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“THE seat of this citie is of all sides pleasant, comfortable and wholesome. If you would traverse hills, they are not far off. If champaign ground, it lieth of all parts. If you be delited with fresh water, the famous river called the Liffie, named of Ptolome Lybnium, runneth fast by.
If you will take the view of the sea, it is at hand.” STANIHURST.
TO M. J. C. AND L. McC. C.
PREFACE
A LIKE for the stranger within its gates and the lifelong resident, Dublin has an undoubted charm, compounded, perhaps, in equal measure of the genial character of its citizens, the beauty of its streets and buildings, the loveliness of its surroundings, its pleasant climate and its long and interesting history. The collection of the material for this book has been a labour of love, lightened considerably by the courteous assistance which I have received from all quarters, high and low. Since the Danes first established themselves on the Liffey in 840, Dublin has been the largest and most important town in Ireland. The coming of the Anglo-Normans in 1 169 gave it the status of a capital. Since then the city has pursued a career of progress, gradually losing its character of a mere colony in a hostile country, and becoming accepted as the centre of the national life. Its authentic records go back for twelve centuries, and every period has bequeathed some visible memorial of the past. The topography of Dublin is easy to understand. The river, running east and west, bisects the city. There are two lines of main thoroughfare, Grafton, Westmoreland and Sackville Streets going north and south, Thomas, High, Lord Edward and Dame Streets, going east and west. These intersect at College Green, which is, to all intents and purposes, the centre of the town, and has been taken as the starting-point of most of the excursions
in Part II. vii
[Preface]
Visitors, however, will do well to make use of the cheap and speedy electric trams, which penetrate to every corner of Dublin. Most of these start from Nelson’s Pillar and pass through, or close to, College Green. Again there is the national conveyance, the traditional sidecar, now become quite a luxurious affair with pneumatic tyres and other modern devices. As the size of this book does not admit of footnotes, I may here acknowledge my indebtedness to the various authors from whom I have drawn the facts embodied in the work. Like everyone who enters this field, I am under a great debt to the researches of Sir John Gilbert, to whose “Viceroys of Ireland “and “History of Dublin “there are many references, especially in Part I. Chaps. III. -VI. and Part II. Sects. IV. and VII.-XII. The remainder of Part I. is based on Todd’s “Gaedhil and Gaill,” Haliday’s “Scandinavian Kingdom of Dublin,” Giraldus Cambrensis’ “Expugnatio Hibernica,” Leland’s and Joyce’s Histories of Ireland and Lecky’s “Ireland in the 1 8th Century.” For Part II., I have had recourse to works on Christ Church Cathedral by Mr Butler, S. Patrick’s by Dean Bernard, Trinity College by Profs. Macneile Dixon and Stubbs, Dublin Castle by “F. E. R.” and Mr O’Connor Morris, Royal Hospital by Lieutenant Grimbly, also to Mr Litton Falkiner’s “Illustrations of Irish History,” Mr Harrison’s “Memorable Dublin Houses,” the fine county histories of Messrs D’ Alton and Ball, and the series of “Ancient Records of Dublin” published by the Corporation. My colleagues of the Public Record Office have also assisted me with information on several points. A good deal, however, of the matter is the result of my own personal research and may, therefore, be new to
the wide public interested in Dublin history, viii
[Preface]
My sincercst thanks are likewise due to the following public bodies, institutions, firms and private individuals, who courteously permitted me to view ancient relics and records in their charge : The Lord Mayor and Corporation, the Deans of Christ Church and S. Patrick’s, the National Education Commissioners, Registrar-General, Chief Commissioner of Police, Mr Lanigan-O’KeefFe of Delville, S. Patrick’s, Mercer’s, Rotunda and Steevens’ Hospitals, The Royal Irish Academy, Bluecoat School, Christian Brothers (Marino), Yorkshire Assurance Company, Messrs Alexander and Ferrier, Pollock & Co. The reproductions of pictures and of a page from the Book of Kells have been prepared from photographs taken by Mr W. Lawrence, Upper Sackville Street, with the kind permission of the authorities of the Irish National Gallery and Trinity College, Dublin. Finally I must express my deep obligation to the officials of the National Library for the kind and unfailing help which they have
rendered me on so many occasions. D. A. C.
ix
CONTENTS PART I. THE STORY CHAPTER I: The Viking Stronghold, 150-1169 A.D ...... 1. CHAPTER II: The Coming of the Normans, 1169-1176 ...... 13. CHAPTER III: From Strongbow’s Death to the Scottish Invasion, 1176-1316 ...... 21. CHAPTER IV: The Decline of English Power, 1318-1399 ...... 32. CHAPTER V: The Wars of the Roses, 1399-1485 ...... 41. CHAPTER VI: The Fall of the Geraldines, 1485-1558 ...... 47. CHAPTER VII: The Last Struggle of the Irish Clans, 1558-1603 ...... 59. CHAPTER VIII: A Triangular Duel Royalist, Roundhead and Catholic, 1603-1660 ...... 70. [xi] CHAPTER X: Protestant Ascendancy and Commercial Restriction, 1702-1760 ...... 95. CHAPTER XI: The Volunteers and the United Irishmen, 1760-1803 ...... 106. CHAPTER XII: Gradual Progress and Conciliation, 1803-1906 ...... 118. CHAPTER IX: PAGE Williamite and Jacobite, 1660-1702 ...... 82. PART II. THE CITY. SECTION I: Christ Church Cathedral ...... 128. SECTION II: The Castle ......142. SECTION III: Trinity College ...... 154. SECTION IV: The Old Parliament House ...... 167. SECTION V: S. Patrick’s Cathedral ...... 179. [xii] SECTION VI: The Royal Hospital, Kilmainham ....... 193. SECTION VIII: From the City Hall to Christ Church Place ....... 211 SECTION IX: Christ Church Place to Kilmainham ...... 222. SECTION X: Grafton Street, Dawson Street, and Stephen’s Green ...... 233. SECTION XI: Nassau Street, Kildare Street, The Museum, National Gallery, and Merrion Square ...... 244. SECTION XII: The Liberties South Great George’s, Aungier, Kevin Streets and the Coombe ...... 256. SECTION XIII: The Southern Quays O’Connell Bridge to Kingsbridge ...... 264. SECTION XIV: The Northern Quays 0’Connell Bridge to Parkgate Street ...... 275. [xiii] SECTION XV: The North City Sackville, Henry, Marlborough, Dominick and Henrietta Streets ....... 286. SECTION XVI: The Port of Dublin O’Connell Bridge to Ringsend and Sandymount ........ 296. SECTION XVII: The Phanix Park ....... 310. SECTION XVIII: The Northern Suburbs Cabra, Drumcondra, Glasnevin, North Strand ...... 318. SECTION XIX: The Southern Suburbs Kilmainham, Clondalkin, Rathmines, Rathfarnham, Ranelagh, and Donnybrook ...... 327. SECTION XX: The North Shore of the Bay, Clontarf, The North Bull, Sutton, Howth........ 336. SECTION XXI: The South Shore of the Bay, Blackrock, Monkstown, Kingstown, Dalkey, Killiney ...... 348. GENERAL INDEX ...... 357. ILLUSTRATIONS: S. Patrick’s The Interior...... Frontispiece Early Irish Metal Work Cross of Cong .... Crypt of Christ Church Cathedral ...... Marriage of Strongbow and Eva (Maclise} facing 165. Patrick’s Cathedral ...... 25 Old City Gate, S. Audoen’s Arch ...... 375. Patrick’s Cathedral, View across Nave to South Transept ...... 51 Old City Wall and South Front of Castle ...... 63 Boyle Monument in S. Patrick’s Cathedral ...... 75 The Royal Hospital ...... 84 The Volunteers at College Green (IVheatley} facing 108. Sackville Street and 0’Connell Monument ...... 119. Christ Church Cathedral ........ 129. Christ Church Cathedral, Screen, Pulpit, and South Transept ...... 132. Christ Church Cathedral Interior ....... 134 Strongbow’s Tomb ...... 137 The Record Tower and Chape! Royal ...... 149. Trinity College ...... 159. Trinity College Library ....... 164. Monogram Page, Book of Kells .... facing 164. Bank of Ireland (Old Parliament House), with Statue of Grattan ...... 175. S. Patrick’s, from the Close ...... 180. S. Patrick’s the Interior...... 185. Dean Swift ...... 191. Royal Hospital the Hall ...... 197. King William’s Statue ...... 2O2. Carved Wooden Pulpit, S. Werburgh’s Church ...... 215. S. Audoens Church Ruined Aisle ...... 225. Powerscourt House ...... 235. S. Stephen’s Green (Malton] .... facing 238. Cross of Muredach, Monasttrboice ...... 248. Peep o’ Day Boy’s Cabin, West of Ireland (Wilkie) ...... facing 254. Chaffer Place Showing a Corner of S. Patrick’s ...... 259. Weaver Square ...... 262. View of the Law-Courts, looking up the Liffey (Malton) ..... facing 26. Steevens’ Hospital ...... 273. S. Michan’s Church ...... 281. The Venus Library, Charlemont House, Ceiling and Part of Dome ...... 293. Leinster Market ...... 299. The Custom House ...... 303. Phoenix Monument ...... 313. The Strawberry Beds ...... 315. Addison’s Walk, Glasnevin ...... 323. Clondalkin Round Tower...... 329 Ruined Abbey and Harbour, Howth ...... 345. Bullock Castle ...... 351. Map of Environs ....... facing Plan of City ...... 356
[The Story of Dublin] PART I: THE STORY
CHAPTER I The Viking Stronghold 150-1169 A.D.
