Martello Tower — Dalkey Island

Dalkey Island Martello Tower and Battery No. 9 (DU023-029011-) (Kerrigan 1995, 170) stands at the S end of Dalkey Island. Battery No. 9 stands 155m to SE. According to Kerrigan (1995, 168) construction of the Dublin area Martello Towers and their batteries commenced in 1804 under the supervision of Colonel Benjamin Fisher of the Royal Engineers and by December 1805 all towers were armed and complete. Kerrigan (ibid., 170) recorded that; ‘The towers and batteries south of Dublin are numbered from 1 to 16, but there were only fourteen towers, as at two locations there were batteries only, while several of the towers were close to adjacent batteries’. Situated in the W of Dalkey Island on the highest point of the island on a granite outcrop. A Martello tower built of dressed granite masonry. The entrance is on the N side facing the mainland and the martello tower at Sandycove. The roof is intact and there is a double string course on top. A plinth is around base. No machicolation survives above the entrance. Martello Tower and Battery No. 9 described by Kerrigan (1995, 173) as; 'The three-gun battery [DU023-029011-] at the southern end of the island with its iron rails and pivots for the traversing platforms is still largely intact, backed by a ruined guardhouse. Just under 200 yards to the north-west-that is, within musketry range is the Martello tower: larger than the other towers, and with no machicolation, there were two 24-pounders mounted on the circular gun platform. Mid-nineteenth-century plans depict the original entrance in the parapet of the tower, approached by a step ladder; there was one floor level within, serving as gunner's room and magazine. The present doorway is a later insertion, located like those in the other towers some distance above ground level. The field of fire of the battery guns was generally southwards over Killiney Bay, overlapping with the gunfire from battery no. 8 and to a lesser extent with the guns at tower and battery no. 6. The towers and batteries along the shore as far as tower no 1 at Bray all overlapped in their field of fire, and the solid iron shot of the 24-pounders had a range of somewhat over a mile; loaded with canister or grapeshot the guns of the towers and batteries could cover the full extent of the beach at low tide. The concern expressed by Carhampton in 1795 about Killiney Bay as a convenient landing place for an enemy force was now answered ten years later by the construction of these coastal defences'. See attached plan and section of Dalkey Island Martello Tower No. 9 courtesy of the Irish Military Archives - Archival Reference Code: IE/MA/MPD/ad134731-004 & IE/MA/MPD/AD119454-006 Photo © Ian Paterson (cc-by-sa/2.0) See attached Taylor's 1816 Map showing the location of the Martello Tower and Battery (DU026-012----). Taylor, J. 1816 Taylor's map of the environs of Dublin: extending 10 to 14 miles from the castle, by actual survey, on a scale of 2 inches to one mile. DU023-029009-_03 Patrick Healy Collection, https://hdl.handle.net/10599/1574, © South Dublin Libraries, Local Studies Collection, County Library, Town Centre, Tallaght, Dublin 24 Compiled by: Geraldine Stout and Padraig Clancy Revised by: Caimin O'Brien Date of revised upload: 23 January 2023