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PORTRANE

CO. DUBLIN · IE

Portrane
Port Reachrann, Co. Dublin

The Ireland's Ancient East
STOP 08 / 08

Port Reachrann · Co. Dublin

A Victorian asylum the size of a town, a fake round tower built by a grieving widow, and Lambay Island sitting offshore that you will never be allowed to set foot on.

Portrane is the northern tip of the peninsula it shares with Donabate, three kilometres up the road and a different place in temperament. Donabate has the train station and the Georgian house and the commuter estates; Portrane has the beach, the asylum, and the sense of being further out than the map says. Most people who arrive did not exactly mean to. That is the right way to arrive.

The thing you cannot miss is St Ita's. The old Portrane Asylum opened in 1903, designed by George Coppinger Ashlin in red brick from the Portmarnock works, built to hold over a thousand patients and at the time the single most expensive building the British government had commissioned in Ireland. It ran as a near-self-contained world - its own churches, clock tower, farm and workshops - for a hundred years, closing to inpatients in 2011 and outpatients in 2014. A modern mental-health unit still works on part of the demesne, so this is a live site, not a ruin. Treat it accordingly.

The older history is layered under all that. There is a late-medieval tower house known as Stella's Tower, after Jonathan Swift's Stella, Esther Johnson, who is said to have stayed there. There is St Catherine's, a medieval church granted to the convent of Grace Dieu back in the 12th century. And there is the Round Tower on the hospital grounds, a Victorian imitation 100 feet tall, built in 1844 by Sophie Evans for her dead husband and known ever since as the Widow's Tower.

But the daily draw is the coast. Tower Bay Beach with its Martello tower converted into a house, the longer strand of Portrane Beach, the seabird-rich heritage area at the north end, and Lambay Island offshore. The peninsula is losing ground to the sea - around a hundred acres gone since the 1980s - which gives the whole place a faint sense of impermanence. Come and look at it while it is here.

Population

1,262 (2022)

Walk score

The whole peninsula end in an hour on foot

Coords

53.5010° N, 6.1260° W

01 / 08

At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 St Ita's

The most expensive building the British government ever commissioned in Ireland.

St Ita's Hospital opened in 1903 as the Portrane Asylum. George Coppinger Ashlin designed it in red Portmarnock brick at a cost of around £300,000 - the most expensive building the British government had ever put up in Ireland to that point. It closed to inpatients in 2011. A working mental-health facility still operates on part of the site.

Stories & lore → 02 Lambay Island

Largest island off the east coast. Privately owned. You cannot land.

Lambay sits about four kilometres offshore, the largest island off the Irish east coast, owned by the Baring family for over a century and closed to the public. You see it from Tower Bay Beach and the coast path. Watching it across the water is the entire available experience, and it is enough.

Walks & outings → 03 The Round Tower

A 100-foot fake round tower built by a widow in 1844.

On the hospital grounds stands a sham Irish round tower, 100 feet of it, raised in 1844 by Sophie Evans as a memorial to her husband George, a local MP who died in 1842. Locals call it the Widow's Tower. It is the strangest thing on a peninsula that does not lack for strange things.

Stories & lore →

02 / 08

The pubs.

None of these are themed Irish pubs, because they don't need to be. A few that earn the trip:

The Brook

Family-run village local, music at weekends

Pub by the beach

Portrane's pub, on its own loop of road by the beach and trading since 1896. Family-run, reasonably priced pints, the barman who knows the names. Live music at weekends ranging from trad to whatever is going. In recent years it has added Ninos, an in-house wood-fired pizza kitchen, and Altitude Coffee alongside. For a village this size, having one good pub that also feeds you is the whole hand played well.

03 / 08

Where to eat.

Place	Type	€	Local note
Piper's	Chipper, on the shoreline	€	The traditional fish-and-chip shop on the Portrane shore, established in 1982, dine-in and takeaway. A proper old chipper with a local reputation built on fish and chips and friendly staff. The default Portrane lunch after a walk on the strand.
Ninos at The Brook	Wood-fired pizza inside the pub	€€	The pizza kitchen that operates inside The Brook. Wood-fired, and locally rated well above what a one-pub village has any right to. Pint next door, pizza here, walk it off on the beach.

04 / 08

Stories & lore.

The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.

The asylum that was its own town

St Ita's Hospital

Portrane House and its lands were sold in 1893 to the board that built asylums, chosen precisely for being remote at the end of a peninsula. Construction started in 1896 in red brick from the Portmarnock Brick Company, and the Portrane Asylum opened in 1903 to a design by George Coppinger Ashlin - the architect behind St Colman's Cathedral in Cobh. It cost in the region of £300,000, the most the British government had ever spent on a single building in Ireland. It was built to hold well over a thousand patients and operated as a self-contained institution with its own churches, clock tower, farm and workshops. It closed to inpatients in 2011 and to outpatients in 2014. Part of the site still functions as a modern mental-health facility, so it is not an abandoned curiosity to wander into - it is a working hospital with a Victorian ghost attached.