“Thirty men they each commanded,
Iron-sinewed, horny-handed,
Shoulders broad, and chests expanded,
Tugging at the oar.” Longfellow.
THE name of the capital of Ireland is as appropriate now as when it was first bestowed some two thousand years ago. It is a compound of two Gaelic words (Dubh-linn) which signify “the black pool.” The waters of the Liffey were then, and are still, tinged a deep brown by a subterranean peat bog, which underlies the foundations of the city and forms the bed of the river. The volume of the stream is here increased by the Dodder, Tolka and some other tributaries, so that it becomes wide and
deep enough to
The Story of Dublin accommodate sea-going vessels. This harbour was the “black pool,” which the ancient Irish saw and named. However, the settlement had another designation and another claim to notice. It was the lowest practicable ford on the Liffey. Here the coast road from Wicklow to Tara, in Meath, the then capital of Ireland, passed over the river on its way northward. Some unknown benefactor had paved the swampy crossing with wicker hurdles, and the village was accordingly caHed Baile-Ath-Cliath (pronounced Ballaclee), “the town of the hurdle ford.” Irish annalists prefer the latter title, but the Danes and their successors the English, fearing no doubt, the myriad pitfalls of Irish pronunciation, always employed the shorter and more convenient form. The first appearance of Dublin in history is about the year 150 A.D. A warlike Irish king, picturesquely styled “Conn of the Hundred Battles,” who had long been the acknowledged overlord of all the numerous petty monarchs of the country, was defeated by his rival, Mogh of Munster, and obliged to consent to a division of his dominions. The line of demarcation was drawn across the country from High Street, Dublin, to the Atlantic Ocean at Galway. Mogh is said to have been dissatisfied because his portion did not include the harbour of Dublin, which must, therefore, already have been a place of considerable commerce. A dispute arose over this point, and the interminable tribal wars broke out afresh. Three centuries later a legend connects the ford over the Liffey with the apostolic wanderings of S. Patrick. As he was making his way to his home in Armagh from a missionary journey in Wicklow, he rested a
night at Dublin before resuming his travels. 2
The Viking Stronghold His hosts complained to him of the bad quality of the marsh water they were obliged to drink, whereupon the saint caused a miraculous fountain to spring up at their doors. The conversion of the heathen followed, and the place became the site of a church dedicated to S. Patrick, which in later years developed into a great cathedral. A stone marked with an ancient Celtic cross was recently dug up near the steeple of S. Patrick’s, and is thought to have marked the site of the holy well. It has been set up within the walls of the church as close as possible to the place of its discovery. The references to Dublin in Irish annals are, however, very few and far between until the coming of the Danes at the beginning of the ninth century. These marauders had a keen eye for a good harbour and a defensible position. Not only at Dublin, but at Wexford, Cork, Waterford, and Limerick, they founded towns, whose natural advantages have secured / their prosperity to this very day. Their first appear/ ance was in 795. It was the beginning of a series’ of I tefrible raids. ivery year the foreigners landed from v their long ships and sacked some chieftain’s fortress, or, still more to their taste, a great monastery enriched by the offerings of the faithful and protected only by a religious sanctity, which entirely failed to impress the pagan from the sea. In 836 fleets sailed up the Liffey and the Boyne, plundering the rich pastures of Kildare and Meath. This expedition led to a permanent settlement at Dublin. The situation was very advantageous to the Danes. Their fortified posts in the Hebrides and on both sides of the Irish Sea and S. George’s Channel formed a sort of maritime empire reaching from the Orkneys to the south of Ireland. The site of their new colony was at the very centre of their scattered dominions. It would 3
[The Story of Dublin]
serve as a headquarters and port of call for ships making the great western cruise through the narrow waters that lie between Great Britain and Ireland. Furthermore it was conveniently situated for
raids into the interior, the greater part of which lay within easy striking distance.
castle was Turgesius or Thorkils, a remarKable man, whose aims were far in advance of those of his plundering companions. He designed to conquer all Ireland, and set about the task most strategically. Three fleets, one on Lough Neagh, another on the upper Shannon, and another in Carlingford Lough, co-operated under the direction of Thorkils, who established himself at the sacred city of Armagh, where his wife delivered heathen oracles on the very ground consecrated by S. Patrick. Success was within the reach of the pagan leader when a turn came. According to the legend Thorkils cherished a passion for an Irish maiden. At his entreaty she consented to a secret meeting on an island in Lough Owel, to which each party should bring some companions of his or her own sex and age. The Viking came, according to promise, with a few unarmed followers. But the lady’s handmaids were armed young men of her clan, disguised as women. When the Danes grew warm in their love-making, the Irishmen tore off their disguises and stabbed their enemies with the daggers they had concealed. Thorkils was taken alive and hurried before his beloved’s father, Malachi, King of Meath, who promptly had him drowned in the lake. Despite the death of its founder, Dublin maintained its position and its hold over the adjacent country; the sea still, in the phrase of the
annalists, “vomited floods of foreigners into Erin.” At length dissensions
[The Viking Stronghold]
among her enemies gave Ireland relief. Although all the Norsemen are usually classed together under the generic name of “Danyfes,” they were of two distinct races, the Danes proper from Denmark, whom the Irish called Dubh-Gaill (dark strangers), and the Norwegians or Finn-Gaill (fair strangers). The two nationalities quarrelled, probably over the division of the spoil. Malachi of Meath, fresh from disposing of Thorkils, headed a rally of the natives, which drove both branches of the foreigners out of Dublin. But the worst feature of these tribal efforts was their short duration. The Irish armies went home or melted slowly away. The Danes came back and, under the leadership of a great warrior, whom both parties were glad to accept, fixed themselves firmly in their old possession. Olaf the White, the new Danish chief, was perhaps a greater scourge than any of his predecessors. No place within seventy
miles of his
EARLY IRISH METAL WORK. CROSS OF CONG.
