The Bombing of Dolphin’s Barn, Dublin, 1941

During World War II, German aircraft dropped bombs on Ireland - an officially neutral state - on a number of occasions. On the night of January 2, 1941, as well as the following night, bombs were dropped for the first time on Dublin City, in Terenure and in the Donore area around the South Circular Road. The houses most affected - between the National Boxing Arena and Donore Avenue/Sally’s Bridge, on the South side of the South Circular Road - were a terrace of houses called Donore Terrace, houses built in the 1880’s as part of the hundred-year development of the SCR. Two houses were completely destroyed, and many more were damaged, both on the terrace itself and on the streets and roads of the neighborhood. The story of this, from the point of view of the Corporation, is contained in the files stored in the archive of its successor, the Dublin City Council. As well, detailing the response of the Corporation to these events, the files also document the efforts by affected citizens to ensure that they received ‘appropriate’ compensation for the damage they had suffered. This book describes those efforts.