Facilities
Raheny has a large and busy municipal library and a Garda station, a parish hall in the Church of Ireland grounds, the CARA community hall in St. Anne’s and the Grange Woodbine Club / Community Centre. The district also has a full GAA clubhouse, a soccer clubhouse for Raheny United, and facilities for major athletics club Raheny Shamrocks, St. Anne’s golf club and courses for par 3 golf and pitch & putt. There are many shopping and service facilities, with a range of retailers, financial institutions, two service stations and a Nissan main dealership, as well as a substantial population of trade workers and professionals.
It is served by several bus routes and the city’s coastal electric railway, the core of the DART system, and has a central taxi rank.
The postcard shown is an example of past community initiatives, which have included the many works of the Tidy Village Group, Raheny Business Association, Federation of Raheny Residents, the various separate residents’ groups, Scouts, Guides and more. Not to mention Raheny’s great sporting groups, such as the Raheny Shamrock Athletic Club, Raheny GAA, Raheny United F.C., the drama and other pasttimes, and more. Or the parishes, Women’s groups, Men’s Shed, active aging and retirement groups, Ambulance Corps, and more.
Raheny Library
Raheny is fortunate to have a large library (the second busiest branch in all of the Dublin City Council Public Library system, serving a wide area). There is a bright junior section and a substantial main division, with large reference collection, teenage corner, picture lending, large audio collection and Public Internet Access machines (pre-booking rarely required, self-registration using library card suffices). A fair number of language courses are stocked. e-reading and e-learning materials and access to some newspaper and other archives are available on computer. Raheny Library carries a range of special interest and community material, including a fine set of local history files and a wide range of forms and leaflets. Local schoolgoers and students of local matters often study in the library, while comfortable chairs are dotted about for ordinary browsers. There is also a closed rear reading garden, with seating, and there is a fine stone chess board-and-seat set on the front lawn. The library has its own car parking.
Location and access: On Howth Road, in the centre of the village, just east of the main crossroads. On or close to a range of major bus routes and the DART.
Other Dublin City Council facilities
The city’s governing body (www.dublincity.ie) has its main offices at Wood Quay in the city centre (bus to Abbey St. or DART to Tara St.), which is where many matters are handled (such as planning issues, though online facilities are developing). Locally, the Council has offices in Kilbarrack and Coolock. The city’s Parks Department has its main office in St. Anne’s Park (see features), one of several green spaces it manages in the Raheny area, where there is also one of the city’s Green Waste Depots, a range of sporting facilities, including tennis courts, football pitches and a par 3 golf course, and the famous Rose Garden and more recent Dublin City (Millennium) Arboretum. Bull Island (with Dollymount Strand) is the city’s largest municipal park (Phoenix Park is a national facility), and has a small interpretative centre with limited opening hours. There is also Edenmore Park, which also contains playing fields and a pitch-and-putt course. The nearest indoor municipal sporting facilities are in Coolock, with a swimming pool at Northside Shopping Centre and a sports hall on Glin Road. The local Fire Station is Kilbarrack. The nearest Cleansing Depot. and Bring Centre is on Oscar Traynor Road in Coolock, opposite Cadbury’s factory.
A few key contact numbers: Council main switchboard, 672 2222. Electricity and Public Lighting, 411 4400. Traffic Faults, 1800 29 39 49. Road Maintenance, 672 2255. Press Office, 672 2170.
Gardaí
Raheny hosts a substantial Garda Síochána (the Irish police force) station, looking after a wide area and headed by a Superintendent. Other nearby locations include Howth, Clontarf and Coolock (base of the local Chief Superintendent). The Garda Station is at 666 4300 and the Garda Confidential Line is Freephone 1800 666 111.
Location and access: On All Saints Drive, just in from the west end of the village centre. Opposite Raheny National Schools and beside the GAA and soccer clubs. Close to a range of major bus routes and the five minutes from the DART.
Also in Raheny is the former Garda Retirement Home.
Health
Raheny’s small local Health Centre is on Main St., just south of the village centre; the phone number is 831 0386.