[The Story of Dublin] capital was safe from his attacks. His power extended far beyond the limits of Ireland. He sailed off to aid Hinguar and Hubba in their campaigns in Northumbria, and returned laden with booty. After his death, which occurred about the year 870, the settlement again fell into difficulties. , Fof-luilji ycais, from 875 to 915, the historians record “rest from the Danes,” meaning that their wild and continuous raids over the land ceased for a space, and they were compelled to act on the defensive. The explanation is, no doubt, that scenting war and plunder from afar, all the “stormy petrels” of the nation were away in England fighting Alfred the Great. During the “forty years rest” Dublin was tuice taken and retaken. At its second siege the Danes, driven from the city, held on doggedly for a while to the little island of Ireland’s Eye just outside the bay. Thence they fled to Anglesey, where they tried to establish themselves, but were expelled by the sword. Finally, broken with the wars, they en’roated Ethelflaed, Alfred’s Amazonian daughter, governor of Mercia, to permit them to settle in England. There, after much wandering, they had rest. The settlement of vast numbers of Northmen in Normandy and East Anglia caused a recurrence of trouble in Ireland. The more restless spirits scorned to become good Christians and peaceable subjects of Saxon or Frank. Another great fleet and army came to Ireland in 919, and recovered Dublin from the Irish after a brief campaign, during which the invaders won the greatest triumph they had yet achieved. At Kilmashogue, a peak of the mountains some six miles from the city, they defeated and slew Niall GlundufF, the arch-king or overlord of all Ireland. The dismal history began all over again. The ancient
annalists rise to an unusual pitch of eloquence in describing this 6
The Viking Stronghold “distressful” period. “Many were the captives carried over the broad, green seas, and many and frequent were the bright and brilliant eyes that were suffused with tears and dimmed with grief and despair at the separation of son from father, daughter from mother, brother from brother, and clansman from tribe.” However, the power of the Danes was soon to receive as deadly a blow in Ireland as it had done elsewhere. Christianity began to exert its influence in humanising and civilising their pagan fierceness. The stream of warriors, which the North had so long poured from her “frozen loins,” showed signs of exhaustion. In the absence of reinforcements the colonies in Ireland were soon hard pressed. The Norsemen of Dublin, under their king Olaf, formed a part of the great coalition that was shattered at Brunanburgh in Northumbria in the year 937. The defeat left them almost powerless for harm, especially since Ireland had at last produced leaders capable of organising the native forces for victory. These were the celebrated Malachi II., King of Ireland, and his more famous successor, Brian Boru. In 980 Malachi won a victory at Tara, levied a tribute of 2000 oxen on the vanquished Danes, and liberated the Irish hostages in their possession. In 996 he plundered Dublin, and carried off two relics much reverenced by the Danes the tore or collar of Tomar, slain in 848, and sometimes identified with Thorkils; and the sword of Karl, son of Olaf the White, who fell in defending his father’s residence at Ciondalkin in 869. The incident furnishes a theme for one of Moore’s lyrics : “Let Erin remember the days of old Ere her faithless sons betrayed her, When
Malachi wore the collar of gold That he won from the proud invader.”
[The Story of Dublin] In the meantime Brian Boru, King of the Dalcassians of Co. Clare, had gained great prestige by driving the Norsemen of Munster out of their stronghold at Limerick. His ambition aimed at attaining the sovereignty of all Ireland. Malachi, the possessor of the title, was compelled to concede the southern half of his dominions to his rival. Mailmora, sub-king of Leinster, did not appreciate the new arrangement, which brought him under the strong hand of Brian. In concert with the Dublin Danes he rebelled, only to meet with a complete defeat at Glenmama, near Dunlavin, in Wicklow. After the battle Mailmora, who had hidden in a yew tree, was captured by the victor, but was kindly treated and taken into favour. Dublin was again plundered, and its king forced to enter into matrimonial alliances with Brian. The Dane’s mother married the Irish king, who in turn bestowed his daughter on the foreigner. The star of Malachi was waning, as that of his rival rose. In IOO2, without the semblance of a struggle, the overlord and vassal exchanged their relative positions. Brian had soon to justify his elevation. Mailmora of Leinster and Sitric of Dublin were again in revolt. The affair rose out of an angry taunt of Brian’s son Murrough. He had been playing chess, when Mailmora, who was looking on, advised a certain move, which in the end proved disastrous. “That,” said Murrough in chagrin at losing the game, “was like the advice you gave the Danes which lost them Glenmama.” “I will give them advice now,” returned the other, “and they shall not be again defeated.” “Then you had better remind them to provide a yew tree for your reception,” was the reply. Mailmora flung out of the palace in bitter wrath, and mounting immediately, returned to his kingdom. Brian sent a messenger to bring
him back, but Mail8
The Viking Stronghold mora’s only answer was to crack the skull of the unfortunate emissary with a blow of his mace. On his arrival in Leinster he began to organise a great confederacy of Danes and Irish. Sitric summoned all his fellow-countrymen within the four seas of Britain. From the Orkneys and the Isle of Man they came, a motley, but formidable host. The most notable person in their ranks was the heathen sorcerer Brodar, tall and strong, wearing a magic coat on which no steel would bite, and with black, snaky locks so long that in the fight they were tucked into his belt. He fought with the fury of the renegade, for he had formerly been a Christian. Two thousand mail-clad mercenaries attended this warrior alone. Brian encamped at Kilmainham, and set out to provoke the Dubliners to a fight by wasting the entire district of Fingal to the north of the city. Here were many Norse settlements, and indeed the district received its name from the Finn-Gail], the “fair strangers “or Norwegians, who contended with the Dubh-Gaill in the early days of the colony. On Good Friday, 1014, the famous battle of Clontarf took place. The Irish marched round from Kilmainham towards Drumcondra. They found the enemy drawn up on the northern bank of the LifFey, their line extending from the bridge they had built near the Castle to the mouth of the Tolka at Clontarf. It was a day of single combats fought to the death. Murrough of the sharp tongue, after prodigies of valour, was slain by the last dying effort of a Norseman, whom he had overthrown. Another son of Brian’s, a boy of fifteen, was found drowned at the fishing weir of the Tolka, near the modern Ballybough Bridge, his hands still clutching the corpse of a foeman. The Claremen plied their battle-axes so well that to Brian, whose age rendered him a mere spectator, it 9
[The Story of Dublin] seemed as if a great band of men were felling the trees of “Tomar’s Wood.” Towards evening the foreigners broke and fled, either to the city or to gain their ships in the bay. Brodar, the sorcerer, with a small band of followers, in the general confusion happened somehow upon the tent, where the old King was still praying for victory. Seeing but a man on his knees, he turned away with a contemptuous cry
of “priest, priest,” but
CRYPT OF CHRIST CUURCH CATHEDRAL. a companion corrected his error by shouting “king, king.” Brian rose hastily and seized his sword, with one sweep of which he severed both the legs of the Dane. At the same moment the two-handed battle-axe of Brodar descended with deadly force on the King’s head. Each had perished by the other’s hand. With the bloody day of Clontarf, the “Danish terror “passed away from Ireland. They were not, indeed, expelled from the country, as so many people still believe, but their power was broken for ever. Dublin was so weak that it gravitated into the
hands 10
The Viking Stronghold
of whichever Irish king gained a temporary supremacy. The ruler of Leinster was most often able to enforce his authority in the town, and a number of the native Celts came and settled in the neighbourhood. Irishtown, near Sandymount, may owe its name to some such immigration. This was really a wholesome chastening for the plundering Norsemen. After their great defeat the germs of civilisation and progress begin to sprout in a long barren soil. Clontarf was the last struggle of heathenism. Within a short space of time the Danes of Dublin were converted. Penned as they now were within the walls of their city, they set to work, with all the ardour of proselytes, to found religious establishments in their midst as a memorial of their piety. In 1038 King Sitric and Bishop Donat set up “The Church of the Blessed Trinity,” which developed into Christ Church Cathedral as it stands to-day. There is a tradition, not borne out by architectural evidence, that the present crypt represents the erection of 1038. The parish churches of Dublin began to spring up. The strange old tower and vaults of S. Michan’s, with their weird associations, bear the name of a Danish saint, and have been assigned to the year 1095. The great Cistercian monastery of S. Mary’s Abbey takes its rise somewhere during this period. In 1152 the see was raised to the level of an archbishopric by a decree of the papal legate published at the Synod of Kells. The den of thieves on the Liffey was in a fair way to become an orderly and devout Christian city. The great advances made by Dublin during this period were so remarkable that, at the time of the landing of Henry II., it stood out as unquestionably the leading city of Ireland and became the seat of English government. Its only possible rival was the kindred Danish city of Waterford,
which, though very II
[The Story of Dublin] convenient as a port of entry from South Wales, was not sufficiently central for the purpose of administration. At the time of the invasion the citizens of Dublin were gradually merging their distinctive nationality in that of the Irish all around them. Their bishop was, if one may judge by his name, not of Norse origin. He bore the characteristically Irish cognomen of Lawrence O’Toole. Even their kings were beginning to use the Celtic patronymic “Mac” with their Danish Christian names. We hear of Hasculf MacThorkil, not Hasculf Thorkilson. But the process of assimilation was rudely arrested by the unending wars and massacres which the reckless tyranny and violence of Dermot MacMurrough, King of Leinstcr, brought
upon his hapless country.
