Portmarnock
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Portmarnock (Port Mearnóg in Irish) is a town north of the city of Dublin in the County Fingal (previously North County Dublin) in the Republic of Ireland. It lies on the coast and, owing to its proximity to Dublin city, is a dormitory town 15 km north-northeast of the city centre. The town is situated along the Northern commuter railway line out of Dublin. Portmarnock station is also on the DART network. See rail transport in Ireland.
The town's name derives from the Irish word port – meaning port – and Saint Marnoch or Mernoc, also remembered in the name of Kilmarnock in Scotland. He is said to have arrived in what is now Portmarnock in the 5th century AD. The area had been settled thousands of years before, in Neolithic times. A number of remains of activity in the Portmarnock area from these times is still evident today, with flints and other tools having been excavated at the north fringe of Portmarnock, while the remains of a ring fort are visible from the air at the south of the town. The son of Queen Maedhbh of Connaught - Maine - is also said to have been buried locally.
According to the 2002 census, the population of Portmarnock is 8376.
Portmarnock Beach is now becoming very popular with wind surfers and kite surfers. Like many of Dublin's coastal towns it is home to a Napoleonic Martello tower. Portmarnock is famous for its world class golf course which formally opened on December 26 1894, while another links course, opened in the 1990s, was designed by German golfer Bernhard Langer.
That golf course and hotel is built around the former home of the Jameson distilling family. Anne Jameson's son was Guglielmo Marconi (she married Giuseppe Marconi). Guglielmo of course invented the wireless and carried out the first transatlantic morse code tranmission in 1902 from Nova Scotia, Canada to England.
The first westbound transatlantic solo flight began from Portmarnock beach. The beach is known as the Velvet Strand due to its long flat surface. On 18 August 1932 Jim Mollison, a British pilot, took a de Havilland Puss Moth from Portmarnock to Pennfield, New Brunswick, in Canada.