Crumlin has seen many changes. Gabriel Byrne shares some memories of growing up in the area.
Thirty years ago, the grounds of Crumlin's most famous landmark, Our Lady's Children's Hospital, was all farmland which supplied the city of Dublin with fresh vegetables. At the heart of all this land was the village of Crumlin which has a history going back hundreds of years.
As housing schemes were built in the 1930s and 1940s, things in Dublin began to change.
People who lived in the inner city were rehoused in places like Crumlin.
Crumlin villagers were suspicious of the newcomers in their area and referred to them as schemers.
The schemers and the villagers had a healthy 'The disrespect for one another.
The construction of The Star Cinema helped to bring the old and new Crumlin together. Villagers and schemers sat side by side in the dark to enjoy moments of movie magic. The Star Cinema is now a snooker hall. Shay Healy meets up with star of stage and screen actor Gabriel Byrne. Although he lived in Walkinstown, Gabriel Byrne had attended Ardscoil Éanna secondary school in Crumlin.
He started visiting the Star Cinema from around the age of eight and shares his memories of Crumlin. He does not remember Crumlin as a particularly rough area but there were some rough characters. He recalls 'The Terror of Crumlin' a small young man in cuban heels who would make threats to people.
I'm going to get you at the Star on Saturday.
Gabriel Byrne reflects on his first ever visit to a cinema with his grandmother.
I'd never seen anything like it and I was hooked from there on.
His early memories of the area were that where Crumlin ended, the country began.
A road wound from beyond the village through farms and fields which eventually reached up as far as Tallaght.
As the area became more built up with housing, a lot of the characters in the village disappeared. One character, known as Sackman Sam, used to dress from head to toe in sacks. He had a long black beard and on his head he wore a cowl made from a sack from Boland's Mill. Mothers used to warn their children that if they did not behave, they would be given to the sackman.
He remembers collecting milk with his mother on winter evenings and would see the members of the Jewish community of Clanbrassil Street and Kimmage. All of this has changed, the farms are gone, as is the derelict castle where the sackman lived. Gabriel Byrne believes the pity is the loss of the proximity to both the city and the country. In the housing estates today, there are few facilities like that for young people just rows and rows of houses.
No physical environment that develops the world of the imagination.
'The Dublin Village: Crumlin' was broadcast on 1 July 1988. The presenter is Shay Healy.
