Underneath Dublin?

[bluefoam]

It is Sandford College.

Keep us posted on the site if you find out anything interesting.

[jimg]

It is Sandford College.

Keep us posted on the site if you find out anything interesting.

I would confidently predict that you will find no such tunnel. Tunnel myths are very common. I remember four distinct but widely believed such myths when I was young. While the sample size is small, two of them were associated with school buildings (not in Ranelagh) which would suggest that many schools have such stories. I guess that there's a fundamental appeal in the idea of "secret" passages and tunnels. Myself and a group of school mates made a serious attempt to explore our "school tunnel". Despite risking serious punishment by skipping a class and effectively breaking in to part of the school that was locked and out of bounds, the only thing we uncovered in the area the tunnel was reputed to start was a slightly inaccessible air vent which when entered from a precarious stack of old desks and chairs turned out to be less than 5 feet deep - considerably less than the two miles we were expecting.

You need to ask yourself not only whether there was a credible use for the tunnel (the earlier example of getting to Monto discretely seems initially plausible) but more importantly whether the effort of building the thing would have been justified (not a chance). Even with the latest technology, building 100m of tunnel would be a big undertaking involving serious engineering. A two mile tunnel into town from Ranelagh?? Come on!

[PTB]

Yeah, thats true. My mother told a story of the time when she boarded in a college in Youghal. There was an old blocked up door in a basement, and behind that there was reputed to be a tunnel going down into the ground, and then across the Blackwater estuary. It was reputed to have been used in the penal times to sneak a priest into Youghal. Doubtful stuff.

I also stayed in St. Kierans college in Kilkenny few years back for irish college. There was a Kilkenny person in the course (not a student of the school) who insisted that there was a tunnel there. We looked for it one day in vain in a bunker beneath the school. No tunnel, but we found a box full of recordings of the school choir from the 30s, a ride-on lawnmower and a postcard confirming Fr. Savage's membership to the Irish watercolour painter's scociety for 1876.

[ctesiphon]

^^^
When someone from Middle Earth speaks on the topic of underground tunnels, you can be sure it's the truth!

we found a box full of recordings of the school choir from the 30s

Far more interesting than any stubby tunnel, I'd wager.

[PTB]

Far more interesting than any stubby tunnel, I'd wager.

Bizarrely that was the case. What I mentioned was a small fraction of what we rooted up - there was school records going back to the 1900s, loads of old classics books, an ancient, broken typewriter, a funny hat, pigeon shit, the philosopher's stone, CIA records proving that the CIA killed J.F.Kennedy, Queen Victoria's head in a jar, a partially buried chest brimming with jewels and gold, guarded by a cobweb-matted pirate skeleton.

That school had a fascinating history.

[KerryBog2]

In the mid 1970s a friend and I started a yarn about a tunnel that went from the cellar of Jack O'Rourke's pub in Blackrock to the old Garda station. It became quite a joke at that time, and when a barman lifted the trapdoor to the cellar we commented "the lads most be looking for more drink." A couple of years ago a young Trinity student was quoting its existence to me, believing it 100%!
Another fabled one is the tunnel from Loreto Dalkey to the Island (actually the start of an old copper mine); another, true, AFAIK, is the one from old Frascati House to Blackrock Park.
KB2

[ctesiphon]

there was school records going back to the 1900s, loads of old classics books, an ancient, broken typewriter, a funny hat, pigeon shit, the philosopher's stone, CIA records proving that the CIA killed J.F.Kennedy, Queen Victoria's head in a jar, a partially buried chest brimming with jewels and gold, guarded by a cobweb-matted pirate skeleton.

But no Holy Grail? The hunt goes on...

[Matthew Parkes]

As a new person here I just want to point out a few details and references relating to several topics herein:

Clontarf lead mines - contrary to an earlier post citing me, there was a lead and silver mine at Clontarf - although the Dublin Port Tunnel story was a hoax, there was a mine on the shore in the 1756-1770 period. It was situated approximately at the bottom of Castle Avenue I think, right on the edge of the sea. See Cowman, Des 2001. The metal mines of Dublin City and County, c. 1740-1825. Journal of the Mining Heritage Trust of Ireland, 1, 61-66. This also cover mines at Loughshinny, Killiney, Dalkey, Dolphins Barn and many other minor sites. The Killiney mine is surveyed and discussed in Barnett, John 2006. Quarries, Mines and Railways of Dalkey. Journal of the Mining Heritage Trust of Ireland, 6, 17-21. There's also an article on the superb Ballycorus tunnel in that issue.

For details of any mine site in the country the best starting place is Cole's 1922 Memoir, reprinted by the Mining Heritage Trust of Ireland in 1998. See http://www.mhti.com for details of all mining heritage journals and publications. They are all available from me via the website and if you mention this forum I shall give a decent discount. Better still I invite you all to join the MHTI and indulge your underground interests a little more!

