Portrane or Portraine (

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

: ''Port Reachrann'') is a small seaside settlement, three kilometres from,the small town of

Donabate Donabate () is a small coastal town in Fingal, Ireland, about north-northeast of Dublin. The town is on a peninsula on Ireland's east coast, between the Rogerstown Estuary to the north and Broadmeadow Estuary to the south. Donabate is a civil ...

in Fingal,

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. It lies in the Barony of Nethercross, in the historic

County Dublin "Action to match our speech" , image_map = Island_of_Ireland_location_map_Dublin.svg , map_alt = map showing County Dublin as a small area of darker green on the east coast within the lighter green background of ...

. Portrane has a long sandy beach backed by sand dunes. There is a carpark, but access to the beach is restricted to pedestrians. At the north end of the beach is a

National Heritage Area In the United States, a National Heritage Area (NHA) is a site designated by Act of Congress, intended to encourage historic preservation of the area and an appreciation of the history and heritage of the site. There are currently 62 NHAs, some ...

which is visited by many

migratory birds Bird migration is the regular seasonal movement, often north and south along a flyway, between breeding and wintering grounds. Many species of bird migrate. Migration carries high costs in predation and mortality, including from hunting by ...

during the winter.

Built heritage

There are several notable historic buildings in Portrane including a 19th-century

martello tower Martello towers, sometimes known simply as Martellos, are small defensive forts that were built across the British Empire during the 19th century, from the time of the French Revolutionary Wars onwards. Most were coastal forts. They stand u ...

. Other notable examples include;

St. Ita's Hospital

Portrane's most prominent feature is Tower Bay, and Portrane asylum, more commonly known as St. Ita's Hospital. Built in the early 1900s, the asylum is made up of a number of Victorian red brick buildings which dominate the peninsula. Features within the main asylum building include two churches and an imposing clock tower. The building operated as a mental hospital for many years with it finally closing to inpatients in 2011 and outpatients in 2014 before being refurbished and repurposed as a modern mental health facility. Following the sale of the

Central Mental Hospital The Central Mental Hospital ( ga, An Príomh-Oispidéal Meabhar-Ghalar) is a mental health facility housing forensic patients in Portrane, Dublin, Ireland. The hospital, along with a community day centre for outpatients at Usher's Island, forms ...

in Dundrum in 2012 it was announced that it would relocate to the updated St.Ita's facility in Portrane. In the hospital grounds is a monument to

George Hampden Evans The Rt.Hon. George Hampden Evans (died 2 July 1842) was an Irish politician. Biography George was the eldest son of Captain Hampden Evans and his wife Margaret née Davis of Portrane, County Dublin. in 1805 he married Sophia Parnell, only daugh ...

, a replica of an Irish Round Tower.

Portrane castle

Portrane Castle (sometimes called Stella's Tower) is a 3-storey late medieval

castellated A battlement in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e., a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at interva ...

tower house A tower house is a particular type of stone structure, built for defensive purposes as well as habitation. Tower houses began to appear in the Middle Ages, especially in mountainous or limited access areas, in order to command and defend strateg ...

adjacent to St. Catherine's housing estate. Jonathan Swift's 'Stella',

Esther Johnson Esther Johnson (13 March 1681 – 28 January 1728) was the English friend of Jonathan Swift, known as "Stella". Whether or not she and Swift were secretly married, and if so why the marriage was never made public, is a subject of debate. Pare ...

is said to have stayed there and given the castle its unusual nickname. The inquisition of 1541 mentions the castle as being a substantial structure with associated outbuildings including a threshing house and hemp yard while the

Civil Survey The Civil Survey was a cadastral survey of landholdings in Ireland carried out in 1654–56. It was separate from the Down Survey, which began while the Civil Survey was in progress, and made use of Civil Survey data to guide its progress. Whereas ...

of 1655 describes this site as an old castle with a thatched hall adjoining owned by the parsonage of Portrane. A later brick chimney can also be seen at the top of the tower. Samuel Lewis describes the castle as long since deserted in his Topographical Dictionary of Ireland in 1837 and notes the last occupant was Lady Acheson. Today the castle sits in a field of privately owned tillage land.

Erosion

The coast in this area is subject to erosion, and since the 1980s, of beach at Portrane has been lost. Many houses on the peninsula were demolished in the 1960s due to the dangers of erosion. A storm in March 2018 caused erosion of low cliffs backing the beach, and one home was destroyed. Concrete structures known as sea bees have been placed below the cliffs, but the erosion continues and further houses are threatened.

Popular culture

Music

Members of the band U2 owned a caravan in a field in Portrane where they composed some of the music and lyrics for their 1981 album, ''

October October is the tenth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars and the sixth of seven months to have a length of 31 days. The eighth month in the old calendar of Romulus , October retained its name (from Latin and Greek ''ôc ...

''. Lead singer Bono was baptized at Portrane beach by the Shalom religious group which all but

Adam Clayton Adam Charles Clayton (born 13 March 1960) is an English-born Irish musician who is the bass guitarist of the rock band U2. He has resided in County Dublin, Ireland since his family moved to Malahide in 1965, when he was five years old. C ...

were a member of. Rock band the Delorentos are Portrane natives.

Television

Portrane has been used as a location for a number of film and television shoots. Parts of the

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

television series

Father Ted ''Father Ted'' is a sitcom created by Irish writers Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews and produced by British production company Hat Trick Productions for Channel 4. It aired over three series from 21 April 1995 until 1 May 1998, including ...

were filmed in Portrane, most notably ''Funland'' in the first episode " Good Luck, Father Ted" was filmed in Tower Bay. It also featured in the BBC series "Murphy's Law" starring

James Nesbitt William James Nesbitt (born 15 January 1965) is an actor from Northern Ireland. From 1987, Nesbitt spent seven years performing in plays that varied from the musical '' Up on the Roof'' (1987, 1989) to the political drama ''Paddywack'' (1994) ...

References

{{Authority control Towns and villages in Fingal Beaches of Fingal Civil parishes of the barony of Nethercross