12
CHAPTER II The Coming of the Normans 1169-1176 “For why? because the good old rule Sufficeth them, the simple plan, That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can.” Words-worth . HTHE restless enterprise of the Normans would, doubtless, have brought them across S. George’s Channel sooner or later, even had they not been invited by Dermot MacMurrough. Ireland, like the sister countries, was probably destined to come under the same authority as England. Yet it is a great pity that the conquest came about in the way it did. The coming of the English was associated with the barbarous vengefulness of a thoroughly bad man, and the hungry avarice of a pack of needy adventurers. The evil tree did not bring forth good fruit. Dermot, on whom rests the primary responsibility for the loss of his country’s freedom and the subsequent centuries of bloodshed, was a mere compact of vices. One redeeming virtue he had he was a good soldier. But he was cruel with a savage fury, which impressed men even in that callous age. An English chronicler relates with horror how MacMurrough, recognising the features of a personal enemy amid the pile of heads laid before him after a battle, snatched up the poor, mutilated fragment of humanity, and tore it with his teeth in hideous
frenzy. His passions were 13
[The Story of Dublin] strong and evil. He abducted the wife of Ternan O’Rourke, King of Breffhy (Co. Leitrim), and only released his prey when the angry husband marched an army into Dermot’s dominions. His violence and tyranny gave rise to a great coalition against him, which included O’Rourke, the Dublin Danes, under their king, Hasculf MacThorkil, and even his own patient subjects of Leinster. No one stirred a finger on behalf of the wicked prince. Dermot was banished, and fled to the court of Henry II., with the design of obtaining assistance there, and returning, so aided, to wreak a fearful vengeance. The English monarch, however, declined to assist Dermot for his own part, while he gave permission for any of his vassals to do so if they chose. A number of the barons of South Wales, finding but a poor subsistence in their rugged mountains, gladly embraced the opportunity of winning for themselves rich estates in a new country. The chief of these was Richard De Clare, Earl of Pembroke, known as Strongbow, a nobleman of good family but broken fortune. To him was given the leadership of the expedition, with the promise of the hand of Dermot’s daughter, Eva, and the succession to the kingdom. In May 1169 a force of 2000 Anglo-Normans, or Cambro-Normans, as they might perhaps better be called, under Fitzstephen and Prendergast, established themselves in Wexford after a sharp struggle. The King of Connaught, Roderick O’Connor, who was the acknowledged suzerain of all Ireland at the time, immediately marched against them. At this moment the invaders might easily have been crushed, but Roderick treated when he should have fought. Eventually he was weak enough to restore Dermot to his kingdom and annul the sentence of banishment, on condition of the expulsion of the foreigners. As soon 14
The Coming of the Normans as the arch-king had marched away, reinforcements arrived from Wales, so that Dermot soon felt himself strong enough to break his promises and march on Dublin. He was specially inflamed against the citizens, for they had killed both his son and his father, adding insult to injury in the latter case by burying a dead dog in the same grave. Dermot and his allies carried fire and sword up to the very walls of the city, until the burghers were terrified into submission. In the following summer Strongbow himself arrived with an army of 3000 men, and at once won a signal success by the capture of Waterford. His wedding with Eva was solemnised in the breach amid the corpses of the slain. Close on the ceremony came the tidings that Dublin was in revolt. The Danes were determined to hazard a battle for their independence. Dermot and his new son-in-law marched on the capital through the Wicklow mountains and by the dark, lonely valley of Glendalough, a route almost impassable for the heavy Norman men-at-arms, had it not been for the skilful guidance of the King of Leinster. Their appearance in this quarter surprised the citizens, who, thinking the mountain road impracticable, had expected them to come by the plains of Carlow and Kildare. Archbishop Lawrence O’Toole was hastily sent out to ask a truce, while terms of surrender should be arranged. The request was granted, but, either through treachery or impatience, two Norman knights, Raymond Fitzgerald, called “le Gros’, and Miles de Cogan, began a fierce assault, in which the city was carried by storm. Hasculf sailed away to the Northern Isles (the Scotch Hebrides) to obtain assistance to recover his kingdom. Strongbow and his followers now felt secure in the saddle,
especially as their ally, Dermot, who might 5
[The Story of Dublin] have been troublesome eventually, died in 1171. According to the Four Masters, his death was like that of Herod, for his flesh putrefied while he was still living. Such was the end of the man, who in their striking phrase, had made “a trembling sod” of all Ireland. There was, however, much trouble in store for Strongbow, who had now taken the title of King of Leinster. Dublin was destined to undergo three sieges by land and water in that year. Henry II. did not like the notion of his late vassal setting up an independent kingdom, and determined to hinder the development of any such ambitious scheme. He forbade any further dispatch of provisions or men to Ireland, at the same time ordering the adventurers already there to return before Easter, under pain of exile and confiscation. As soon as the sea was open for navigation, the defeated Hasculf returned with a great fleet and army of Norsemen and laid siege to Dublin. The Irish of the city and suburbs also mustered under a chief called “MacGilleMocholmog,” but were induced by Miles de Cogan to remain neutral spectators of the coming battle, with full liberty to fall on the defeated side, whichever it might be. They took their post on the rising ground where S. Andrew’s Church now stands. Rarely in their history have Irishmen been content to play this part amid the clash of arms. Probably only a fear for the lives of their hostages in De Cogan’s hands restrained them from participation on the Danish side. The besiegers were led by a great Berserker of a Dane called “John the Mad.” He is said to have been capable of severing a mail-clad thigh with a single blow of his battle-axe, so that the leg fell on one side of the horse and the dying man on the other. Headed by this paladin, who
slew that day nearly a 16
‘The Coming of the Normans score of Normans with his own hand, the Danish attack was almost irresistible. The city was saved by the exertions of Miles de Cogan, who, like Raymond le Gros, often outshone his chief. A desperate charge of the defenders from the eastern gate (near the present entrance of the Lower Castle Yard) was repulsed, and the madman’s deadly axe was doing fearful execution, when Miles sent a small party under his brother Richard to slip out by the southern portal in Werburgh Street and fall on the rear of the assailants, now all but successful. By this unexpected movement the Danes were thrown into a confusion, which became a rout. John the Mad was slain, Hasculf was captured and brought before the Norman leaders. Somewhat imprudently, he fell to threats and boastings. “With little power we came now,” said he, “and this was but assay of our might, but if I live, ere it be long, there shall come far more than these.” Whereon his captors, not unnaturally, “made siccar “by ordering his execution. So passed away the Danish rule in Dublin after an existence of three hundred years. It has left few memorials of its presence. Some churches are, on rather dubious authority, ascribed to the Norsemen. But during the greater part of their occupation the Danes were destroyers, not builders. A place-name like Howth or Dalkey, a surname like Broderick or McAuliffe, an occasional flaxen head among the dark-haired crowds of Dublin, these are practically all the traces of their long stay which remain, unless we include the round towers which the Irish built for an outlook and a refuge from the plundering heathen. Dublin was soon again besieged. The native chiefs were now thoroughly alarmed, and were glad to join a great confederation organised by Archbishop Lawrence O’Toole against the
invaders. Arch-king Roderick B 17
[The Story of Dublin] of Connaught was their general; his army of 30,000 men represented every clan in Ireland from the O’Rourkes of Leitrim to the Archbishop’s kinsmen, the O’Tooles of Wicklow. True to his somewhat faineant character, Roderick preferred a blockade to an assault. The garrison was soon starving, for in addition to Henry’s embargo their supplies were completely cut off by a Danish fleet in alliance with the Irish. Strongbow offered to surrender on terms of holding Leinster as a fief from Roderick, but his proposal was rejected. Negotiations were accordingly broken off, and under the influence of his hard-fighting subordinates, Raymond and Miles, the Norman commander resolved on a bolder course. With the scanty remnant of his followers, some six hundred war-worn men, he determined to sally forth, sword in hand, to cut his way through the ranks of the foe. At three o’clock on a sultry afternoon he made his attempt. Two months’ inactivity had demoralised the Irish forces, and the little band, to its own surprise, completely routed Roderick’s huge army. The Irish king was in his bath at the time, and escaped with difficulty in a half-naked condition. The garrison returned triumphant, amply furnished with supplies by the plunder of the Irish camp. Strongbow, thinking the posture of affairs permitted his absence, hastened into England to make his peace with King Henry. He found that ruler busy with preparations for a great expedition to Ireland, which should assert the royal supremacy there over both native chief and Anglo-Norman adventurer. During the great earl’s absence Dublin was again besieged, this time by Ternan O’Rourke, the husband whom Dermot MacMurrough had wronged. He, too, was easily defeated by the
indefatigable Miles de Cogan. 18
