St Anne’s Physic Garden, Dublin

The garden was created to showcase traditional medicinal herbs and allow the public access to these wonderful healing plants. We The IRH, want to facilitate further education for the public, on herbal medicines and the history, lore and use of plants as medicine in Ireland.

What is a Physic Garden?

A physic garden is a collection of medicinal herbs in this case planted in the formal style of Italian sunken gardens as used in monastic settings.

The garden at St. Anne’s Park, which has featured on RTE’s Nationwide programme, is open to the public and for educational purposes.

Herb walks at the Garden

A qualified herbalist will be present on certain dates to answer questions.

Every first and third Saturday during the Summer months 10:00am to 4:00pm, an IRH herbalist will be in attendance giving herbal walks and talks usually at 12pm and 3pm.

About St. Annes Park

St. Anne’s Park is Dublin’s second largest public park and is located in the Clontarf/Raheny area.
It began as the estate of members of the Guinness family beginning with Arthur and Benjamin Lee Guinness. An italian style estate house was built, which unfortunately was destroyed by fire and demolished in 1968.

Sir Arthur Edward Guinness and his wife Olive (Lord & Lady Ardilaun) developed the estate further after Lord Ardilaun inherited it in 1868, planting the beautiful Holm Oaks that line the main avenues and perimeters of the park. They however remained childless and the estate was passed onto Bishop Plunkett who eventually sold most of the estates parkland to Dublin Corporation.

The Physic Garden is located in the heart of the park in the old walled garden of the estate. The garden is adjacent to a herbaceous border; Chinese Suzhou garden and the park’s miniature rose garden and overlooked by the original estate clock tower.