ShankillDublin 18

Rob Goodbody

Rob Goodbody is a historical geographer, planner and building-conservation specialist who has been researching and writing about Shankill and the surrounding area for forty years. He is best known locally for his account of the Domvile clearances of the 1860s, which emptied the old hillside village and gave rise to Tillystown, today's Shankill village. He has also written the standard history of the Ballycorus lead mines. Much of his local work has appeared through the Rathmichael Historical Society, for which he has written, edited, lectured and led outings since the 1980s.

Career

He studied historical geography at Trinity College Dublin, graduating in 1974. He then worked as a planner with local authorities in London and Dublin until 2003, and has since practised as a historic building consultant. He later took an MA in Local History at NUI Maynooth (2002), a Master's in Urban and Building Conservation at UCD (2005), and a postgraduate diploma in building repair and conservation at Trinity (2007) (Offaly County Council, 2024).

He has served on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown's Historic Monuments Advisory Committee and Dublin City Council's Archaeology Working Group. He has taught on Trinity's postgraduate conservation course and at Maynooth (Irish Interest). He is a founder member of the Industrial Heritage Association of Ireland (1996).

The Rathmichael Historical Society

The Rathmichael Historical Society was founded in 1972 and still runs monthly lectures and summer outings. Its journal, the Rathmichael Historical Record (1974–2003), is free to read online and holds much of Goodbody's writing on the area.

He joined the society's committee in January 1985, the year its founder, Kathleen Turner, died. That October he gave a memorial lecture built on her slides, one of seven talks he gave in a single day during Local History Week, at schools and at the Shankill Old Folks' Day Centre (RHR 1985–6).

  • Honorary Secretary, 1986 to about 1994.
  • President in the mid-1990s, from 2010 to 2013, and again from 2024 (past presidents; committee).
  • Assistant editor of the Rathmichael Historical Record for seven volumes between 1985 and 2000.

In 2022 he led the society's 50th-anniversary walk to old Rathmichael church. The society called him "a longstanding stalwart" (RHS). He has also led Shankill Tidy Towns history walks, including one on Shankill's railways in 2022 (Dublin Gazette).

What his work tells us about Shankill

  • The clearances were gradual, not one eviction. In 1857 Sir Charles Domvile inherited an estate of 95 families. Within ten years 85 had gone, some evicted and others pushed out by other means. Domvile's plan to fill the land with villas produced a single house, and he went bankrupt.
  • Shanganagh Castle began as a 1760s house built by Joseph Kathrens and was known as "Fairview" before General Cockburn bought it in 1800 and remodelled it as a castle.
  • The "1837" Ordnance Survey map of Dublin was surveyed in 1837 but revised before it was published in 1843, so features on it may be later than they seem.
  • Archaeology along a gas main. In 1998 he recorded features found along the Carrickmines to Bray gas main near Puck's Castle Lane and Ballyman, including a ploughed-out fulacht fiadh.

Books about the area

  • On the Borders of the Pale: a history of the Kilgobbin, Stepaside and Sandyford area (Pale Publishing, 1993). From prehistory to the modern day, including surviving stretches of the Pale ditch. NLI
  • Sir Charles Domvile and his Shankill estate, County Dublin, 1857–1871 (Four Courts Press, 2003; Maynooth Studies in Local History 50). The clearances that made modern Shankill. Four Courts Press
  • The Metals: from Dalkey to Dún Laoghaire (Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, 2010). The quarry railway that carried Dalkey granite to build Dún Laoghaire harbour. NLI
  • The Lead Mines: Ballycorus and Glendalough in the Nineteenth Century (Wordwell, 2024). The mines, the smelter and the chimney on Carrickgollogan. Wordwell

Articles and talks

  • "Charles Pratt: antiquarian artist", in Dublin and Beyond the Pale: studies in honour of Patrick Healy (Wordwell with the Rathmichael Historical Society, 1998). The 1820s–30s sketches of Shanganagh, its mill and the view from Killiney Hill.
  • "Murphystown Castle", Rathmichael Historical Record 1985–6. PDF
  • "Shanganagh Castle", talk reported in the Record, 1993. PDF
  • "Shankill, Co. Dublin in 1837", talk reported in the Record, 1997. Shankill before the Famine and the railway. PDF
  • "A 'find' in Rathmichael", Record 1998. PDF
  • "Old Conna Hill, the building of a Victorian mansion" and "The Shankill Evictions in the 1860s", talks reported in the Record, 2002. PDF
  • "Lead Mines at Ballycorus & Glendalough", the society's AGM lecture, January 2024. RHS

Most items in the Record are reports of his talks and outings rather than his own text. All the issues are free on the Rathmichael Historical Society's website, along with news of his current talks and walks. Beyond the area, his books include A Suitable Channel: Quaker relief in the Great Famine (1995), the Irish Historic Towns Atlas volume on Dublin, 1756 to 1847 (Royal Irish Academy, 2014), and a revised edition of Irish Stone Bridges (2016).