placenamesTerenure
Tír an Iúir
Terenure’s surviving transport buildings and former cinema sit alongside a school and chapel developed from an eighteenth-century country house.
The name
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
- Tír an Iúir · Irish · main form · validated name
- Terenure · English · main form
Place & story
Where tram journeys met
Horse-drawn trams connected Terenure with College Green from 1872. Later electric routes met the steam tram from Blessington, allowing passengers from the countryside to continue towards the city. The Blessington service began in 1888 and ended in December 1932. Stone-and-brick sheds from the No. 15 tram terminus survive within the supermarket complex in the village. These buildings preserve part of the infrastructure that helped Terenure grow from a settlement around country estates into a connected Dublin suburb. [2]
The Classic becomes an enterprise centre
The Classic Cinema opened on 1 July 1938, bringing an Art Deco frontage and a new entertainment venue to Terenure. The Flood family, also associated with a local pub and the village water supply, helped establish it. Its final film in 1976 was Escape to Witch Mountain. The premises found another use from 1987 as the Terenure Enterprise Centre, preserving a recognisable former cinema within the village’s changing commercial life. [2]
Terenure House becomes a college
The Carmelites acquired Terenure House in late 1859 and opened a secondary school there in 1860. The former Bourne family residence had been known for gardens and glasshouses opened to Sunday visitors. Growing enrolment prompted extensions, but financial difficulties led to the school’s closure in 1909, when debts stood around £9,000. It reopened in September 1917 under Louis Gerhard, an Australian-born Carmelite. The house’s educational history therefore includes interruption and recovery as well as expansion. [3]
Glass in the college chapel
The college chapel was dedicated in October 1957 as part of a larger building programme. Most of its stained-glass windows are by Frances Biggs, with another example by Evie Hone. A chapel dedicated to twentieth-century Christian martyrs opened in 1985, centred on Carmelite Titus Brandsma and naming figures from several Christian traditions. Renovation in 2017 included a donated organ from Firhouse’s Carmelite monastery and Michelle O’Donnell’s coloured-glass work Water of Life at the entrance. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Dublin
- Barony
- Rathdown
- Civil parish
- Rathfarnham
- Within
- Terenure
- Coordinates
- 53.30802, -6.28955 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1412163 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Terenure. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Terenure Walking Trail Map and Guide 2021 · Dublin City Council
- The Carmelites in Terenure: a brief history · Carmelite Order in Ireland
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2024-10-24. How this page was prepared.