Rathmines
WHISPERS ACROSS A SEA covers a period between 1873-1920 when the Young family lived in the Rathmines neighborhood of Dublin. The house was purchased when Thomas U Young and Sarah were newlyweds and moved from England to Dublin to start a new life. The images below represent the neighborhood as it might have looked during the time of the Young’s residency.
The Young family lived at 14 Belgrave Road, shown in the map at right. Click the map for a larger version.
14 Belgrave Road had wide steps which led up to the front door. The property had three floors.
Left, the Miss’s Young School for Young Girls was in operation from approximately 1873-1901. Sisters Frances, and Elfie Young were the principal teachers. The school operated at a time when formal education was gaining ever more importance in Ireland. Closer to the turn of the century the school also admitted boys. Right, a student works on an art lesson in the garden of Miss’s Young School for Girls.
The Young residence was across an open field from Rathmines Castle, built in the 17th century. The gates to the castle remain today.
The Rathmines town hall, with its distinctive tower, was constructed in 1895. The town commissioners asked one of the best-known and respected arthictects of Ireland, Sir Thomas Drew, to design this building. He designed a building of red sandstone and brick with a bay window on the first floor, just above the arched entry.
Trinity Church, with its heavenly blue doors, was built in a circle in the middle of the road in Rathmines between Belgrave Road and Church Avenue. The Young home faced the side of Trinity Church, similar to the view shown. The church is now known as ‘Holy Trinity Church of Ireland’.
An early Rathmines street scene shows the tower of Town Hall which opened in 1896.