Journal Volume 1 1992

Old Greystones and Ancient Rathdown (continued/17)

The latter, for the historian, is a most valuable publication, not only for its Greystones Commercial List and list of Greystones Private Residents, but also for the advertisements it contains (pp 78-86). The commercial list numbers eighty-six (of whom nineteen were Evanses), while the list of private residents runs to one hundred and fifteen. One of the residents in 1910 was J.J. Hazlett. MA, principal teacher of Greystones National School. Mr. Hazlett lived at Seamount and he was still occupying the teacher's residence in La Touche Place twelve years later (87). Miss Anne Sherlock conducted Greystones High School for Boys and Girls at Burrishoole, La Touche Road. There are fifteen Greystones traders' advertisements. I have made a classification of the residents according to trades and professions, but I don't want to confound you with too many figures. Besides, I think my time must be up so I want to draw this paper to a close.

I can't let the occasion pass, however, without recording Weston St John Joyce's prophetic utterance, as I call it. Joyce, whose father and uncle, Patrick Weston Joyce and Robert Dwyer Joyce of Glenosheen, County Limerick, were teachers, writers and members of the Royal Irish Academy, wrote in 1912:

Greystones ... extends inland from the sea in a south-westerly direction to within a short distance of the hamlet of KilIincarrig, which it threatens to absorb, as also, in time, the more distant village of Delgany (88).

And isn't that precisely what has happened!

The Guide to Greystones and District was published for the Greystones Improvement Association by the County Printing Works, Wicklow, Ltd. It's undated, but we've learnt that it appeared in 1922. Its editor was Samuel Eves Pim of Belmont, Somerby Road, whose daughter Doreen became prominent in the Greystones Literary Society, founded in 1923. And we know that William J. Burne (BURNE) was the anonymous author of the introductory historical chapter. Mr. Burne, a Dubliner who lived at St Agnes, Whitshed Road, was first secretary of the Literary Society. The Guide lists all the roads and residences. There were in Greystones then three hundred and seventy-eight occupied residences, including that of E. de Valera, TD, Craig Liath, Kinlen Road. Mr. de Valera had been renting the house at £58.00 a year from 1917 (89) and his children attended St David's Junior School. Craig Liath was formerly named Howbury and was later renamed Edenmore. It was sold at auction on 27 June 1990 for one hundred and thirteen thousand pounds. I'll let the late Noel Kennedy tell of the case of mistaken identity:

During the civil war between the Free State and anti-Treaty republicans Mr. de Valera lived in Kinlen Road and sometimes travelled to Dublin by train on republican business. The Free State authorities decided to arrest him but the Greystones Civic Guards arrested instead the Church of Ireland Archbishop, Dr J. A. F. Gregg. Dr Gregg was tall, dignified, intellectual and aloof: his younger clergy referred to him as ‘The Marble Arch'. It was natural for a young inexperienced civic guard to suppose that this was the elusive Mr de Valera masquerading under a cunning disguise. Dr Gregg was held at the Golf Hotel - a small private hotel on Portland Road that no longer exists - and a retired clergyman named Mr Gage Dogherty who lived on Killincarrig Road was sent for to identify him (90).