Great publicity for the owner of that rear and we shouldnāt judge any forum member who considered doing the honours whilst pursuing the forum in private
The Stillorgan Orchard to be knocked and replaced by apartments.
A welcome fillip for the St Laurenceās environs and its local sports clubs.
Micky Marbh
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When I was a kid Stillorgan was synonymous with Bowling
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Stillorgan never recovered from Blakeās restaurant being knocked down
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Brewers droop / still organ
The developer not putting one in the new development is silly imo (older plans intended to retain it). Instead thereāll likely be another Costa and Spar, when there is already two shopping malls across the road.
It was a fairly unique thing (it was the first in Ireland along with the shopping centre) and would be the only one in the area.
The spoofers going on about a village are hilarious. You see it all over Dublin. The vast majority of people who live in these places never knew them as actual villages. Youād have to be over 70 now to have a vague memory of Stillorgan before the shopping centre.
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Science advances funeral by funeral.
Can you not have a village with a shopping centre in it? I always considered Stillorgan a village probably because it was called Stillorgan village.
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Yes the same way Greenwich Village is one. 
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Itās a bizarre thing for you to be getting annoyed about. If people living in stillorgan feel stillorgan is a village I would say they are entitled to that opinion.
It isnāt really. Have a look around at the verbiage used by a lot of politicians. It is typical to pretend and area is a tranquil village and to be afraid of ātransientsā
Another good example is below,
http://www.newsfour.ie/2020/11/donnybrooks-high-rise-fears/
Bear in mind that the above has yielded 150 social houses for Donnybrook.
People shiting on about a historic village when a dual carriageway has ran through it for decades are delusional. Politicians pander to this with older people who typically vote.
These areas of course were villages and the centre often retains some character of that. But beyond a branding thing, you canāt pretend as though you live in a quaint area where development must be stilted when large shopping malls and major roads were built through them half a century ago along with massive housing developments.
Half of Stillorgan was demolished for a bowling alley, two shopping malls, multiple car parks and a restaurant complex over 50 years ago.
The vast majority of people who moved to that area upset its village character.
Somewhere like Sandyford was a village in a lot of our lifetimes, but it clearly is not one anymore. Itās a neighbourhood with dense building and transit. You can argue for somewhere like Enniskerry and is it worth continuing to develop around it such that is loses its village character.
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Thatās a decent rant and its hard to disagree with it.
There isnt enough of a centre point to Stillorgan for it to be considered a village.
Ranelagh with its triangle could be considered a village though.
It does annoy me when you have some gammon fella on social media who bought a shitbox Semi D in 1988 talking about the essential character of an area.
With the Orchard, it wasnāt even a thatched roof until the late 1980s. It was exactly like the Playwright in Blackrock, they added a thatched roof then as part of a rebranding exercise, trying to position it as a quaint country pub. It was the 1980s equivalent of Press Up building a Foxy Johns ripoff in Temple Bar.
The Orchard went one step further in the 2000s with the godawful Celtic Tiger refit. As mouldy as Bolands is with its rock theme, Iād say it would be more recognisable to someone from Stillorgan in 1950 than the modern Orchard!
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Iād say it is downstairs in the shopping centre below where the clock is / was. Where the Soviets were doing their info exchange.
Thereās a great hardware/paint store in Stillorgan. And a float therapy centre. And Pilates. Itās a village from the entrance to Crokes up to the school. The other side was the main Dublin road ffs sake.
Those are mostly 1950s onwards developments.
The āoriginalā village was the Hill straight beyond the crossroads and to the left. But beyond the Hill it was where the Shopping Centre was. Where you have the Ormonde to Crokes and where Nimble Fingers is werenāt OG village.
The Church and School (COI ones) are located basically where they were.
So itās historically correct to say the Hill is the oldest part surviving from the original layout but it is hilarious to call the place a village.
Most people alive who remember Stillorgan as children should lament the loss of the bowling alley tbh. Thatās my main point really.
Same goes for Dundrum. You have the laughable chat now from residents trying to āsaveā the village. This basically means saving driving lanes and the late 1960s shopping centre that has been falling apart from 30 years!
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