Phoenix Park - History

History

After the Normans conquered Dublin and its hinterland in the 12th century, Hugh Tyrell, 1st Baron of Castleknock, granted a large area of land, including what now comprises the Phoenix Park, to the Knights Hospitaller. They established an abbey at Kilmainham on the site now occupied by Royal Hospital Kilmainham. The knights lost their lands in 1537 following the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII of England. Eighty years later the lands reverted to the ownership of the King's representatives in Ireland. On the restoration of Charles II of England, his Viceroy in Dublin, the Duke of Ormonde, established a Royal Hunting Park on the land in 1662. It contained pheasants and wild deer, making it necessary to enclose the entire area with a wall. The Park originally included the demesne of Kilmainham Priory south of the River Liffey, but when the building of the Royal Hospital at Kilmainham commenced in 1680, the Park was reduced to its present size, all of which is now north of the river. It was opened to the people of Dublin by the Earl of Chesterfield in 1745.

In 1882, it was the location for two murders. The Chief Secretary for Ireland (the British Cabinet minister with responsibility for Irish affairs), Lord Frederick Cavendish, and the Under-Secretary for Ireland (chief civil servant), Thomas Henry Burke, were stabbed to death with surgical knives while walking from Dublin Castle. A small insurgent group called the Invincibles were responsible.

During the Emergency thousands of tons of turf were transported from the bogs to Dublin and stored in high mounds along the main road on the park.