100 feet of grief, 1844

The Widow's Tower

George Hampden Evans was MP for County Dublin in the 1830s and the last of his family to live at Portrane House. He died suddenly in 1842, the cause recorded with magnificent vagueness as a flying gout to the heart. His widow Sophie - from Avondale in Wicklow, and a great-aunt of Charles Stewart Parnell - commissioned the architect George Millar to raise a 100-foot imitation Irish round tower in his memory. It was finished in 1844 and stands on what later became the hospital grounds. Locals call it the Widow's Tower. It is a folly in the literal sense and a genuinely moving one once you know the story.

Visible, unreachable, full of wallabies

Lambay Island

Lambay is the largest island off the east coast of Ireland, roughly four kilometres offshore. The Baring banking family bought it in 1904 and it has stayed in private ownership and closed to the public ever since. It carries an odd menagerie - red deer, a colony of wallabies introduced in the 20th century, and major seabird populations - and a castle reworked by the architect Edwin Lutyens. You cannot land. There is no ferry. You watch it from Tower Bay Beach or the coast path, which is exactly why people find it interesting: it sits there looking entirely reachable and is not.

Swift, then Bono

Stella's Tower and the U2 caravan

Portrane Castle, a three-storey late-medieval tower house recorded as substantial in a 1541 inquisition, is known locally as Stella's Tower for Esther Johnson - Jonathan Swift's Stella - who is said to have stayed there. The peninsula picked up a second literary-ish footnote in 1981, when U2 are said to have worked on music for the album October from a caravan in Portrane, and Bono was reportedly baptised on the beach by a religious group. The band Delorentos are Portrane natives. For a village of barely 1,200 people it punches strangely above its weight in stories.

05 / 08

Things to do outside.

Wear waterproofs. Bring a sandwich. Tell someone where you're going if it's the mountain.

Tower Bay Beach The headland beach, a mix of sand and pebble with the converted Martello tower on the cliff above it and Lambay straight ahead. Deep water close in and stonier than Portrane Beach - one for confident swimmers, not paddlers with children.

2 km returndistance

30 mintime

Portrane Beach strand The longer, sandier beach, gently shelving and the safer of the two for a swim. Backed by dunes, with a National Heritage Area at the north end that fills with migratory birds in winter. The everyday Portrane walk.

4 km returndistance

1 hourtime

Portrane to Donabate coast South along the peninsula toward Donabate and Balcarrick Beach, with views back to Lambay and across to Howth. Return the same way or arrange a lift - there is no useful bus link between the two ends.

5 km one waydistance

1.5 hourstime

St Ita's demesne edge A loop around the outside of the hospital demesne. The Victorian Gothic brickwork, the clock tower and the Widow's Tower read over the walls. Remember this is a live mental-health site, not a heritage attraction - stay on the public paths.

3 km loopdistance

45 mintime

06 / 08

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

The coast path is at its best and the seabird colonies on and around Lambay are active. The beach is empty. Light is good on the brick of St Ita's.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

Bathing season runs June to mid-September. Portrane Beach is the swimming choice; Tower Bay is for the experienced. Car parks fill fast on the rare hot day - come early or come on foot. Jellyfish about.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

The best season here. Almost no visitors, the demesne walk reads well in low light, and the strand is yours. Quietly the right month.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Exposed and cold on the north-facing coast, but the heritage area fills with migratory birds and the place takes on a real bleak drama. Dress for it and bring no expectation of comfort.

◐ Mind yourself

07 / 08

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

Wandering into St Ita's

Part of the site is still a working mental-health hospital, and the rest is a live demesne under management. Admire the architecture from the public paths and the demesne edge. Do not treat it as an abandoned building to explore.

Trying to get out to Lambay

It is privately owned and closed to the public. There is no ferry and no landing. The whole experience is looking at it from the beach. Anyone offering you a trip across is not telling the truth.

Portrane without Donabate

They sit on the same peninsula three kilometres apart and make a single coherent day - Newbridge House and Balcarrick Beach at the Donabate end, Tower Bay and the asylum at the Portrane end. Either alone is thin.

Tower Bay as a family swimming beach

It is stony and drops into deep water quickly. For a swim with children, use the gently shelving Portrane Beach strand instead. Tower Bay is for the photographs and the confident.

Getting there.

By car

From the M1 take the Donabate exit and follow the peninsula road north through Donabate to Portrane, about three kilometres. Roughly 30-40 minutes from Dublin city. Paid car parks at Tower Bay Beach and at Portrane Beach, both of which fill on sunny days.

By bus

Dublin Bus route 33D runs directly to Portrane from the city centre (Custom House Quay). Routes 33B and 33E also serve the Donabate-Portrane peninsula via Swords. The 33D is the simplest one-seat ride from town.

By train

Nearest station is Donabate, on the Irish Rail Northern Commuter line, about 40 minutes from Dublin Connolly. Donabate village and station are around three kilometres south of Portrane, on foot or by bike - there is no reliable bus link between the station and Portrane village.