Historic DublinFrom Rathmines to Fitzwilliam Street to tenements on Abbey Street, Joseph Mary Plunkett's family developed a portfolio of over 90 properties in the south suburbs, writes Robert O'Byrne

AMONG today's bevy of successful property developers, are there any whose offspring display an interest in politics and poetry? This question arises following the publication of a memoir by the late Geraldine Plunkett Dillon.

Her brother, the patriot and poet Joseph Mary Plunkett was executed after the 1916 Rising (and two other brothers were sentenced to death but had their sentences commuted to 10 years' imprisonment).

Plunkett's story, including his eve-of-execution marriage to Grace Gifford, is well-known but what might be less widely appreciated is the role played by his family in the development of Dublin's affluent southern suburbs.

Plunkett's grandfathers, maternal and paternal alike, moved from the country to the capital in the middle of the 19th century.

Married to first cousins, initially they both worked in retail in the city centre but it wasn't long before Patrick Plunkett and Patrick Cranny independently began dabbling in property speculation as demand for new housing required expansion beyond the existing city boundaries.

Following Catholic Emancipation in 1829, these two men were among the first members of their faith to take advantage of the possibilities now offered in terms of property ownership. Patrick Plunkett, for example, entered the building business in the early 1850s after buying a plot of land in Rathmines.

Here, on what would become Belgrave Road, he built three houses, using as his architect the father of Sir Edward Carson, future barrister and Unionist leader (and ideological opponent of Joseph Mary Plunkett).

From there he moved on to develop parts of Belgrave Square and Palmerston Road, Cowper Road, Palmerston Park, Windsor Road, Ormond Road and Killeen Road.

The last of these developments dates from 1900 when Patrick Plunkett was aged 83; according to his granddaughter, he always said it was better to wear out than rust out.

Meanwhile her other grandfather Patrick Cranny, originally from Co Carlow, borrowed funds from his wife Maria who owned a successful shoe shop and began his career as a property developer by building houses also on Belgrave Road.

Later he would be responsible for developing sections of new streets and squares not just in Rathmines and Ranelagh but also Ballsbridge (Elgin Road, Clyde Road, Raglan Road) and Donnybrook; one of his sons Gerald trained as an architect and was given the job of designing many of the houses.

Patrick Cranny repaid his wife's loan by building a large house in Donnybrook called Muckross Park on Marlborough Road; some years after his death, Maria Cranny sold the property for £4,000 to the Dominican Nuns who have it still.

Not that the family was short of other properties. When Joseph Mary Plunkett's mother Mary Cranny married his father George, Count Plunkett in 1884, their wedding settlement included Nos 6-13 Belgrave Road and Nos 27-39 Marlborough Road, plus the leases of three farms in Co Clare and No 26 Upper Fitzwilliam Street in central Dublin as a house for the couple to live in.

Due to the deaths of various siblings, and her own dabbling in property speculation, Mary Plunkett would come to own much more.

During the 1913 strike, her son Joseph tried to offer money to James Larkin but was refused because 'His people have rotten tenements': unknown to her children, the Countess had bought slum property on Upper Abbey Street.

But she also owned the Harkwicke Hall where the Irish Theatre was founded, and Larkfield in Kimmage which served as a Republican training camp prior to the Easter Rising; around this period, Michael Collins worked for the Plunketts managing their property and collecting rents for a salary of £1 per week.

By the time Mary Plunkett died in 1944, she controlled over 90 properties, most of them in the south Dublin suburbs.

Given that a single house at Temple Gardens made €9.05 million at auction recently, it would be fascinating to know what that portfolio would be worth today.