Cabra, Dublin
Cabra (Cabrach in Irish) is a suburb on the northside of Dublin city in Ireland, approximately 5km north-west of the city centre, in the administrative area of Dublin City Council.
History
Much of Cabra was built in the 1940s as a result of a building programme for public housing by Dublin Corporation. Before it was built, the area mostly comprised fields and open countryside on the edge of the city. Many of the people who moved to the new suburb were from the rooms and tenement buildings of the city centre. Old Cabra road is the first road of the official suburbs of Dublin city.
New developments
A new housing complex, Cabra Hills, is due to commence work in 2008 in the middle of the district, on the "border" of Cabra East and Cabra West, behind Carnlough Road and Quarry Road and running from Faussagh Avenue to New Cabra Road. Included in this development is a complete revamp of the junction on the Cabra Road N3/Carnlough Road junction, and numbers 2 and 4 Carnlough Road are to be demolished to make way for the plans. It will include well over 300 units and according to the developers it will house some of the many Cabra people who have found it hard over the years to buy in Cabra. Questions remain unresolved about some planning issues concerning this site.[citation needed]
Famous people
Tara-Mary Paget
Famous people from Cabra include singer-songwriter Eleanor McEvoy, world champion boxer Steve Collins, author and journalist Gene Kerrigan, actress and singer Angeline Ball, singer Dickie Rock, and war veteran and author Jack Harte who was a senator for 25 years. .Footballers from Cabra include Republic of Ireland goalkeeper Wayne Henderson, and Liam Whelan from St. Attracta Road was one of the Manchester United Busby Babes who died in the Munich plane crash. Also Anto and Chism from Attracta Road, they are ledgends (ML)
Transport and access
Cabra is served by a number of bus routes from the Navan Road, including the Dublin Bus routes 37/N/X, 38/A/B/C, 39/A/B/C/N/X, 70/A/B/N/X, 172. In the housing estates of Cabra, local routes 120, 121, 122 serve. Other routes stop close by in Phibsboro, such as the 4, 10/A, 19/A, 83.
Suburban rail stops in the rundown Broombridge railway station in Cabra, en route to Maynooth, and in years to come, Luas will eventually terminate at Liffey Junction, Cabra, also serving the new DIT Grangegorman development on the way to a link up with the present day red line.
Business
Cabra West has many factories in the industrial park and also along Bannow Road, one of the most famous of these being the Batchelors beans factory .
Noteworthy locations
- Broom Bridge, also known as Brougham Bridge, is a small bridge along Broombridge road which crosses the Royal Canal in Cabra, Dublin, Ireland. Broom bridge is named after William Broom, one of the directors of the Royal Canal company. Broom bridge is somewhat famous for being the location where Sir William Rowan Hamilton first wrote down the fundamental formula for quaternions on October 16, 1843, which is to this day commemorated by a stone plaque on the northwest corner of the underside of the bridge.
The text on the plaque reads:
Here as he walked by on the 16th of October 1843 Sir William Rowan Hamilton in a flash of genius discovered the fundamental formula for quaternion multiplication i² = j² = k² = ijk = −1 & cut it on a stone of this bridge. Given the historical importance of the bridge with respect to mathematics, mathematicians the world over have been known to make a pilgrimage of sorts to the site.
Local organisations
- Order of Malta Ambulance Corps local branch, providing training in first-aid and nursing skills, and voluntary community care services, and a related national youth organisation, the Order of Malta Cadets
- FÁS Training Centre. Amongst the apprenticeship training offered there is the Trade of Construction Plant Fitter.