Collins Barracks area
There is a bar whose name I do not remember to the left of the Aishling hotel near Heuston Station which yielded a natural cave of quite unusual nature when the site was redeveloped. See Meehan, R. and Parkes, M. 1997. A small cave within Quaternary deposits at Parkgate Street, Dublin 8. Irish Speleology 16, 9-10.

Around the same time we examined another hole found in the same general area but on the city side of Collins Barracks, again in a redevelopment site. I think it is now apartments or offices and probably a car park where the hole was. It was alsocontained in sand and till of Ice Age origin, but had been dug out by hand (pick marks on the walls and so on) with several levels and alcoves. It yielded some horse remains of late medieval age or such as far as I recall, and was thought to have been excavated as a stable. I have pictures somewhere and probably a copy of the report we provided to the archaeologists at the time, if anyone is really desperate to see them.

As I also look after the Speleogical Union of Ireland (SUI) Library and journal sales you can contact me through http://www.cavingireland.org for further information etc on cave stuff.

Lastly, if anyone wants to write up any interesting underground sites, both journals and newsletters of MHTI and SUI are always interested in relevant material - don't be afraid to offer something, however big or small.
Matthew Parkes

[jdivision]

I think the bar's name was Saddlers. Currently being redeveloped into offices for a financial institution.

[Matthew Parkes]

You are right I think on the name - Sadlers or Saddlers. I forgot to mention that despite our best efforts to get to talk to someone behind the project we didn't and suggestions for what to do with it got distorted into a rather crap feature - it was spraycreted and left as a tunnel you could go into from the bar but with no sense to any of it. I suggested that if they could keep it at all it could be gated so you could see into it from the beer garden at the back of the bar, and an explanatory panel or sign to make sense of it.

Tis hard to explain/convince people sometimes....
Matthew

[cheezypuf]

There's another queer little building on Newmarket - coulda been a weighouse.

That little building still stands. It's marked on the ordnance survey map as a fire station, but was originally built by St Luke's, the nearby church. It served as a mini police station, run by the church before the establishment of civil police. Apparently the fairs in Newmarket were bawdy events.

More details in this report http://www.dublincity.ie/Images/St.%20L ... lan%20(2MB)_tcm35-52824.pdf

Regarding the tunnel from Sandford Park School in Ranelagh - The building was completed in 1897, so is relatively modern. Having schooled there for nine years, I also heard the rumour, but didn’t believe it for a moment. Neither did any of the staff or students. Despite fairly extensive building work in the grounds, no evidence was ever found, nor was any reason for such a tunnel ever suggested.

[PTB]

I started a rumor in Bolton Street recently that there is a tunnel going from Bolton street under the road to the Linenhall buildings. My friends didn't belive me at the start but I when I fabricated a story about it being regularly used until 1994, when it collapsed due to a minor earthquake, and was surveyed shortly after by my fictional engineer uncle, who swore to it's existance, they belived me and went off into the basement to look for a possible entrance to the tunnel.

Long live the legend

[Morlan]

I started a rumor in Bolton Street recently that there is a tunnel going from Bolton street under the road to the Linenhall buildings. My friends didn't belive me at the start but I when I fabricated a story about it being regularly used until 1994, when it collapsed due to a minor earthquake, and was surveyed shortly after by my fictional engineer uncle, who swore to it's existance, they belived me and went off into the basement to look for a possible entrance to the tunnel.

Ye mean feckin bollox!

[Adolf Luas]

Last Monday at a workshop regarding future development of DIT at the Grangegorman site, I discovered that a tunnel underneath Rathdown Road linking Grangegorman with the Broadstone side exists although it's no longer in use.
Also, while we're at it, has anybody ever heard of an extension that branches off from the tunnel that runs beneath the Phoenix Park and terminates at Áras an Uachtaráin? A small emergency platform. I don't believe it and can't remember where I heard it. It's a groovy rumour though.

[Jalison]

Can anyone please enlighten me as to the origins of a cellar which apparently runs under a building
between Bachelors Walk and the Lotts and may go up as far as Capel Street with a possible exit from Ormond
Quay? Would be fascinated to find out more about its age etc.

[Steph]

Could you tell me where you read this? So that I can start to investigate its validity ....am doing research on this abbey.

[GTSC]

Couldn't be bothered looking through all the page but I was told the Rotunda's archives are below O'Connel Street.

Not fantastic but pretty cool!

[liamwoods]

I remember being in tunnels years ago that ran below Parnell Street to the other side of the road but they were blocked off after 10 feet or so. Apparently there are several of these tunnels linking buildings on both sides of the street.

I can also remember seeing road works near the custom house / bus-aras area about 20 years ago that clearly exposed a tunnel system underneath the road.