The Coming nf the Normans On the i8th October 1171, King Henry II. landed at Waterford with a force which overawed all opposition. Almost all the Irish princes came in to make submission, and were entertained sumptuously by the King at a wickerwork palace built outside the walls of Dublin, near that eastern gate where John the Mad was killed. The Irish bishops, including Lawrence O’Toole, met in synod at Cashel and acknowledged King Henry. Arrangements were made for the government of the new conquest. Strongbow was given the province of Leinster, from which, significantly enough, the capital was excluded. Dublin was granted as a colony to the citizens of Bristol. Hugh de Lacy was appointed its first governor. Henry was throughout very mistrustful of Strongbow’s aims, and seems to have intended this De Lacy, who is generally considered the first of the long line of Irish viceroys, as a watch and a check on the powerful earl. The troubles with the Papacy consequent on the murder of Becket called the King back to England before the work of settlement in Ireland was completed. He had intended to bridle the country in the usual Norman style with castles, to conquer the north and west, as yet untrodden by an English foot, and to restrain his barons from the feudal anarchy to which they were so prone. Henry left Ireland in April, 1172. A year later Strongbow succeeded De Lacy as viceroy. Ireland soon fell into a state of utter confusion. Native princes rebelled, Norman barons ravaged the country, the new governor was defeated and besieged in Waterford, whence he was barely rescued by his lieutenant, Raymond le Gros, who demanded as his reward the hand of Strongbow’s sister, Basilea. Only within the fortified town of Dublin was there
any peace. Here the troubled 9
[The Story of Dublin] years, which followed the invasion, were marked by some important religious foundations. Wherever they went, the Normans delighted to build great churches and endow religious establishments. Strongbow determined to be the founder of a cathedral fit for the metropolis of Ireland. Archbishop Lawrence O’Toole, now reconciled to English rule, gladly fell in with the idea, and in 1172 Strongbow, Raymond le Gros, his brother-in-law, and Robert Fitzstephen, celebrated as the first Norman to land in Ireland, undertook to erect a splendid new structure on the site of Sitric’s church. The older edifice was most probably swept away to make room for the new, which took at least fifty years to build. The present nave, transepts and crypt of Christ Church Cathedral were constructed by Strongbow and his immediate successors. At the same time an order of military monks was installed in Kilmainham, where a magnificent priory sprang up on a beautiful site looking westward up the tranquil water-meadows of the upper LifFey. In 1176 Strongbow died of a malignant ulcer in his foot, which his enemies ascribed to the miracles of the Irish saints, whose shrines he had violated. Archbishop Lawrence O’Toole died about the same time while returning from a pilgrimage to Rome. With the disappearance of the two leaders in Church and State a long
period of feudal anarchy settled down upon Ireland.
20
CHAPTER III From Strongboixfs Death to the Scottish Invasion i 176-1316 “They quitted not their armour bright, Neither by day, nor yet by night; They lay down to rest With corslet laced, Pillowed on buckler cold and hard; They carved at the meal With gloves of steel And they drank the red wine through the helmet barred.” Scott. AFTER the famous year of the three sieges, Dublin enjoyed comparative peace for more than a century. The men of Bristol flocked over to settle on the Liffey and relegated the original Danish inhabitants to the north bank of the river where they formed the <>uburb of Ostmantown (town of the Eastmen or Danes), now called Oxmantown. The increased intercourse with England brought great prosperity to the Irish ports, although the country, as a whole, suffered considerably from the internecine wars of her late invaders. The death of Strongbow began a squalid scramble among his followers. With all his faults the great earl had won the respect of his subordinates and maintained order with a strong hand. Basilea, his sister, concealed the
fact of his death until she could summon her husband, Raymond le Gros, to 21
[The Story of Dublin] Dublin. As a letter might go astray, she dared not convey her news in plain language. So she merely sent him word that “the great jaw tooth, which used to trouble her so much, had fallen out,” adding an entreaty to come quickly. Raymond read and understood. His share of the spoil went to endow the Geraldine or Fitzgerald family, which still bears the surname of the doughty Norman. One of his fellow barons, De Courcy, set off to carve out for himself an independent kingdom in Ulster. Another, De Lacy, made himself ruler of North Leinster from Kildare to the Shannon, and even married the daughter of the Irish King, Roderick of Connaught. Then the two became bitter rivals and the country was rent by their feuds. The distant King of England, dimly discerning that all was not well, sent over viceroy after viceroy. Some of these simply feathered their own nests during their short stay; others became partisans of one faction or the other and made confusion worse confounded. In 1185 Henry sent across his son, Prince John, afterwards king, hoping that the presence of one of the royal family would still the contending parties. But John was a foolish and petulant boy, whose retinue contained no wiser head than his own. He spent his days and nights in debauchery, while the clean-shaven dandies of his court insulted the proud Irish chiefs by plucking their beards as they came in to make their submission to the son of the great Henry. The native leaders returned to their homes deeply incensed, and a fierce rebellion burst forth immediately. The settlers were everywhere driven into the towns for refuge. John’s army was frittered away to no purpose, and the English authority received its first sharp shock. Dublin Castle
probably owes its existence to the 22
Scottish Invasion misbehaviour of Prince John. It was found to be essential that the capital of the country should be strongly fortified, seeing the loose hold the new government really had over the outlying districts. The city, too, required protection against some of its troublesome neighbours. Only six miles from the southern suburbs, the mountains, where dwelt the warlike, plundering tribes of O’Byrne and O’Toole, lay extended like a long blue wall against the horizon. The burghers were plagued by frequent raids which, while not a serious danger to their town, caused nevertheless a great loss of life and property. The worst disaster which ever befell the citizens at the hands of the natives happened on Easter Monday, 1209. The colonists were holiday-making at Cullenswood, near Ranelagh, when the mountaineers swooped down on them, and drove them with great slaughter into the city. The ranks of the Dubliners were so thinned that fresh reinforcements had to be called for from Bristol. The day was long remembered as Black Monday, and the anniversary was commemorated each year by a great review of the armed forces of the city on the ecene of the defeat, when banners were displayed, and the victorious hillmen challenged to another trial of strength. It was a case of “Who dares to tread on ..he tail of my coat? “but the O’ Byrnes seldom accepted the invitation. A good soldier rarely fights at the very place and time of his enemy’s choosing. The Irish tribes preferred to give no notice of their coming. The misfortune at Cullenswood accelerated the building of Dublin Castle, for which a writ had been issued in 1204. At the same time permission was granted for the holding of an annual fair, the tolls of which were to be appropriated
for the enclosing of the city with walls. Donnybrook Fair 23
[The Story of Dublin] owes its origin to this ancient writ of King John, and it is possible that the famous practice of “trailing the coat “may have been modelled on the annual bravado of the municipal forces at Cullenswood, which is but half a mile away. The citadel of Dublin, curiously enough, was built, not by warrior barons, but by ecclesiastics. The English kings, after trying every other expedient for the good government of Ireland, had taken to sending over episcopal viceroys. The bishops of that day were often as good soldiers and statesmen as any of the feudal nobility. Besides, they had one great advantage in the king’s eyes. They could not found families. The great fear of the English monarchs was that some ambitious man might make himself independent ruler of Ireland and transmit his authority to his descendants. A unified kingdom, under strong hereditary kings, would be more difficult to conquer than was the heterogeneous, tribal Ireland of 1172. But the power of the ecclesiastical governor, no matter how much he aggrandised himself, must cease with his death. It could not be transmitted to a son. De Gray, Bishop of Norwich and Viceroy of Ireland, is believed to have commenced the castle, which his successor, Henry of London, Archbishop of Dublin, and also Viceroy, completed about the year 1220. The conjunction of the supreme authority in Church and State in the same hands led to a great prominence of the religious element in the life of the capital. Old Dublin was a small town, about half a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide. Yet in the city and its environs there were two cathedrals, nearly a dozen abbeys and about a score of churches. The total population could scarcely have exceeded ten thousand. There was certainly
no necessity for the second cathedral. 2 4
The Scottish Invasion Christ Church was sufficiently large and dignified for all the needs of the diocese. But its situation did not please the early archbishops. Lying in the heart of the city, it was subject to the authority of the viceroy, who might be a layman, and the mayor, who was always lay. Moreover, it was the home of a monastic chapter, which often ran counter to the episcopal wishes. So in 1191 Comyn, successor of S. Lawrence O’Toole in the see of Dublin, established a great church outside the walls as a counterpoise to his troublesome cathedral. The site was that of the Celtic church and well hallowed by association with S. Patrick. The old building was swept away and an edifice erected in its place far excelling Christ Church in size and splendour. As yet the new foundation was only a collegiate church, served by a number of secular priests living together. But the ecclesiastical viceroys followed the same lines as Comyn. In 1219 Henry of London made S. Patrick’s a regular cathedral, equal in every respect to Christ Church, save that it had at its head not a bishop but a dean. Ever since that day S. Patrick’s has held a higher place in the affections of Dublin people than Christ Church, though viceroy and mayor maintain their old allegiance. The triumphant archbishops issued forth from the city, built their palace of S. Sepulchre close to their new foundation, and exercised feudal jurisdiction over the surrounding districts, long known as “the archbishop’s liberty.” In the year 1210 King John visited Ireland again, and stayed some time at Dublin. Wars and excommunications had taught him prudence, so that on this occasion he succeeded in pacifying the country. The De Lacys were exiled, and the districts under English rule were divided into twelve counties, of which Dublin was one.
