Darndale is an area on the Northside of Dublin, in Ireland, featuring a high concentration of social housing. It is located in the north of the sprawling suburb of Coolock. Darndale lies within the Dublin 17 postal district.
History
The area originally comprised farmlands in the northern part of the civil parish of Coolock, and took its name from either a large house situated to the west of Malahide Road or from the townland of the same name. It was intensively developed by Dublin Corporation in recent decades.
Location and access
Located to the north-east of Dublin city, Darndale is bordered to the east by the Malahide Road, to the north by the R139, to the west by Priorswood, and to the south by the Riverside housing estate in Coolock. It comprises the housing estates of Buttercup Park, Marigold Court, Primrose Grove, Snowdrop Walk and Tulip Court. Darndale is accessible by the Malahide Road and the R139, and also via the Greencastle Road. It is within 3 km of Dublin Airport. It is served by Dublin Bus.
Today
Darndale has a planned village centre which contains a newsagents/off licence, pharmacy and take-away restaurant. Within the village centre is Darndale Belcamp Integrated Childcare Services ; one of largest community childcare centres in Ireland and a HSE Primary Care Unit which provides a doctors surgery, baby nurse and community welfare supports to the local community. The main building in the Darndale Belcamp Village Centre is the Bell Building, designed by Michael O'Shea, which is a unique and collective combination of integrated community services operating in and around a multipurpose building. The Bell Building provides many services to the local community including adult education, youth training, information and support, older people support services, environmental programmes and administration and job seeking services to the local community. There is a large traveller community located close to Darndale, by the R139, and in a separate compound, Traveller school facilities. This site is mentioned in Christy Moore's song, Go Move Shift. Immediately adjacent is the large Clare Hall Shopping Centre, a Topaz petrol station and a Hilton Hotel. There are also several other amenities in the area including an Odeon Cinema, Leisure Plex, several fast food restaurants, community sports hall, community gym and an industrial estate directly across from the main road into Darndale. Since around 2004, Darndale has also had an unusual leisure amenity - a substantial fishing pond located in the local park, built in cooperation with the Eastern Regional Fisheries Board. In 2011 this underwent a massive cleanup operation, organised by local resident Michael O'Shea, to remove a large amount of weed which had grown in the pond, making it unusable.
Darndale was built as a social housing experiment consisting of low-rise, courtyard-based houses to encourage stronger community links in large, and largely resettled, communities. The idea of the "courts" was to create neighbourly bonds among the new residents. This idea of a communal space fostering community spirit was based on a large housing scheme called Cricketer's Way, located in Andover, Hampshire, England. This housing plan has not been repeated in Ireland since the construction of the Darndale estates.
Social issues
Problems involving the courts began to surface and some became centres of anti-social behaviour, with residents, spearheaded by Michael O'Shea, complaining to the local authority. Changes were made to the housing plan: laneways were closed and back gardens extended, and CCTV was installed in the estates. In 1993, Martine Franck, a Magnum photographer and Henri Cartier-Bresson's second wife, did a project on Darndale, showing deprived children in their environment.
Popular media
Since September 2014, a documentary-series about the housing estate, named aired on TV3 and also in March 2015 it featured on 'The Benefits Estate' a reality documentary-series on Channel 5 in the UK. The Irish crime filmCardboard Gangsters, 2017, was based in Darndale.
