Portrane or Portraine (Irish: Port Reachrann) is a small seaside settlement, three kilometres from,the small town of Donabate in Fingal, Ireland. It lies in the Barony of Nethercross, in the historic County Dublin. Portrane has a long sandy beach backed by sand dunes. There is a carpark, but access to the beach is restricted to pedestrians. At the north end of the beach is a National Heritage Area which is visited by many migratory birds during the winter. Built heritage There are several notable historic buildings in Portrane including a 19th-century martello tower. Other notable examples include; St. Ita's Hospital Portrane's most prominent feature is Tower Bay, and Portrane asylum, more commonly known as St. Ita's Hospital. Built in the early 1900s, the asylum is made up of a number of Victorian red brick buildings which dominate the peninsula. Features within the main asylum building include two churches and an imposing clock tower. The building operated as a mental hospital for many years with it finally closing to inpatients in 2011 and outpatients in 2014 before being refurbished and repurposed as a modern mental health facility. Following the sale of the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum in 2012 it was announced that it would relocate to the updated St.Ita's facility in Portrane. In the hospital grounds is a monument to George Hampden Evans, a replica of an Irish Round Tower. Portrane castle Portrane Castle (sometimes called Stella's Tower) is a 3-storey late medieval castellated tower house adjacent to St. Catherine's housing estate. Jonathan Swift's 'Stella', Esther Johnson is said to have stayed there and given the castle its unusual nickname. The inquisition of 1541 mentions the castle as being a substantial structure with associated outbuildings including a threshing house and hemp yard while the Civil Survey of 1655 describes this site as an old castle with a thatched hall adjoining owned by the parsonage of Portrane. A later brick chimney can also be seen at the top of the tower. Samuel Lewis describes the castle as long since deserted in his Topographical Dictionary of Ireland in 1837 and notes the last occupant was Lady Acheson. Today the castle sits in a field of privately owned tillage land. Erosion The coast in this area is subject to erosion, and since the 1980s, of beach at Portrane has been lost. Many houses on the peninsula were demolished in the 1960s due to