Dunsink
Townland near Dublin, Ireland
title: "Dunsink" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["castleknock", "irish-traveller-related-controversies", "townlands-of-the-barony-of-castleknock"] description: "Townland near Dublin, Ireland" topic_path: "geography/ireland" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunsink" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Townland near Dublin, Ireland ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox settlement"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Dunsink |
| native_name | Dún Sinche |
| settlement_type | Townland |
| image_skyline | Dunsink observatory.jpg |
| image_caption | Dunsink Observatory |
| pushpin_map | Ireland |
| pushpin_label_position | right |
| pushpin_map_caption | Location in Ireland |
| subdivision_type | Country |
| subdivision_name | Ireland |
| subdivision_type1 | Province |
| subdivision_name1 | Leinster |
| subdivision_type3 | County |
| subdivision_name3 | Dublin |
| leader_title1 | Local Authority |
| leader_name1 | Fingal County Council |
| leader_title2 | Dáil Éireann |
| leader_name2 | Dublin North-West |
| unit_pref | Metric |
| timezone1 | WET |
| utc_offset1 | +0 |
| timezone1_DST | IST (WEST) |
| utc_offset1_DST | -1 |
| coordinates | |
| blank_name | Irish Grid Reference |
| blank_info | |
| :: |
|name = Dunsink |native_name = Dún Sinche |settlement_type = Townland |image_skyline = Dunsink observatory.jpg |image_caption = Dunsink Observatory |pushpin_map = Ireland |pushpin_label_position = right |pushpin_map_caption = Location in Ireland |subdivision_type = Country |subdivision_name = Ireland |subdivision_type1 = Province |subdivision_name1 = Leinster |subdivision_type3 = County |subdivision_name3 = Dublin |established_title = |established_date = |leader_title1 = Local Authority |leader_name1 = Fingal County Council |leader_title2 = Dáil Éireann |leader_name2 = Dublin North-West |unit_pref = Metric |area_footnotes = |area_total_km2 = |population_as_of = |population_footnotes = |population_total = |population_density_km2 = |timezone1 = WET |utc_offset1 = +0 |timezone1_DST = IST (WEST) |utc_offset1_DST = -1 |coordinates = |elevation_footnotes = |elevation_m = |blank_name = Irish Grid Reference |blank_info = |website = |footnotes =
Dunsink () is a townland in the civil parish of Castleknock, Dublin, in Ireland. The townland has an area of approximately 1.7 km2, and had a population of 323 people as of the 2011 census.
The townland is the site of Dunsink Observatory, where William Rowan Hamilton and Hermann Brück were directors. Built in 1783–1785, it is the oldest scientific institution in Ireland. The observatory houses a 12-inch (30 cm) refracting telescope which was built by Grubbs of Dublin using a French manufactured lens. It is situated on a hill 8 km northwest of Dublin's city centre, where the astronomy section of the School of Cosmic Physics in the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies is located.
The 1880 Definition of Time Act set the official time in Ireland to be Dublin Mean Time. This was computed as the time at Dunsink, which was about GMT-25m21. In 1916, another act moved Ireland to Greenwich Mean Time. Dunsink time is mentioned five times in James Joyce's novel, Ulysses.
Formerly the location of "Dublin’s biggest landfill facility", Dunsink is also the site of a major unofficial Traveller encampment, the subject of considerable media coverage in 2007. By 2008, Fingal County Council had reportedly compensated those in the encampment to "vacate [the] land".
References
References
- "Dún Sinche / Dunsink". Placenames Database of Ireland.
- "Dunsink Townland, Co. Dublin".
- "CD175 - Dublin Population by Private Households, Occupied and Vacancy Rate". Central Statistics Office.
- "DIAS Dunsink Observatory". Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.
- Joyce, James. (1922). "[[Ulysses (novel)". [[Shakespeare and Company (1919–1941).
- (16 January 2022). "Dunsink landfill to be rezoned by Fingal to allow for 7,000 new homes". Independent News & Media.
- (16 June 2007). "Whose land is it anyway?". Irish Times.
- (28 March 2008). "Fingal pays €5.47mto move Travellers from land". Irish Times.
- (4 September 2011). "Traveller site left a 'wasteland'". The Sunday Times.
::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::