Placename "Flash" - Wicklow/Arklow

P. Breathnach

I have been trying to trace ancestors and trust I will be allowed into this forum on the grandparent rule.

The catch is that I know the grandfather was born in Co. Wicklow, but I don't know where, and all those who might know are long departed. Anyway, it seems the family were somewhere in the south-east of the county, as several entries in official records were made in Wicklow and Rathdrum. One entry gives Arklow as the place where a family member was born. And then there is another one that intrigues me: the address is "Flash, Wicklow" (we are back about 1880 for this).

Google has produced very little for this, but it looks as if there was an area in Arklow known as "The Flash" back in the middle of the 19th century. Do we have any really old people from Arklow here who can enlighten me, or younger people with some good knowledge of Arklow? Was there or is there such a place, and where is it?

[Lesson I have learned: start your genealogy projects before the older people in your family die.]

Skid

I think there was a place in Arklow known as 'The Flash', something to do with flash floods I think. Can't shed any more light, sorry.

If you are on Facebook you could try the 'Arklow - Then and Now' Group, someone there should be able to help you. I've seen a lot of similar queries answered.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=41918533570&ref=ts

P. Breathnach

Thanks SkidMark.

I'm not on Facebook, and not particularly interested in joining unless my life becomes impossible without it, so I'll hang on and hope that somebody here can add to your answer. I think we are talking about Arklow all right, and that the mention of Wicklow is the county, not the town.

I'd like to know where the Flash is/was, and if it is close to the Fisheries.

Now that I have started down this line, I'd also be grateful if people could tell me about Tyndall's Lane and Proby's Row.

StillWaters

Tyndalls Lane and Proby's Row (St Michael's Terrace) are in the Fishery. The Flash was the southern end of the Coolgreany Road. I don't think it was ever an official name though. Are you sure it doesn't read 'Clash', common name for Ballinaclash?

P. Breathnach

StillWaters wrote: »

Tyndalls Lane and Proby's Row (St Michael's Terrace) are in the Fishery. The Flash was the southern end of the Coolgreany Road. I don't think it was ever an official name though. Are you sure it doesn't read 'Clash', common name for Ballinaclash?

Thank you!

This makes perfect sense to me. I knew that my grandmother's family lived in Tyndall's Lane in 1901 and Proby's Row in 1911 and that they had an address in St. Michael's Terrace in the 1950s -- so it was probably the same house. There were at least two generations of seafarers in the family.

The reason why I thought there was a place called The Flash was that it appears on the birth record of my grandfather's sister. I found something about it in Griffith's Valuation (1854) where the name was used in a somewhat official way. It does indeed seem to be the town end of the Coolgreany Road, for about 300 metres.

The fact that the two locations are on opposite sides of the town is irrelevant: my grandparents met and married in Dublin.

I know that the St. Michael's Terrace house was standing a few years ago and imagine that it is still there. Google suggests to me that there are houses standing in Tyndall's Lane that seem old enough to have been there in 1901. [I am thinking in terms of photographing the ancestral places.]

Another question: are there houses at the lower end of the Coolgreany Road that might be over 120 years old? Might there be something there for my album?

Are you in Arklow? I would be pleased to buy you a beer when I visit.

pitkan

Hi, If you Google Arklow Historical Society you may be able to glean some info there and according to the Google there is a forum on this site as well. Yes the Flash was generally the area where the Wexford road is now and may have been a nickname for that part of the town.

sjd2

The Flash is an area of the Upper Main Street from the RC Church to the Roundabout.

Carawaystick

The Flash is the Coolgraney road from the Cemetary road crossroads down to the dirty Dog at the roundabout.

Named after the flash of the sun on the pikes of the pikemen coming into Arklow for the Battle of Arklow on 9th June '98


I'd agree though from the address it is more likely to be Clash, (Balinaclash) between Aughrim and Rathdrum

BarryD

Dunno - if the OP's ancestors were from Arklow and he's fairly sure they were, then the reference to The Flash makes reasonable sense. My experience of looking at family history in the 1800s etc, is that people often married fairly locally in terms of family.
One of the bigger changes that came about in the 1900s is that people became generally more mobile and more inclined to choose a partner from another part of the country or even another country altogether.
Not that Clash is that far from Arklow but The Flash seems to be right in the town.