HERITAGE
The coming of Dublin & Wicklow Railway’s Harcourt Street Line in the 1850s enabled the development of Foxrock. The houses built were large and on generous sites mainly on Torquay, Brighton, Westminster Roads and Kerrymount Avenue. Those roads were designated an Architectural Conservation Area (ACA) in 2007.
FACE strives to preserve the character of Foxrock and makes submissions to both the Council and An Bord Pleanála on all significant proposed developments.
The Heritage Map of the Foxrock area, which is on Beckett Green in the centre of the village, shows places of interest. This was erected by FACE in association with Foxrock Local History Club and co-funded by Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council.
HARCOURT STREET LINE
A photographic exhibition about the Harcourt Street Railway Line is in Foxrock Village car park, the site of Foxrock Station. This was erected by FACE in association with Foxrock Local History Club, co-funded by Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council and sponsored by Leopardstown Racecourse.
Nobel Laureate Samuel Beckett is probably Foxrock’s best-known resident. Beckett Green, in the village, is named after him.
Samuel Barclay Beckett was born in his family’s home on the corner of Kerrymount Avenue and Brighton Road, Foxrock on Good Friday 13 April 1906,The second child of Bill and May Beckett (née Roe). He was a regular attender, with his mother, at Tullow Church on Brighton Road where a plaque was unveiled by his niece Caroline Murphy (née Beckett) in 2016. He was educated in Dublin and Portora in Enniskillen before entering Trinity College Dublin in 1923.
Despite devoting plenty of time to pursuing his varied sporting interests of golf (he was an active member of Carrickmines Golf Club), cricket, rugby and tennis, he emerged with the gold medal as the first placed student in his class of Modern Languages (French and Italian). Following periods in Belfast, Paris, London and Germany he finally moved to Paris in 1937 with the intention of settling there as a writer. Although in Dublin on a visit at the outbreak of war, he returned to Paris immediately to his partner and future wife Suzanne Descheveaux-Dumesnil, becoming involved in the French Resistance and eventually going on the run in 1942 until the end of the war. He was subsequently awarded the Croix de Guerre and spent time volunteering with the Irish Red Cross hospital in Normandy.
He then chose to write in French, completing three novels, a collection of prose and two plays in a short and creative burst, reverting to write in English later and subsequently writing in both languages for the rest of his life. Although he is still probably best known for the play Waiting for Godot, which was first performed in French in Paris in 1953, his output is considerable in a variety of genres including poetry, drama, prose, radio plays, television plays and even one film. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969 although, true to form, he declined to appear for the presentation. Among his best-known other works are the novels Murphy, Malone Dies and The Unnamable and the plays Endgame, Happy Days, and Krapp’s Last Tape. He died in Paris in December 1989 and is buried there beside his wife Suzanne.
From programme notes written by Dr Feargal Whelan for the Beckett in Foxrock production of All that Fall performed in Tullow Church April 2019.
SAMUEL BECKETT
TELEPHONE BOX
The telephone box in the centre of Foxrock village is a K1 Mk 234 model and was erected in the village in 1926 which makes it the oldest in the country. An important part of the early twentieth century built heritage of south County Dublin, it is a listed building.
It was built of concrete with metal glazing bars and was completely restored in March 2024 by Paul Murphy, the Phoneboxman. That restoration was a FACE project which was c0-funded by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council.
As the public phone was no longer in use, the restoration enabled the installation of a mini library for community use.
