RANELAGH

Samuel Lewis

A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland

1837

RANELAGH, a village, in the parish of ST. PETER, barony of UPPERCROSS, county of DUBLIN, and province of LEINSTER, 1 ½ mile (S. by E.) from the General Post-office, Dublin, on the road to Enniskerry; containing 1988 inhabitants. Here is a nunnery of the Carmelite order, with a neat chapel attached: a school for poor girls is gratuitously conducted by the nuns. In the vicinity are several avenues in which are a number of neat villas; also the extensive nursery grounds of Messrs. Toole and Co. Adjoining the village is Cullenswood, noted for a dreadful massacre by the native Irish of upwards of 500 citizens (a colony from Bristol), who on Easter-Monday, 1209, went out to divert themselves near the wood, where they were surprised and slaughtered. The day was afterwards called "Black Monday," and the place is still known by the name of the "Bloody Fields."

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