Le Fanu was a mentor of the writer Bram Stoker author of "Dracula", who did the theatre reviews for his newspaper "The Dublin Evening Mail". A short distance from the castle site at the south-east end of Le Fanu Park is a mound which covers the ruins and churchyard of the rectory church of St Laurence. It is believed to have roots in Celtic Christianity, perhaps a minor branch of the Tallaght Maelruain or Kilnamanagh monasteries. It was connected to the Knights of St John of Jerusalem at Kilmainham in the thirteenth century. The churchyard ruins survived into the nineteen sixties. This church served Ballyfermot and the surrounding townlands into the late seventeenth century. Among the local people buried here are members of the Newcomen and Barnewall families. Sir Robert Newcomen who died in 1629 and his son Sir Beverley Newcomen, Admiral of Ireland, who died in 1637 while taking soundings at Waterford harbour were buried here. His mother Elizabeth (Barnewall of Drimnagh Castle) who died in 1643 is buried as is his widow Margaret (Usher of Donnybrook Castle). She subsequently married Sir Hubert Adrian-Verveer. The Newcomens, Barons of Newcastle Lyons were influential in Irish governance, military and legal circles. They resided at Ballyfermot Castle. This noble family intermarried with the Barnwalls of Drimnagh, the Plunketts of Malahide and the St Lawrences of Howth. MPs for the Westmeath constituency of Kilbeggan, they also married into the Fitzgeralds of Maynooth, and the Nugents, Husseys, Tuites and Nagles of East and West Meath. Area manor houses of note include Johnstown House (St John's College), Colepark House, Sarsfield House, Sevenoaks, Floraville, Auburn Villa and Gallanstown House. The Ballyfermot townlands were transferred from the Barony of Newcastle to the Barony of Uppercross in the late nineteenth century, under the Local Government Act of 1898. The dairy and stud farms of Ballyfermot were acquired by the authorities in the 1930s. They were developed into suburban housing estates needed to alleviate the post war housing shortage. This development, along with estates at Drimnagh, Crumlin, Walkinstown and other pockets in the south city, and Cabra, Finglas and Donnycarney along with smaller pockets in the north city provided modern accommodation to facilitate the Dublin City Council public/private housing programs.