How often do many of us pass by those two old buildings on opposite sides of the tramline at Dalkey (one of them Dalkey Town Hall), decide vaguely that they must be very old, and then think no more about them. To experts in domestic architecture, however, they are of the greatest interest; they are said to be older and better than anything of their kind in Great Britain.
The fact is that in the Middle Ages Dalkey was for many centuries the port of Dublin. At one time it was said to have had seven "castles," of which only these two remain; they were the dwellings and store-houses of the wealthy old merchants whose enterprise made the town so famous, and they are believed to date from the end of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century. Several armies are recorded as having embarked at the port of Dalkey, and between the years 1386 and 1548 many of the new Lords Lieutenant landed there; it would even appear that at one period the English Kings imported their wines from this now unpretentious village. A town of great importance in the middle ages, Dalkey seems rapidly to have declined towards the beginning of the seventeenth century. The last event for which the place is noted occurred in 1575, when many of the inhabitants of Dublin, flying from the plague which was at that time raging in the capital came and took refuge upon Dalkey Island.
The Irish Times, January 28th, 1930.