary Harbour, the small inner harbour that still survives as part of the very much larger harbour, on which construction started a few years after the end of the Napoleonic wars. Early plans of this new harbour of Kingstown depict towers and batteries No. 12 and 13'.

See attached Taylor's Map showing the location of the Battery and 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 and Padraig Clancy

Revised by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of revised upload: 23 January 2023

References

De Courcy, J. 1996 The Liffey in Dublin. Dublin. Gill and Macmillan.

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

Stokes, Rev G.T. 1893 The antiquities from Kingstown to Dublin. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 23, 343-56.