During the last decade of the 18th century, the present-day sea wall from Merrion Gates along the Strand Road to Irishtown was constructed. This had the effect of isolating the vast area of Sandymount’s salt marsh lands from the sea’s regular incursions and, as a consequence, to pave the way for the development of these lands for housing and road systems.

Some lands were levelled for recreation and to provide private fields for games. A very large deposit of sand at present-day Sandymount Green was used for brick manufacture. The Strand Road was lined out on the same site as it is today.

Later, at Irishtown the wall was turned inwards across the bay to meet up with the Pidgeon House Road. This latter extension of the wall had the effect of isolating an area of slobland westwards to Cambridge Road, which is now Ringsend Park.

The pedestrian pathway now known as the Accommodation Walk was constructed on the Ringsend side of the sea wall over the new unique main drain system followed on one hundred years later.

The sea wall was soundly constructed about four metres high, topped off with semi-circular shaped granite slabs. At its base it was given a tapered apron, built deep into the strand, designed to withstand the scouring action of receding high tides in strong south-east winds.

Some damage occurred from time to time in positions above footfall level but never at its base, where it has remained solid during its 200 years’ existence.

In the meantime the Dodder River was harnessed by a stout wall on each side, forming an estuarine channel 35 metres wide from the new bridge at Landsdowne Road to the Liffey at Ringsend.

In times past, the Dodder in flood spilled far and wide, forming new channels, none more spectacular than when, after a new bridge was built at Ringsend, it was left high and dry when the Dodder scoured out a new channel.

In the 1960s, proposals to construct new facilities on Sandymount Strand over a proposed new main sewerage system to enter the strand at Merrion gates was met with hostile resistance from Strand Road residents and generally from the people of Sandymount. The resistance to these proposals became so intense that a city Councillor to the Dublin City Council, James Torbay, was elected on a ‘Save Our Strand’ ticket in 1967.

However, with some modifications to the initial plans, the laying of the sewerage pipeline went ahead. It entered at Merrion Gates to travel along the strand parallel to Strand Road, passed the Sandymount Tower at a distance of about five hundred metres before diverting across the strand to the settling beds at the Pidgeon House.

Considerable quantities of hard-core grit and soil were imported to raise the level of the promenade to its present-day level. Large quantities of rocks were set in at a suitable slope to resist and break up the wave action of the seaward side of the new promenade.

A pedestrian path was laid at the sea’s edge of this new promenade, furnished with garden seats facing the bay. Along the roadside, large beds of shrubs were planted at regular intervals.
The plants chosen for these shrubberies were mostly of New Zealand origin, known for their resistance to salt sprays like oleariad fosteria, traversii, haesti macrodonta; Phormium tenox (New Zeland Flax), Hebe cultivors, Escalonia macrantha and Cordylines.

At the same time, provision was made so as not to block out views of the bay from the roadside or houses while creating a sufficient density to form a sheltered background to users of the promenade by dimming the consciousness of the heavy traffic on Strand Road. Car parks were provided to facilitate persons who may just wish to sit quietly while in their cars to gaze over the bay.

It can be truly said that this promenade offers a wonderful recreational facility for those who value walking or for those families who picnic on the green grass sward as an alternative to the scarcely undiminished strand.

The great pity is that this promenade was not continued to link up to the Sean Moore Park.

Above: The promenade beside Strand Road, showing the recently installed elegant lighting standards.