Kilmore Close

West of Coolock village, this is one of several streets in an estate built by the Corporation in the late 1960s. The houses were offered for sale under the ‘tenant purchase scheme’, under which existing Corporation tenants, and people on the housing list, could buy a house, paying back the Corporation in a mortgage-like arrangement.¹

The houses were reported as ‘ready’ in February 1967,² and were advertised in September that year. 1,616 applicants paid a deposit of £10 and were entered into a ‘lottery’ for the 288 houses.³

The name comes from the townland of Kilmore, on which the houses were built.

The name ‘Kilmore’ comes from the Irish ‘An Choill Mhór’, ‘great’ or ‘big’ wood.⁴ ‘Ye wood of Kilmore’ is recorded in the Civil Survey, in 1654.⁵

In the early 1980s, there was an unsuccessful campaign to have the street names changed to ‘Woodville’, from the nearby Woodville House, in the grounds of which the Aoibhneas domestic abuse support centre was to be built.⁶

A ‘Woodville’ name stone was erected, but the majority of the residents were against changing the names.

1. ‘100% housing loans agreed’, Irish Times, 5 November 1963, p. 9.
2. ‘Dublin housing programme’, Irish Times, 6 February 1967, p. 1.
3. ‘Allocation of houses’, Irish Times, 14 September 1967, p. 11.
4. https://www.logainm.ie/1165864.aspx
5. Robert C. Simington (ed.), The Civil Survey, A.D. 1654–1656, vol. VII: County of Dublin (Dublin, 1945).
6. ‘A battle to raise funds for a bigger haven’, Evening Herald, 13 December 1994, p. 9.