A Martello tower was built for defence, and in 1808 a pair of magazines were erected on nearby Rocky Island with capacity for 25,000 barrels of gunpowder.

To the south were a mast and boat store, at the top of a slipway, and to the west, along the length of the wall, were cottages and houses for the workers and officers of the yard.

By the 20th century, the (now renamed) Royal Alexandra Victualling Yard area also contained a coaling/fuelling depot, as well as a naval hospital (housed in one of the Storehouses).

[6] In June 1940, an Irish Marine and Coastwatching Service Motor Torpedo Boat (MTB) returned to Haulbowline after making two trips to rescue French and British soldiers during the Dunkirk evacuation.

[9] In March 2008, one of the historic 19th century industrial storehouses on Haulbowline Island was destroyed by fire, leaving only its walls still standing.

[11] During this time, waste products from the steel making process were dumped or stored on the site, and radioactive and Chromium 6 contamination remained in the soil after the plant closed.

[19] In 2014, plans were publicised by the Department of Agriculture and the Marine which anticipated the upgrading of the island's road bridge,[20] to facilitate the clean-up of the former Irish Steel site for redevelopment as a park.

[24] While some of the clean-up and park development works were completed before the end of 2018,[25] some reports questioned the potential public health risks arising from residual contaminants on what was "one of the country's worst polluted former industrial sites".