Ballsbridge

Ballsbridge or Ball's Bridge (Irish: Droichead na Dothra, meaning "Dodder bridge") is an affluent neighborhood of the city of Dublin, capital of the Republic of Ireland. The neighborhood is situated around and to the north and west of a three-arch stone bridge built in 1791, which spans the River Dodder on the south side of the city. The sign on the bridge still proclaims it as "Ball's Bridge" in recognition of the fact that the original bridge on that location was built and owned by the Ball family, a well-known Dublin merchant family in the 1500s and 1600s.

Ballsbridge was once part of the Pembroke Township. However, that name is little used.

18th century maps show that the area of Dublin that is now Ballsbridge was originally mud-flats and marsh, with many roads converging on a small village located around the bridge, and known already as Ballsbridge. Situated on the river Dodder, this village had a ready source of power for small industries, including by the 1720s a linen and cotton printers, and by the 1750s a paper-mill and a gunpowder factory.

By the early 1800s Ballsbridge was a small settlement on a major highway linking Dublin city with the port of Dalkey, where most of the shipping freight was landed, due to the shallow waters of the river Liffey estuary. The land around Ballsbridge was rural, and mostly belonged to the Earl of Pembroke. After the Royal Dublin Society moved into its present site near Ballsbridge in 1879, the Earl of Pembroke began to develop these lands into suburban residential housing. The RDS held their first show on their new premises in the early 1880s.

In 1903 the lands formerly known as the ‘Forty Acres’ were given to the city by the Earl of Pembroke to establish Herbert Park. (The Earl of Pembroke's surname was Herbert.) In 1907 the Dublin International Exhibition was held in Herbert Park.

Until 1965 there was a well-known botanical garden on Landsdowne Road near Ballsbridge. The garden belonged to Trinity College, which had leased land from the Earl of Pembroke. In 1960 the original lease from the Pembroke Estate expired and was not renewed. After reducing their size considerably, in 1965 Trinity decided to close the botanical gardens. Two hotels now stand on the site.

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