Rewind – Bushy Park House built in 1700
By Sean Heffernan
ON MANY occasions since I was a nipper, I have tread the paths around Bushy Park, fed bread to the ducks, and did some fun exercising via the slides and swings in the playground.
In latter years I have been the chaperone as my nieces and nephews retraced my steps, and experienced the same joy and wonder as I did over 30 years ago.
Then: Bushy Park House
But many people who have also visited the park over the years like me, may very easily have missed the sight of a famous historical building in their midst; Bushy Park House.
The house was first build in 1700 by a Mr Arthur Bushe from County Kilkenny who was the Secretary of the Revenue Commissioners at the time.
It was originally knows as “Bushes House”, after the man that built it, but after it was sold in 1772 to a Mister John Hobson, he gave the house its current name “Bushy Park House”, possibly after a park in London with the same name.
Now: Bushy Park House lands today
In 1796 the house was owned by a wealthy nobleman Abraham Wilkinson, who handed over the house and it’s four hectares of land to a Robert Shaw upon marriage to his daughter.
Shaw was himself a merchant banker who later became Lord Mayor of Dublin.
In later times, the Grandmother of the famous playwright George Bernard Shaw lived in the house for 45 years, and he was a regular visitor throughout his life.
The house was three stories in height and contained a grand total of 24 rooms. On the Southside of the house was the enclosed garden, while to the north the 100 acres of land stretched as far as Terenure Village, while a long Avenue to the east led to Rathfarnham Road.
The Shaw’s owned the house from then until 1953, when it was sold to Dublin Corporation.
Two years later the council sold the house and part of the lands to the Sisters of Religious and Christian Education, and they went on to build Our Lady’s school, which is still a thriving highly regarded education facility to this day.
Fast forward to 1998, where the nuns sold part of the lands, which had originally been converted into hockey pitches, and the house itself, which had been used as a convent building, for a reputed €8M.
The initial development saw over 200 apartments and houses built on the former school lands, and in 2016 work began on turning the famous house itself into Apartments too,
So the next time you sit at the bar in the Abbey Theatre during the interval of a production of George Bernard’s Shaw’s “Pygmalion” or “John Bull’s other Island”, you may wish to raise a glass in toast to his grandmother, and the lasting legacy the Shaw family created in Templeogue and Terenure.
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