placenamesClonsilla
Cluain Saileach
Clonsilla’s church and restored Shackleton Garden preserve elements of the village landscape within modern Dublin.
The name
These Irish name elements are associated with this record in the Logainm glossary.
An element’s translation is a clue, rather than a complete explanation of the name. Its form and meaning depend on local history and the full Irish name.
Recorded forms
- Cluain Saileach · Irish · main form · validated name
- Clonsilla · English · main form
Place & story
The parish church
The parish’s own chronology places construction of Clonsilla’s present church in the mid-1840s and records the addition of its tower in 1850. A later chapter came in 2005, when Archbishop John Neill opened Clonsilla Parish Centre. The church and its associated facilities thus record both the nineteenth-century village congregation and the needs of a growing suburban parish. [2]
The Shackleton plant collection
Shackleton Garden occupies a walled enclosure of about an acre and a half. It became known for rare plants and substantial herbaceous borders, earning a two-star rating in The Good Gardens Guide during the 1980s. The Shackleton family compiled a detailed plant list in 1994. Fingal County Council later adopted that list as a baseline for managing the collection, giving the family’s horticultural work a continuing practical role. [3]
Restoring the garden
Fingal County Council acquired the garden in 2017 and undertook restoration with support from Fáilte Ireland. Work included rebuilding sections of the enclosing walls, improving paths and repairing garden buildings and glasshouses. Mayor Seána Ó Rodaigh formally opened the restored garden on 17 September 2021, ahead of public admission from 20 September. The project made an established private plant collection accessible as a public amenity beside Clonsilla’s railway station. [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Dublin
- Barony
- Castleknock
- Civil parish
- Clonsilla
- Within
- Clonsilla
- Coordinates
- 53.38194, -6.43690 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1412696 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Clonsilla. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Our Parish History · Parish of Castleknock and Mulhuddart with Clonsilla; chronology compiled principally by Paul Colton
- Shackleton Garden is officially opened by Mayor of Fingal,17 September2021 · Fingal County Council
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-05-28. How this page was prepared.