Racing in Baldoyle began in 1829 on the Deer Park, a course laid out by racing enthusiast and landowner, Thomas, Third Earl of Howth. There was a slight hiatus then in the 1840s, but racing returned to Baldoyle in 1853. The races at Baldoyle became hugely popular, with a perfect location served by Drogheda and Howth Railway Company, which regularly sponsored races.

They were cheap to attend, and the racecourse was not enclosed, so there were also popular with hawkers, tricksters and pickpockets who could work the crowds. And one of the reasons for enclosing sports grounds through the course of the 19th century was to keep the tricksters and hucksters out, or at the very least make money out of the money they were going to make.

In the twentieth century, Baldoyle continued to have an important place in Ireland’s sporting history and its reinforced concrete heralded the beginning of the influence of modernism on sporting architecture. This is the first of its kind in Ireland, and it was built for Baldoyle in 1918, that bold, plain concrete appearance was radical. But in 1973, the insurers could no longer insure the grandstand and so in part because of that racing ceased at Baldoyle in the 1970s.

Over the early 2000s Baldoyle has been at the centre of a large house building programme, with the former Racecourse, long closed, having been sold to developers. There are two thousand houses on the site where Baldoyle racecourse once stood.

Produced by Pat Feeley

First broadcast 10th January 1979

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