page_title: Oldtown, Dublin
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Oldtown, Dublin / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Historic plaque on the bridge at Oldtown, Fingal, North County Dublin Adrians were Huguenots who fled religious persecution from France to Belfast in the 17th century, branching to Drogheda, Balbriggan and eventually to Oldtown, County Dublin, by the 19th century. Dr. William Adrian and Dr. Edward Adrian were two generations of county doctors resident in Oldtown, Mary Adrian related.
context_page_description: Oldtown is a population centre and townland in the civil parish of Clonmethan in Fingal, Ireland. The R122 road runs through the village linking Naul to St Margaret's and Dublin Airport.
context_section_description: Oldtown is an example of a "chapel village" which led to a widespread investment in chapel building following the re-emergence of institutional Catholicism in the late eighteenth century.
  The original chapel, which was built in 1827, became the focal point of the village and attracted a range of other services such as the national school, community hall, priest’s house, shop, public house and forge. The term "chapel villages" has been coined for settlements which evolved in association with the growing social and cultural importance of the Catholic Church in Irish society.
  The Parliamentary Gazette of Ireland 1843–44 states that the population of Oldtown in 1841 was 156 and 27 houses were located within the village area of 10 acres (40,000 m²). After the Great Famine of 1848 the census of 1851 states the population of the village as recorded as 32 people.
  Molly Weston a heroine of the 1798 rebellion was born near Oldtown. She fought alongside her three brothers at Tara. A memorial was erected to her memory at Oldtown during the 1798 Bi-Centennial in 1998. "Arrayed in green... mounted on a white horse, [she] rode hither and thither upon the field with drawn sword in hand, rallying the pikemen and leading them in successive charges with the utmost fearlessness." (Patrick Archer, Fingal in 1798). She wore a green riding costume, with gold braid in the manner of a uniform and a green cocked hat with a white plume. She was armed with sword and pistols and was accompanied by her four brothers when she rode into battle. Weston rallied and regrouped the stricken pikemen; she placed herself at their head and led repeated charges against the Reagh Fencibles. "She fired a big gun captured from the Fencibles during the course of the battle, killing eleven of their number. Molly died along with her four brothers at the Battle of Tara. Her side-saddle was recovered from the battlefield.
  Oldtown was the first town in the State to benefit from the "Rural Electrification Scheme", run by the Electricity Supply Board (ESB) from 1946 to 1979. The first electricity pole was ceremoniously erected in November, 1946 at Kilsallaghan, and the first switch-on, was in Oldtown itself, in January 1947. The 50th anniversary of the event was commemorated in the village, with the ESB hosting a dinner, to which families living in the area since 1946, were invited.
  In the winter of 1981/1982 a large snowstorm cut off the village for five days, with the Air Corps eventually flying in supplies such as food and medicine via helicopter to relieve the village.
caption: Commemoration plaque on the
  bridge in Oldtown
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