Drimnagh derives its name from the word druimneach, or country with ridges. A Neolithic settlement discovered and a funerary bowl found in a burial site. The site was demolished, but the bowl is on view in the National Museum.[citation needed]
The lands of Drimnagh were taken from their Irish owners by Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke (Strongbow), who gave them to the Barnwell family, who had arrived in Ireland with Strongbow in 1167 and had settled in Berehaven in Munster. The family were killed in Munster, except for Hugh de Barnwell, who was given lands at Drimnagh as compensation. The area was considered safe, as it was relatively far away from the Irish strongholds in the Wicklow Mountains.[citation needed]
Drimnagh Castle, which was first built by the Barnwell family in the 12th century, is the only castle in Ireland which still has a moat encircling it. It is one of Dublin's few remaining medieval castles.[citation needed]
Drimnagh was farmland until the mid-1930s, when some of the first tenement clearances brought city centre residents from one-room hovels to terraced and semi-detached houses in a series of roads named after the mountain ranges of Ireland. The suburb consists of one area close to Drimnagh Castle and Lansdowne Valley, with three-bedroom private housing built by Associated Properties, and another area (the larger part) built by Dublin Corporation and consisting of three-bedroom 'kitchen houses' and two-bedroom 'parlour houses' bordering the Grand Canal and Crumlin.[citation needed] The two areas meet at the parish church, the Church of Our Lady of Good Counsel (Mourne Road Church), in the centre of Drimnagh, which was built in 1943.[4]
The Dublin Corporation housing area was originally considered part of an area known as North Crumlin from its construction in the mid-1930s until the introduction of the postal code system during the mid-1970s.[citation needed]
Two national (primary) schools, Our Lady of Good Counsel Boys National School and Our Lady of Good Counsel Girls National School, are also based in Drimnagh.[citation needed]
Association football (soccer) clubs in the area include Mourne Celtic, Drimnagh Celtic and St. John Bosco. Drimnagh Boxíng Club is located on Keeper Road.[citation needed]
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