Lorna Kelly, co-founder of SAMRA (Sandymount and Merrion Residents Association), invites you to stand in the centre of Sandymount Green and really take time to look around.

“Along the roofline of the buildings you will see there is a dip in the centre of the buildings on each side,” and she admonishes “unless you take the time to really look you don’t see it but when you do, then you recognise why Sandymount Village is different and how these and other features contribute to its uniqueness.”

Since its founding in the 1960s SAMRA has endeavoured to retain to a large extent the feeling of a village around the Green which Dublin Corporation in the 1970s wanted to turn into a roundabout and parking space!

A Conservation Order on the Green itself and its surroundings was granted in 2001which did not include the roads running into the Green. In 2005 the Conservation Order was extended to include certain distances on all approach roads to the Village.

Lorna remembers the Gem, a little shop that made Easter eggs, chocolate bunnies and home-baked cakes. It was situated where Browns now is. Bracken’s Supermarket stood on the Spar corner and Findlaters was across on Mario’s site.

The assistant in Findlaters wrapped your money in an invoice, put it in a little canister that was attached to metal wires and then it was whisked away above your head to the cashier in his box-like office. After an appropriate wait it shot back down, carrying the receipt and change.
The Martello Tower on Strand Road has a long commercial history. It belonged to the Cheatle twins who sold ice cream and ran a little café where tea and scones or snacks like bacon and eggs and beans on toast could be had. Boiling water could also be purchased to fill the picnic kettle.

When the Cheatles retired sometime in the late 1970s the Residents Association tried to buy it and had negotiated the promise of a bank loan. They then approached Dublin Corporation for a grant and were told “Leave it to us, you don’t need to do anything.” Lorna wryly continues “We did this and of course we lost it.”

The Tower has been sold on a few times and the present owners had visions of offering bay trips and gourmet meals. However, alongside approved development that was carried out, shutters were also installed on the outside to combat likely vandalism and protect against the battering of high tides. This was done without permission, and since then Dublin County Council refuses a permit to operate the business unless the shutters are removed.

The Sutton to Sandycove Cycle Way scheme that is gone into the City Development Plan and which would be supported by the City Council is now causing concern to many. The plan proposes to fill in back towards Marine Drive, which is the beach where families play in the summer, up along to the promenade and at its far end along the back of the houses which are on the beach and right out through Williamstown, Booterstown, Blackrock and Monkstown.
With regard to any development proposals on the Poolbeg Peninsula, Lorna claims that originally it was promised, in writing, that any land the Port didn’t require would be parkland and says “We are fighting for just some of that land to be given back to the people for public facilities. There is no excuse and no good planning reason for covering the rest of the land with cement plants, developments and incinerators. We could have coastal parkland for the use of the people.”

Lorna herself envisages the enhancement of the village in a ‘Sandymount in Bloom’ project which would expand on the effort already made by some traders to have attractive flower pots and hanging baskets. Though vandalism can discourage these types of projects, she believes it would be worth a try and that in the end it would succeed.

When I asked Michael McAuliffe to comment on his many years as a Sandymount resident and businessman, he replied “there’s nowhere like it, Sandymount has been good to me.” He sees great progress in most of the changes and especially welcomes the demise of what he experienced as “the great divide between the rich and the poor in the area.”

Michael remembers when the Green was a place with no railings, broken pathways, worn out grass and no flowerbeds until improvements began in the late 1950s. He believes that the Tidy Towns Competition and the establishment of Sandymount Community Week brought all the community together in a way previously unknown and says that the Sandymount Traders Association was strong for some years.

It was they who donated the seat near the bus stop outside Tesco’s, which disappeared a few years ago and is still being sought by those who miss its presence.

Michael is, of course, a pragmatist and recognises the down-side of progress, like the “grim sewage smells that travel on certain airflows and get worse in the summer months” but says that “there is still a good residents’ association” and overall he seems upbeat and very positive about his home place.