Robert Goggins (62) remembers a time “before a community was built here”, when there was “fields filled with farming, horses roaming freely”.
His book, The Neighbourhood of Walkinstown: From countryside to city suburb, delves back to the times when the area was basically nothing but countryside.
He tracks the development of the area from the first housing estates to be constructed in the late 1940s, right up to the more recent Wilkin’s View and Wilkin’s Court developments.
Back in the 1930s, Walkinstown was a part of Crumlin, and consisted of a handful of dwellings containing less than 100 inhabitants.
Neighbouring Greenhills was of a similar size, mainly made up of farms.
By the early 1940s, the rapid spread of large-scale housing developments led to the emergence of a new suburb.
The author, Robert Goggins, has lived in the area since his family moved there when he was a baby.
He began researching local history back in the 1990s but had to abandon it due to other pressures in life, not least his involvement with Shamrock Rovers Football Club, where he has been a volunteer for over 40 years.
“I started the book about 25 years ago, I never continued it because everything in life was so busy. I wanted to put some of the memories together, the book would capture the memories and they’re forever then, for everyone,” Mr Goggins said.
“Just beyond Crumlin village, it was basically all countryside. It was all fields for farming and dairy, there were very few homes. There would’ve been a few cottages dotted around the Greenhills area.
“In the late 1940s, a new housing scheme was formed in the west of Crumlin, the area is known as Musical Road. They were the first large-scale developments in the area.
“Growing up in the area, there were still fields at the back of my house. I remember seeing horses running freely, that wasn’t for long because houses were built after that.
“I remember playing with all my friends. It was very open, all the children would play outside with toy cars, a football, on their bikes, they’re all very happy memories.”
The Neighbourhood of Walkinstown: From countryside to city suburb
He researched and reproduced news items from the past 100 years for the book, including some good news stories which made the headlines, but also some tragic events.
“Letters were sent into the Irish Independent and Evening Herald as the area was developing, complaining about the postal service,” he said.
“There were some funny letters too. People used to write letters quite regularly to the newspapers. It’d be a whole page, people would be replying to each other.
“There would be letters about dogs going missing. One particular dog went missing from Walkinstown Avenue for a whole year.
“A woman down in Greystones remembered reading about him in the Evening Herald. She went to the National Library, dug out the newspaper and chased down the owner. They were reunited, that would’ve been in the early 1960s.
“There were sad and dramatic stories too. The Halfway House was burnt down, believed to be by the Black and Tans in 1921. It was direct retaliation for an ambush on British Soldiers on the Long Mile Road by an IRA active unit.
“There was also an attack on a place called Walkinstown House, where SuperValu is now. It belonged to a famous man called Michael Flanagan who was on the council. His daughter married W.T Cosgrave, the first President of the free State.
“On the Walkinstown Road, two children were killed by a truck in 1956. In 1962, one of those families suffered a second tragedy when another child of theirs drowned in Ringsend.”
Former TD and local councillor Charlie O’Connor paid tribute to his late friend and colleague Joe Connolly whose name comes up very often in the book.
“Joe Connolly was a councillor on Dublin County Council, then on Dublin City Council. The amount of community work that man put into the area and how he championed the causes of groups here.
“He’d always be the man helping to get parks and community centres, football pitches because he had this strong belief that they should be provided by the State for young people.
“Joe Connolly was also a founding member of the Community Games which went on to be massive across the 32 counties,” he added.
