Journal Volume 6 2010

A Greystones Miscellany

An Early Greystones Builder

By Leo Ireton

Patrick Joseph Kinlen came to Greystones from County Kerry just before the turn of the 19th century. He purchased land from Elizabeth Maine who was the owner of the Burnaby Estate. She was the only daughter of Sir St. Vincent Bentinck Hawkins-Whitshed of Killincarrig House, Greystones (afterwards the Clydagh Hotel, then the Woodlands Hotel). She called her estate at Greystones after her first husband Colonel Fred Burnaby who died in 1885.

Patrick J Kinlen bought the land in May 1898 and proceeded to build shortly after. He employed an English architect who used a neo-tudor design, especially at Burnaby Road and Killincarrig Road. At that time the Burnaby Estate bordered the La Touche Estate close to Killincarrig Road, on the north side. Kinlen wanted to build a number of houses, which he would name Beachview Terrace, on Killincarrig Road with reasonably sized back gardens. To do this he made an offer to buy land from the La Touche Estate but this was refused. A legal action ensued which eventually resulted in a High Court case, which he lost. This resulted in the terrace of houses he built on Killincarrig Road having very small back gardens though access, for coalmen, was provided at the back of the terrace.

Kinlen Road is named after the builder. He also carried out major work on Roundwood reservoir and in 1908 he built the Holy Rosary Church. He died quite a young man while on summer holidays in Greystones.

Although the Kinlen family lived in a house in Church Road, they retained ownership of a few houses on Killincarrig Road which they let out in summer months. These were: Iona, Armadale (now Parteen), Littlehampton and Charleville, and they also retained (a shop) at 2 Killincarrig Road. Killincarrig Road is so called because it follows a line of access to Killincarrig village from Greystones Railway Station. When Weston St. John Joyce visited Greystones in 1906 he said: ‘from the top of the Killincarrig Road a field path leads by the golf links, through a wood, to the village of Killincarrig’.

Patrick’s sisters, Miss Catherine Kinlen and Mrs Moore, ran a business in the shop at 2 Killincarrig Road until 1935. His daughter, Miss Eileen Kinlen, who lived in Littlehampton, sold the houses in the early 1960s.