placenamesDrumcondra
Droim Conrach
Drumcondra’s institutional landscape grew around older houses, with teacher training, missionary education and care for blind people among their later uses.
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
- Droim Conrach · Irish · main form · validated name
- Drumcondra · English · main form
- Drumconrath · English · main form · local name
Place & story
Saint Patrick’s College
Saint Patrick’s teacher-training college opened in 1875. A major redevelopment designed by Andrew Devane of Robinson, Keefe and Devane brought new buildings in 1967, when Minister for Education Donogh O’Malley performed an opening ceremony. The scheme placed a new chapel between residential and teaching accommodation. Earlier college buildings were retained for lecture rooms and specialist subjects, while the old chapel became a library. RTÉ’s contemporary report describes a project intended to increase the number of trained primary teachers, linking local construction with national educational provision. [2]
Drumcondra House and All Hallows
Drumcondra House was built for Marmaduke Coghill in 1726 to designs by Edward Lovett Pearce. In 1842 Fr John Hand rented it as the setting for All Hallows College, founded to train priests for overseas missions. The Vincentians took charge of the college in 1892. The house and neighbouring college chapel became part of another phase of educational use when Dublin City University acquired the campus in 2016. The older residence thus remains within a landscape shaped by successive institutions. [3] [4]
Clonturk House
Clonturk House on Ormond Road predates much of Drumcondra’s Victorian residential development. Its imposing entrance combines carved granite with rendered walls, and its garden balustrade originally formed part of O’Connell Bridge. The Rosminian Order used the property as a school for blind people between 1955 and 2009. Thomas Dudley, widely remembered in Dublin as Bang Bang, was cared for there in later life. This particular association connects a well-known city figure with the house’s institutional history. [5]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Drumcondra. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- New Era for Teacher Training1967 · RTÉ Archives, report broadcast30April1967
- Architectural Heritage · Dublin City University
- Third Level Colleges · Vincentians Ireland
- Clonturk House,50120013 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2011-07-11. How this page was prepared.