Some of the native chiefs came in and submitted. 27
[The Story of Dublin] The remainder of the thirteenth century in the annals of the city is mainly occupied with quarrels between the civic authorities and the archbishops. The prelates were so immersed in politics as to be often somewhat regardless of their sacred office. Statecraft, particularly during troubled times, tends to produce a harshness and lack of scruple, which are odious in any one, but especially in a head of the church. The occupants of the see of Dublin were sometimes unduly severe to their subjects and dependants. Henry of London, already referred to, was the worst offender. He once called on all his villeins or tenants to produce their title-deeds. The unsuspecting peasants did so, when, to their utter astonishment, the unscrupulous cleric cast all the documents into a fire. But he had reckoned without his host. The angry tenants, with shouts of “Thou an Archbishop ! Nay ! thou art a scorch-villein,” broke through the ring of servants, and would have mobbed the archbishop or fired the house over his head, had he not come to terms with them. So ended the first recorded agrarian riot in Ireland. In these and other similar disputes the municipality took the side of the tenants, and incurred in consequence all the thunders of the Church. The city was on one occasion laid under an interdict, which was only removed by the intercession of the reigning viceroy. In 1251 a new coinage was struck in Dublin, bearing the King’s head inside a triangle, which is believed to be a rude representation of the traditional Irish harp. In 1308 Dublin obtained its first public water supply. A three-mile conduit was constructed from the Dodder across the fields by Dolphin’s Barn and into the city, where it flowed like an ordinary brook down the main street. Citizens were permitted to
connect their houses with this stream by means of pipes, which were on 28
The Scottish Invasion no account to exceed the thickness of a goose quill. John le Decer, the then mayor or provost, as he was called, built a marble cistern in the centre of the town to store the overplus brought down by occasional floods. The watercourse was the apple of the muni‘ cipal eye for centuries. Proclamations were continually issued against its pollution by offal, or the secret diversion of its waters by unauthorised branches. On one point, however, in connection with the system, Dublin retrograded. At first the pipes laid by the Corporation to supply the side streets were of lead, but in the seventeenth century, on the plea of economy, these were replaced by wooden ones made of elm, which existed until some eighty years ago. The anarchy in Ireland increased during the long weak reign of Henry III. His son Prince Edward, afterwards Edward I., was granted the island as an appanage, but never troubled himself with his charge. Even when he came to the throne, he was too busy with Scotland and Flanders to pay any attention to Ireland. The insecurity of life and property there had, by the year 1285, increased to such an extent that the five leading towns, Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Drogheda formed a confederation in defence of their liberties. It was a counterpart of the Hanseatic league on the Continent. The delegates from each city were to meet at Kilkenny and contributions were to be made to a joint fund. Combinations such as these are sure tokens of a disturbed country and a weak central government. Edward II. succeeded his father in England and again Scotch wars occupied the royal councils to the exclusion of Irish affairs. His favourite, De Gaveston, exiled by the barons, came over as viceroy in 1 308 and helped the Dublin citizens to a victory over their enemies
the Wicklow clans. He rebuilt the fortresses 29
‘[The Story of Dublin] of Newcastle and Castle-Kevin, which had been destroyed by the Irish, and cut roads through the woods towards Glendalough. The authorities in Ireland, during the long campaigns which culminated at Bannockburn, were able to send strong contingents to the English armies in Scotland. Robert Bruce took a terrible revenge for the assistance thus given to his enemies. Soon after the great battle of 1314 emissaries from the unsubdued Irish of Ulster came to the Bruce, asking him to send his brother Edward to be king over them. The Scotch king was glad to occupy the hands of his enemies and to provide for a relation at the same time. In 1315 Edward Bruce landed at Larne and commenced to overrun the country. He met with the most complete success everywhere, except at Carrickfcrgus Castle, where the garrison held out desperately, even resorting to cannibalism, as the tale goes, rather than surrender. They are said to have devoured the bodies of the Scots, who fell in the assault. Bruce defeated in turn Richard de Burgh, Earl of Ulster, Roger Mortimer, the celebrated paramour of Edward II.’s queen, and Sir Edmund Butler, the viceroy. The whole country from one end to the other was devastated by the Scots or the armies sent against them. In 1316 Carrickfergus Castle capitulated on a promise that the lives of the defenders should be spared. Early in the next year Edward was joined by his brother King Robert, and their joint forces, numbering 20,000 men, marched on Dublin ravaging as they went. The Scottish leaders encamped at Castleknock, four miles from the city across the wooded uplands which now form the Phoenix Park. The citizens prepared for a desperate resistance. The suburbs in the direction of Thomas Street were burned so as not to provide 3
The Scottish Invasion cover for the attack. Even S. Patrick’s was not exempted; it was sacrificed to the necessities of the time. An abbey was pulled down to furnish material for building a new wall along the river front of the city. Richard de Burgh, lately defeated in the field and suspected of a secret understanding with the enemy, was arrested in S. Mary’s Abbey and confined in the Castle. The Bruces turned aside when they saw the resolute attitude of the townsmen and marched away towards Limerick. The famine which their depredations had caused now began to affect its creators. Limerick was also fully equipped for a siege and the Scots were compelled to retreat, suffering greatly from hunger and disease. It was the beginning of the end. Robert returned to Scotland. In 1318 Edward was defeated and slain at Faughart, near Dundalk. He perished at the hands of one Sir John Malpas, who essayed with more success the feat attempted by the “fierce De Boune,” of Scott’s poem at Bannockburn. Malpas rushed at Bruce and killed him in the midst of his array. His body, pierced with many wounds, was found after the battle lying on the corpse of the Scottish leader. The remains of the fallen foe were treated with shameful disrespect by the victors. The body was quartered and hung up in Dublin and other towns, while the head was preserved in salt and sent to Edward II. At the English court it was utilised, as the story goes, for a ghastly practical joke. In ignorance of his fate, some ambassadors from Scotland were demanding Ulster as a kingdom for the younger Bruce, when, to their utter dismay and horror, the head of that warrior was flung on the table before them.
