Parked at the end of Killarney Drive (after a whistle stop tour of Ireland recalled in the local street names – Shamrock Pde, Donegal Rd, Clare Pl, Blarney and Connemara Ave, etc) and walked down the Flat Rock Track.
Inauspicious start with lots of weeds but it soon cleared to a fine fern and angophora forest with several precipitous rock faces above and below for good measure.
Made it to the base of the point but soon realised it was private property when we called out to a man working in the garden to ask if we could get out to the point and he replied “it’s private property.” There was a dog too. Woof. The whole place had the wife flashing back to images from a Jonestown documentary.
So retracing our steps we found another stairway leading up the steep hillside to Killarney Drive, where we were rewarded with a good view of the point and Middle Harbour.
We have since learnt (a.k.a. Googled up) that the building at Killarney Point was once a dance hall (late 1800s) and that there were other pleasure grounds around the corner in Bantry Bay that were set up by an Irishman who called the area the ‘Killarney of Australia.’ To be sure, to be sure, to be sure…
Philip Bull
Jan 8, 07:08 PM #
Your experiences with Killarney Point weirdly mirows mine a few days later. I grew up behind the point (1967 to 1979) and have vivid memories of roaming around this point, the Dance Hall, the Old Wharf and Picnic grounds. We used to go there for school excursions. It’s a great place, you never saw half of it, and it was always publicly accessible.
I went there with my kids the Sunday after New Year 2009 for the first time in nearly 30 Years. We meet Jim Jones at the base out the front of the Hall (see your photo). He was burning rubbish in front of the Dance Hall and immediately warned us off. I gently explained my childhood experiences to him and asked if I could show my threatening looking 4 and 5 year old children the Old Wharf where I fished as a kid. He got more heated, picked up a stick and explained he held the title, people need to get used to change and again told me it was his land (he waved his arms around and explained, it’s mine a 100 m each way). He also complained to me that people keep coming here (that must have been you) and they have to realize it’s not public land anymore. He was getting weird I left. He was more of a Captain Kurtz in my view.
This experience was out-of-step with my understanding of Point Killarney and friends who have rowed there more recently. The land is heritage listed as a Picnic Grounds and all the foreshore and most of the point is crown land. The site has never been zoned for housing, indeed it’s zoned Open Space Reserve. It appears that Mr Hexberg squatted on the land for years, became the tenant / caretaker for the Mosman Rower Club and then a few years ago when the Club found the planning restrictions too restrictive it sold the land to him. The Old Dance Hall was derelict in the 1970s when I was a kid and never used as a residence. Indeed the use of the site for housing is expressly prohibited under the Council LEP (I checked). There is something fishy going on down there, that was pretty obvious to me and confirmed with a bit of research. Point Killarney is too special a place for it to become a weirdo farm. Email me if you want more information.
Philip Bull