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O'Byrne Road, Bray.

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  • 20-11-2017 11:56pm
    #1
    tabbey
    Registered Users Posts: 1,943 ✭✭✭


    O'Byrne Road is situated in Bray, across the road from the Vevay church.

    It is beside Wolfe Tone Square, both were built in the 1930s.

    Was O'Byrne Road named in honour of some other patriot of 1798, or somebody more recent. There was a William Byrne from Co Wicklow, executed following the '98 rebellion, but he appears to not have the prefix O'.

    Just curious, perhaps someone can enlighten us.


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    #2
    tabbey
    Registered Users Posts: 1,943 ✭✭✭tabbey


    O'Byrne Road is situated in Bray opposite the Vevay Church. It is beside Wolfe Tone Square.

    Is O'Byrne Road named in hnour of a patriot of 1798, like Tone, or is it some more recent person ?


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    #3
    pedroeibar1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    I don’t know for definite tabbey, but generally, were it named for a specific person, I think his/her forename would be included. I’d guess that it is a generic Co. Wicklow name and could just as easily be O’Toole Road.

    Leafy Meath Road in Bray seems incongruous until it is known that the Earls of Meath (Brabazon family) have substantial landholdings in Co. Wicklow (even after selling Ballinacor and its few thousand acres!). They still own Kilruddery. An earlier title of the Brabazon family was Barons Ardee, the latter a street name that is found in Bray. Similarly, Putland Road is named after another local landlord. There is a very complicated story about the history of Sidmonton that I forget, but it’s based on a spat between two neighbors!

    Although Bray had a ‘tourist’ industry in the early 1800’s it was placed firmly on the map only when William Dargan brought the railway in the 1850’s and who was a key property developer in the area. Brunel was responsible for the engineering at Bray Head when the line was extended to Greystones.


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    #4
    Peregrinus
    Registered Users Posts: 26,092 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    O'Byrne Road was part of a series of housing developments undertaken by the local government in the 1920s and 30s - Pearse Square in 1922, O'Byrne Rd in 1927, Wolfe Tone Square in 1936. As Pedro points out, earlier developments had been named after landlords and local landowners; in keeping with the political and cultural climate of the 1920s and 30s, these developments were named for figures of wider Irish historical significance. The motivation behind "Pearse" and "Wolfe Tone" is obvious; O'Byrne Road was almost certainly named after the O'Byrne clan,on the basis that Bray is pretty much in the heart of their coastal Wicklow territory. (The O'Tooles were further inland, in the mountains.)


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