Tranquillity in Sandymount
WITH the Land War at its height in 1880, the landed classes united to protect their assets by establishing the Property Defence Association of Ireland. Its aim was to frustrate the campaigns of the Land League and to assist landlords who’d been boycotted by local communities.
The help came in the form of money, supplies or, most controversially, labour: so-called “Emergency Men”, protected by police, would take over tenant farms resulting, inevitably, in local conflicts and sometimes violence.
Even as late as 1911 the Property Defence Association was still going strong, although its secretary at the time was living about as far from agrarian unrest as it was possible to live. His name was Charles Elliott, and on the night of the 1911 census he had an address within the safe and comfortable confines of Sandymount, at 41 Londonbridge Road, Dublin 4.
Similarly, the only disputes over grassy territory that the modern occupant of Number 41 will see will be on court at Lansdowne Lawn Tennis Club, which is directly behind the property, or at the Lansdowne Road stadium just across the Dodder.
Now in need of modernising, Number 41 stands at 1,109 sq ft but it may be possible to extend it, as many of the neighbours have done, into the paved back garden.
It has two ground-floor reception rooms linked by double doors. To the front is a living room with a gas-fitted fireplace, and behind that is a dining room which a new owner is likely to throw open to the garden. The kitchen is at the back, with a utility and shower room off it, and there are three firstfloor bedrooms with one en suite.
The front garden is in gravel with a pedestrian gate, and again there’s a neighbourhood precedent for offstreet parking there.
Number 41 Londonbridge Road is for sale for €675,000 with Bennetts Auctioneers (01) 260 2520.