Raheny previously fell within the remit of the Northern Area Health Board, under the Eastern Regional Health Authority and is now part of the HSE structures. The nearest main hospital is Beaumont; the area is also served by the Mater and James Connolly Memorial Hospitals. St. Joseph’s Hospital on Springdale Road, five minutes from the DART station, is a non-acute facility overseen by Beaumont.
Raheny is visited several times a year by the Irish Blood Transfusion Service for blood donations (the IBTS also handles registration on the Bone Marrow database and is one source of donor cards). Between visits, the nearest IBTS Centre is at St. James’s Hospital (the clinic on D’Olier St. in the city centre, easily reachable from DART or bus, is closed).
Post Office and Credit Union
Raheny Post Office (a Service Plus Office, with Billpay facility) is situated within the Supervalu supermarket; it was previously located for decades on Howth Road, just east of the village centre, beside the library. The area has a good coverage of post boxes. The local delivery office is in Harmonstown.
Raheny and District Credit Union had its offices on former parish land between the Parish Hall/ Youth Club and the Scout Den, on Howth Road in the village centre, and later its office, merged with other local Credit Unions, operated from a temporary facility in the church car park, before moving to the top of Main Street.
Community and sporting facilities
There was a Parish Hall, which hosted St. Joseph’s Youth Club, in the centre of the village; this has since become the base for Raheny Shamrock Athletic Club. There remains a Parish Hall in the Church of Ireland grounds, the CARA Hall in St. Anne’s and the Grange/ Woodbine Community Centre. Raheny had a swimming pool (St. Paul’s) which closed – the nearest pools with some public access are now CRC in Clontarf and Trinity in Donaghmede (Northside in Coolock has closed). There are substantial GAA and soccer clubhouses, the mentioned base for the major athletics club, Raheny Shamrocks, a scout hall and in St. Anne’s, playing pitches (soccer and G.A.A.), tennis courts, changing facilities for various groups, a play area and a par 3 golf course; there are also facilities in Edenmore Park, including a pitch and putt course (open to all; putter and one other club required). St. Anne’s Golf Club has a clubhouse on Bull Island (on the other end of Bull Island, in Clontarf, is the well-known Royal Dublin Golf Club). While the sea off Raheny has not been deep enough to allow much sailing for a long time, there are a number of boating clubs in nearby districts.
Commercial facilities
Raheny has over 180 businesses, with a large number of shopping and service facilities. There is the main shopping centre on Howth Road, just above the middle of the village (the anchor store is a Supervalu supermarket, alongside a chemist (pharmacy), phone repair and accessory shop, solicitors, children’s shoe shop, dentist and nail bar), the other village centre plaza (a bank and a building society, butchers, chemists, Chinese food vendor, bar, restaurant, solicitors, dentist, barbers and hairdressers, tyre provider and yoga studio) and the Main Street shops (credit union, solicitors, bar, restaurants, fitness centre, flower shop, clothes shops, coffee shops, bakery, minimal waste grocery supplier, hairdressers, Chinese, pizza parlour, accountants, blood test centre and more), the pharmacy and hardware shop by the library, the plazas in St. Anne’s (convenience store, hairdressers, Indian food outlet and office supplies shop), St. Assam’s (coffee and wine place, hairdressers and barbers, restaurant and financial advisor), and at the Hilltop Centre at Belmont (cafe, alterations shop, pharmacy and medical centre), not to speak of Edenmore’s retail centre, and so on. While Maxol has departed the motor dealer’s forecourt , petrol and diesel, and solid fuels, are still available from one service station at the city end of the area, and another at the Howth end… The Shieling Hotel (Regency Group) was a former feature of the area, now remade as apartments, but a few B&B (Bed and Breakfast) establishments and Airbnb participants still provide accommodation.
Parking
Street parking in central Raheny is mostly payable to the City Council, with other charging regimes for the old shopping plaza and the Catholic church car park, which has the best all-day rate at 5 euro. The car parks of the Supervalu-led centre, library and All Saints Church are for the use of patrons.