Our History
In July 2010 Dublin City Council (DCC) launched St. Anne's Allotment, located in St. Anne's Park, Raheny. The park, originally owned by the Guinness family, was passed to Bishop Plunkett, a nephew of the Guinness family and it was he who added the walled Garden to the estate. The Allotment consists of a 2½ acre area within the walled garden.
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St. Anne's Park, (named after the Holy Well on the land) now belongs to DCC. The Allotment is run by DCC on a devolved basis, meaning DCC leave the day to day running of the Allotment to the plot holders themselves, managed via an annually elected Committee (See the Steering Committee Page).
Day 1 July 1st 2010 - A blank canvas !
We're located right on the coast at Raheny, Dublin 5
At the outset DCC divided the allotment into 90 plots. Tool lock-up facilities and water access is provided in the form of 2 large containers and a smaller container for communal tools / equipment for general housekeeping.
In 2011 Dublin City Council constructed a community room for the allotment holders, and In 2012 the plot holders purchased 3 large poly-tunnels to help extend the growing season and propagate their own seed stock.
During November 2013 ten of the original 90 plots were re-designated and were set into a community garden. Currently there are 80 individual plots, in two different sizes of either 70m² or 35m². There are 57 plots of 70m² and 23 plots at 35m².
In September 2014, 2015 and 2016 respectively, Saint Annes Allotment has won the best allotment/open garden category in the City Neighbourhood Awards ceremony at Croke Park. This is an amazing achievement.
The Park's History
St. Anne's park, (the second largest park in Dublin), is part of a former 202 hectares estate owned by the Guinness Family since circa 1835. Lands were purchased over time to build up an extensive property, and a large Italianate Styled mansion house was commissioned.
Sir Arthur Edward Guinness (Lord Ardilaun), who inherited the estate in 1868, was the person most responsible for expanding and developing the estate and gardens and planted wind-breaking evergreen Holm oaks and pines along the main avenue and estate boundaries, where they remain. Lord and Lady Ardilaun had no children and the estate passed to their nephew Bishop Plunkett in the 1920s.
In 1937, he decided he could no longer maintain such a large estate and negotiations with Dublin Corporation resulted in the house and 444.75 acres (1.80 km2) of estate being sold to the Corporation for approximately £55,000 in 1939. Bishop Plunkett retained Sybil Hill (now St. Paul’s College) as a private residence with 30 acres (120,000 m²) of parkland, and it later became the site of St. Paul’s College, Raheny, with extensive private playing fields.
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In December 1943, the main residence of St. Anne’s, “The Mansion”, was gutted by a fire while being used as a store by the Local Defense Force and the ruins were demolished in 1968. In the meantime, just over 200 acres (0.8 km2) of the estate were developed for public housing with the central and most attractive portion comprising about 240 acres (1.0 km2) retained as parkland and playing fields.