Douglas - A short history
By Paul Sheehan (1997)
The name Douglas is an anglicisation of the name given to the river or rivulet: "Dubhghlas" (now Dúghlas) meaning "dark stream". It is a combination of two words "dubh" and "glaise". "Dubh" means "black" and "glaise", "glais" or "glas" means "a little river", and is often used to give names to rivers and subsequently to townlands. The usual anglicised forms are glasha, glash or glush, which often appear in compound Irish placenames.
Douglas has been described (1845) as "a chapelry and village in the parish of Carrigaline, barony of Cork, 2 1/2 miles south-east of the City of Cork. It presents that singularly beautiful contour and richly embellished dress for which the whole tract along the lower River Lee and especially between Cork and Passage is celebrated, and it possesses a profuse powdering of villas and gemming and embroidery of gardens, shrubberies and villa demesnes". Douglas was first mentioned in the year 1251. In the mid-seventeenth century the area consisted of a small number of large farms or estates. It had a total population of 308 people of which 33 were English.
With the advent of the sail-cloth industry in 1726, flux being the raw material, Douglas began to take shape as a settled village community. The Donnybrook Mills (1726), Lane's Corn and Hemp Mills (1845), O'Brien's Brothers (St Patrick's Woollen Mills, 1882), Conroy's Rope and Twine Mills (1892) provided much needed employment for the people of Douglas and outside areas. They attracted, in the early days, Huguenots such as the Bernard and Pollock brothers from Belfast, as well as skilled workers from Northern Ireland and Scotland. Douglas ropes and sails were used by the British Navy in the war against Napoleon.
With the passage of time some of the mills ceased production but the two "giants", Donnybrook and St Patrick's, carried on through good times and bad. In the world-wide recession of the nineteen-seventies these two mills were forced to shut down, bringing an end to a tradition that lasted for two hundred and fifty years.
A few big houses existed in the greater Douglas area - most were owned by wealthy farmers and landlords. Sir Hugh Lane, famous art collector and connoisseur was born in Ballybrack House (still lived in today). He was killed in the torpedoing of the liner the Lusitania off the Old Head of Kinsale on May 7th, 1915. Many other big houses have given their names to the surrounding areas, the best examples being Donnybrook (House), Castletreasure (House) and Grange (House). Although these houses have disappeared today to be replaced by modern dwellings, the folklore connected with them still lives on in the lives of some Douglas people. Many smaller houses, most of them related to the old textile industry, still exist, the most well known being "Scotchies Terrace" in Donnybrook, built to house the Scottish workers in the mills.
From these humble beginnings Douglas has now become a vibrant village and comes very close to Bishopstown as Cork City's most thriving suburb. Housing estates now spread out from the village centre like strands in a spider's web. I have heard the population of Douglas estimated at 20,000+. The "village" now possesses two huge shopping centres and a new five-screen cinema. The Donnybrook and St Patrick's Mills buildings have been renovated and reopened to house a large number of different, small business units. Douglas village has four pubs (relatively low for an Irish village!) and numerous restaurants, including a branch of the world-wide franchise McDonalds. The parish of Douglas has become so large that a second Roman Catholic church was built. St Patrick's Church (1991) on Rochestown Road joins the "old church" of St Columba's (1814). St Luke's Church of Ireland church was finished in 1889.
Douglas is still growing. Building is taking place wherever planning permission is granted and houses are keenly sought after. Overall it is not bad for a little village.
(One of our History teachers, Mr Jim Maddock, adds the following)
Douglas is situated 5 km south east of Cork City (population 136,000), the second city of the Republic of Ireland. Originally a small village which grew up around its two large textile mills, today Douglas is a thriving modern suburb of 20,000 people.
The name derives from the Gaelic Dubh Ghlas, meaning Dark Stream, which still flows through the village and is an estuary of the River Lee on which Cork City is built.
Huguenot refugees from France were responsible for introducing the textile industry in the eighteenth century. The great mill at Donnybrook, which still stands today, at its peak produced sails for the British Royal Navy. A second mill was built in the nineteenth century and together they provided much employment in the area. Today both mills have been converted to other commercial uses but many of the original stone cut houses and cottages of the former workers are still to be seen in Douglas.
Given its pleasant location amid the rolling green pastures overlooking the river, not surprisingly, Douglas also had quite a number of "big houses" which belonged to the prosperous landlords and merchant princes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These big houses were the second main source of employment for the people of Douglas. Sadly, today, many of them have disappeared to make way for more modest modern housing developments.
Together with two churches, a school and a number of 'essential' public houses, this was the village of Douglas, population approximately 500, until well into the twentieth century. Our school was built in 1968 to cater for a growing population as Cork City began to spread outwards.
The past 25 years have seen dramatic changes in Douglas, which haven't been to everybody's liking. A new shopping complex built in 1972 heralded the beginning of rapid economic development, followed by an amazing spread of house-building, new roads, a second shopping complex, a new cinema and a proliferation of restaurants.
