Re: Re: How well do you know Dublin?

@photopol wrote:

KerryBog2

Decco’s has been opened up to potholers ……….. I know the cave/tunnel came out somewhere up Killiney Hill. ………Not familiar with the ramparts version. Where is that?………..From an architectural/archeological/genealogical point of view this should be of interest.

P

Photopol,
Thanks for the link to that Martello Tower site – we had a discussion here on them a year or so ago. I have watched the renovation of Tower No 7 when passing on Killiney Hill Road. V.nice to see the photos. The cannon mounting is very interesting, an amalgamation of the slide of a carronade with the breeching of a long gun. I would prefer to see covers on the trunnions before I would fire it shotted! Looks smaller than the usual 26 pounder.

As a kid I lived out that way and always understood that the Whiterock cave, Decco’s , is an old lead & silver mine dating to the mid 1700’s. Decco was an old sailor who lived in it for years, back around 1900. It does not go in very far, about 40 feet or so is my memory, and certainly not onto K Hill; sometimes we could go no further than 15 feet as it was silted up by sand/storm debris. A spring runs through it, so that clears it, often leaving a bank on one side and a long, deep pool on the left as you enter. Caving gear necessary!

There were other mines in Dalkey and also a “gold rush” in the 1830’s. I’ve always associated the latter with the cave/tunnel at Loreto Convent which is not very long though as kids we believed it went out to Dalkey Island. The Ramparts is what locals call the Vico Gentlemens’ Bathing Place.
Rs
K
PS not Fexco.