CHAPTER IV The Decline of English Power 1318-1399 * “Perchance it is the chastisement of God, whereby these lands are suffered to struggle continually one with the other, so that neither is England ever wholly victorious, nor Ireland thoroughly subdued.” Giraldus Cambrensis. HTHE Scottish invasion, although successfully repelled, left the Irish government very weak. The colonists had lost a great number of men in battle, and the ravages of the Bruces had turned the country into a desert. The suicidal feuds of the Anglo-Irish nobles still continued, and gave the dispossessed natives an opportunity, which they were quick to seize, of regaining their ancestral estates. Castle after castle fell before the clansmen, until finally the writ of the English King only “ran “some twelve or twenty miles from Dublin. Towns like Cork and Waterford were so harassed by incessant attacks that their citizens grew weary of the eternal, fruitless struggle and returned to England by every ship. Probably only the protection of the viceroy’s household troops saved Dublin from a similar experience. However, even the capital was sometimes reduced to the dishonourable expedient of paying the Irish chieftains a “black rent “or annual tribute to ensure freedom from their raids. But it was yet to experience a more dreadful visitation, which no sum of money could buy off. The
32
The Decline of English Power devastations of the great wars produced a famine over the whole country. The burghers of Dublin were in sore straits for food, when they were providentially relieved by the stranding of a whole school of whales at the mouth of the Dodder at Ringsend. The chronicler calls them “Turlehydes,” and states that they were thirty or forty feet long, and so thick in the body that a man standing on one side could not see a man on the other. The city was rescued for the moment only to find, later on, that the terrible famine had bred the still more terrible pestilence. Every few years it descended on the cramped, refuse-strewn streets of the mediaeval town and carried off thousands of victims. The ugly spectre of religious fanaticism and persecution began to raise its head. In 1327 Adam Duff O’Toole was burned in College Green for heresy. He seems to have been what would now be called an atheist, for he denied the doctrine of the Resurrection, Trinity and Incarnation, declared the Scriptures a fable and the apostolical see an imposture and usurpation. Two or three years before Dublin had been the scene of a great trial for witchcraft, in which the prior of Kilmainham was indirectly implicated. Four bishops decided against the accused, and a woman named Petronilla was burned at the stake. The specific acts alleged were of the familiar kind causing men to waste away by deadly spells, riding on magic sticks, which had been dipped in a hell-broth of noxious ingredients, and holding intercourse with a familiar spirit, apparently of Norman origin, called FitzArt, who appeared now as a black cat or hairy dog, now as a formidable triple negro armed with iron rods. About this time parliaments began to be held in Ireland. In the year 1333 one assembled in the Carmelite Convent, Dublin. There was little or no c 33
[The Story of Dublin] popular representation; the attendance was confined to the nobles, and many of these dared not leave their estates, or trust themselves to the hazards of a journey in view of the activity of the “Irish enemies.” The feuds of the great lords, who came to parliament, were so bitter that their retainers stabbed each other in the very doors of the assembly. The leading families of the period were the De Burghs or Burkes of Connaught, the Butlers of Kilkenny, and the Fitzgeralds or Geraldines of Kildare and South Munster. Of these the De Burghs soon gave up the hopeless task of maintaining English influence in the remote West. They abandoned the English dress, language and habits, and became as Irish as the tribes around them. The Geraldines followed the example, though not to the same extent, but the Butlers retained their old allegiance, if only to be in opposition to the hated rival house. The contentions of the Geraldine earls of Desmond and the Butler earls of Ormond were fully as bitter and bloody as the contemporary Wars of the Roses in England. Edward III. saw the growing evil, and tried to suppress it by sending over strong viceroys. The over-powerful Geraldines were flung into gaol, but their great influence over the people was at once exerted to create endless difficulties for the new ruler. Either he retired of his own accord, a baffled and thwarted man, or intrigues at the English Court procured the liberty of the Desmonds and the reversal of all the viceroy’s actions. Raoul d’UfFord, one of the most resolute of these emissaries, died at Dublin Castle amid such demonstrations of popular hatred that his widow had to smuggle her husband’s corpse away by a back gate, lest it should be insulted. The
King next tried the expedient of sending a 34
The Decline of English Power prince of the blood to rule Ireland. His son, Lionel of Clarence, was three times Lord Lieutenant. His stay was only remarkable for the celebrated Statute of Kilkenny, a desperate and futile attempt to stop the Hibernicising process, which was daily turning English colonists into Irish enemies. Marriage, intimacy, or even commerce with the natives was high treason and punishable by death. Forfeiture and imprisonment were the penalties for using the Irish dress, language or customs, or even for adopting an Irish name. The Statute of Kilkenny was disregarded almost from the very date of its passing. So far from avoiding all intercourse with the Irish, the council at Dublin were forced to bribe the chiefs whom they could not conquer. Art MacMurrough, a descendant of the Dermot of the same name, who invited Strongbow to invade Ireland, claimed his ancestral kingdom of Leinster and devastated the colony, until the authorities bought him off with a “black rent “of eighty marks a year. A Munster chief, named O’Brien, was in annual receipt of one hundred marks. On one occasion his pension fell into arrears, and he marched on Dublin to collect his dues. There were but nine marks in the treasur^, so that the required amount had to be raised by subscription among the leading citizens. The prior of Kilmainham gave sixteen marks, others gave valuable horses, one man even contributed his bed, worth thirty shillings. At this period the public spirit of the Dubliners was very creditable. John Colton, Dean of S. Patrick’s, is said to have pawned all his goods to raise troops to go to the assistance of a castle in Wicklow. Another time he relieved Athy. His talents, like those of Richelieu, seeming to befit better the service of the State than of the Church. He was raised to the
viceroy alty in the year 138135
[The Story of Dublin] The cathedral, which he left, had now nearly assumed its present form. It had been rebuilt by Dean Minot, after it had suffered a good deal from accidental fires and the raids of Edward Bruce’s partisans. The lofty tower, which stands at the north-west corner, was the work of this great builder. As it left his hands it was a gracefully-proportioned, square, flat-roofed tower, of the kind so familiar in English cathedrals and colleges. In the eighteenth century a pointed steeple was superposed on this structure, adding something to its size and dignity, but nothing to its beauty (p. 25). The burghers of Dublin were rewarded for their faithful loyalty by being allowed to levy tolls on merchandise entering the city, the proceeds to go towards paving the streets and maintaining the walls in good repair. It was at this time, probably, that the chief thoroughfares were first covered with the closeset, rounded cobble stones, which still survive in some places. In 1385 the old bridge, the sole link between the banks of the Liffey, collapsed, so that the citizens for some years had to depend on ferries. The anarchy in Ireland soon forced itself on the attention of Richard II. Art MacMurrough, who has been already mentioned, was proving a very thorn in the side of the Leinster English. He had married a lady of the Geraldine family, a daughter of Maurice, Earl of Kildare, and was exasperated to find that the authorities sequestered her dowry, alleging that she had infringed the Statute of Kilkenny by marrying an Irishman. Furthermore, his “black rent “was not punctually or regularly paid. Richard at first gave the troublesome kingdom to his favourite, De Vere, to conquer, conferring on him the high titles of Marquis of Dublin and
Duke of Ireland. The powers of the 3 6
A
ftwp OLD CITY GATE, S. AUDOEN’s ARCH.
The Decline of English Power new ruler far exceeded those of a mere viceroy. He was to issue writs in his own name, coin money, use his own great seal, appoint all the great officers of state, and substitute his own ensigns for the English royal standard. It was a foolish and dangerous experiment, which, happily for both countries, was never carried into effect. De Vere was driven into exile by the English nobles before he had time to make good his semi-regal position. Had he been a man of sufficient ability to establish himself firmly in his province, Ireland would have been an independent monarchy within ten years. In 1394 King Richard came to settle the affairs of the kingdom in person. He landed at Waterford with an army of 34,000 men, and marched northwards through MacMurrough’s country towards Dublin. In Henry II. s time an expedition of one-tenth the size would have overawed the Irish. But the natives were now too used to mailed soldiers to be easily dismayed. They hung on Richard’s rear and Hanks, cut off stragglers, made unexpected onslaughts when the long train of baggage animals and their heavy-armed escorts were jammed in a mountain pass or floundering in a wooded swamp; in short, they practised to perfection the guerrilla warfare, \vhich was specially suited both to the country itself and the light armament and nimble habits of its defenders. The English lost heavily on their way to the capital. Richard, like his predecessors, celebrated Christmas in Dublin with great splendour, and adopted a more conciliatory policy with the Irish chieftains. It proved quite successful. The dread Art MacMurrough did homage to the King and vowed allegiance, on condition of receiving his wife’s dowry and his annual pension. The great O’Neill, king of the unconquered north, followed the example. Finally the
seal was set to 39
[The Story of Dublin] Richard’s diplomatic triumphs by a great ceremony in Christ Church Cathedral, where O’Neill of Ulster, MacMurrough of Leinster, O’Brien of Munster, and O’Connor of Connaught the four leading native princes of Ireland were knighted by the King himself. The improvement was not lasting, however. No sooner had Richard returned to England than the country was once more in utter confusion. Roger Mortimer, his cousin, whom he had left behind as viceroy, was killed in battle by the retainers of some of the chiefs, who had sworn obedience. The King returned in great wrath to avenge young Mortimer and punish MacMurrough, who was still the head and front of the Irish resistance. Forgetting the lessons of his previous campaign, Richard was incautious enough to follow his foe into the Wicklow mountains. The English were soon entangled in the defiles, and, after suffering severely, only saved themselves by a retreat to the coast. Here they found the advantages of sea power. Some English ships laden with provisions succoured the starving army, which was enabled to fall back along the shore by Wicklow and Bray to Dublin. The Irish were still on their left flank and rear, and harassed the retreat. On the King’s arrival he laid a price of 100 gold marks on MacMurrough’s head, and dispatched three expeditions against him. While thus engaged in breaking the power of an enemy, he little thought that he himself was but a broken man. Henry of Lancaster, afterwards Henry IV., had landed in England, and Richard’s adherents were melting away like the snow under the noonday sun. The unfortunate monarch returned from his disastrous Irish adventure only to suffer a public deposition
in Westminster Hall, and to die under the dagger of Exton at Pontefract. 40
CHAPTER V The Wars of the Roses 1399-1485 “Bella, horrida bella.” Virgil. terrible Art defied the English power to the very end of his life, giving and taking some very hard knocks from time to time. The Dubliners, under their mayor, John Drake, defeated their old enemies, the O’ Byrnes, who were allied to the King of Leinster, in the mountains behind Bray, and slew five hundred of them. In the year 1405 they showed their prowess further from home. The Scots under Douglas and the Welsh under Glendower had been leagued with young Hotspur in rebellion against Henry IV. The citizens fitted out a fleet, which sailed along the coasts of both countries, ravaging as it went. Henry showed his appreciation of their fidelity and courage by allowing the chief magistrate of the city the privilege of having a gilt sword borne before him in the same way as the lord mayor of London. The sword-bearer is still an official in Dublin’s ancient Corporation. In 1409 the title of mayor was introduced; previous holders of the office had been called provost. Despite the achievements of the citizens, English authority in Ireland touched its lowest point at this period. The “Pale” (or enclosure), as the part of the
country still resisting absorption by the Irish was 41
[The Story of Dublin] called, had contracted until it comprised only four counties, Louth, Meath, Dublin and Kildare, and not even all of these. This narrow strip of land, some thirty miles long by twenty wide, could alone be relied on to respect the royal commands, though harried ever and anon by the neighbouring clans of Wicklow, Queen’s and King’s Counties, then still unconquered, and preserving the native names of Leix and Offaly. The city of Dublin began to be plagued by pirates, who infested the narrow waters of the Channel. Once the archbishop was carried off, but rescued by his faithful flock, who turned out en masse and chased the enemy as far as Ardglass, on the coast of County Down. A fort was erected on Lambay Island to guard against the dangers from the sea, and a dyke made from Tallaght to Saggard to restrain the incursions of the mountaineers of Wicklow. The great hero of the French wars, Sir John Talbot, was three times appointed to the viceroyalty, in the hope that his strong hand might bring peace to the troubled kingdom. But there was need of a statesman as well as a mere warrior. Talbot won victories, but could not utilise them properly. He was soon entangled in a feud with the great house of Ormond, which completely neutralised his successes in the field. The Archbishop of Dublin was brother to the viceroy. The citizens apparently sympathised with their spiritual and temporal heads, for in 1434 they broke into S. Mary’s Abbey and dragged out Ormond from thence, with much abuse of both him and the abbot. Such disrespect to the Church could not be condoned, even by a secretly sympathising archbishop, and the mayor and citizens were condemned to do penance at Christ Church, S. Patrick’s and the Abbey itself. A little while later Ormond, who, in the kaleidoscopic variations of Irish politics, had now 42
The Wars of the Roses become viceroy, was accused of treason by the Geraldine prior of Kilmainham. The latter offered to prove his charges by the wager of battle. A day was fixed for the encounter, but the King intervened personally, and ordered a judicial investigation, by which Ormond was acquitted. The rulers of the great Hospital of S. John of Jerusalem at Kilmainham often figure prominently in Irish history. They were a peculiar order in the State, half soldier, half monk, supposed to spend the intervals of their campaigns against the Saracens of Palestine in religious practices and military training. But their two professions agreed ill with each other. The Hospitallers, like the Templars, whom they often succeeded, were accused of avarice, irreverence, and moral laxity. Towards the year 1449 the shadow of the Wars of the Roses began to darken the horizon. Richard, Duke of York, suspected of designs on the English throne, was sent to rule Ireland. Queen Margaret no doubt hoped that the troubles of his office would keep his hands too full for him to entertain any ambitious projects. Apparently she mistook her man. He saw in kis new orovince an instrument which could be easily adapted to gain his ends. By a judicious blend of suavity and sternness he won over the whole of Ireland to the Yorkist cause, as well Irish as Anglo-Irish. The iron hand in the velvet glove had never been used so well. Had he been loyal to the English Crown, he might have had the great credit of finally conciliating Ireland. But his purpose throughout was only to gain a strong base for his attacks on England. The first step was to assume an almost absolute independence of English control. An Irish parliament declared that English laws or English
writs had 43
[The Story of Dublin] no validity in Ireland, it asserted the right of the viceroy to coin his own money and declared the compassing his death to be treason. The dangerous crisis, which Henry II. and his successors had so dreaded, had at last been brought about. The viceroy had made himself into an independent king. An unfortunate squire, who arrived with writs to apprehend Richard as a traitor to his lawful sovereign, was himself hanged, drawn and quartered for compassing the death of the viceroy. In 1460 the Duke sailed from Dublin to enter upon that fateful campaign, which ended in his defeat and death at Wakefield. He had done his work very thoroughly in Ireland. The whole nation, with the exception of the Butlers, became as strongly Yorkist as it was subsequently Royalist and Jacobite. By some evil fate it always backs the losing side and suffers all the penalties embodied in “Vae Victis.” During the stay of Richard of York in the Castle, a son had been born to him, the “false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,” who stands out so vividly in Shakespeare’s historical plays. Dublin, as might be expected, made little progress during the Wars of the Roses. The Butlers and Geraldines enacted a little replica of the struggle in England, and massacred each other all over Munster and Leinster. The citizens were hard pressed to provide the troops necessary for the defence of the Pale. In 1475 the Brotherhood of S. George was founded in order to focus the patriotism of the AngloIrish on this important point. Twelve of the leading men of Dublin and its environs, including the mayor for the time being, were to meet annually to elect a captain and arrange for the maintenance of a special force under his command. About this time the Pope took some steps towards founding a university in Dublin. The time was not 44
The Wars of the Roses yet fit for such an enterprise. The attempt had been made before. In 1320 Archbishop de Bicknor had set up a college, or rather a theological school, in S. Patrick’s Cathedral. It never attained to any eminence. The prelates of the day were too bent on war and politics to have much time to spend on the encouragement of learning. Again the roads were so dangerous and life and property so insecure, even in the capital, that students could not safely resort there to study. The city had to wait another hundred years for its college. The Wars of the Roses in Ireland, as in England, form a dark, unrelieved picture of murder and faction. Once the incoming viceroy, Tiptoft, “the butcher,” Earl of Worcester, seized his predecessor, the Earl of Desmond, and had him beheaded. The victim on this occasion suffered, like many another before and since, for his imprudence in interfering between husband and wife. He had urged Edward IV. to put away his queen, who was not of distinguished birth, and espouse in her stead some noted foreign princess. The King declined the advice, which, however, he never disclosed to anyone, until one day in a fit of anger he taunted the qu^n with what she might have been, had he followed the counsels of his “cousin of Desmond.” She, womanlike, soon divined the secret. The murder of Desmond was a barbarous revenge for the slight he had put upon her. Without the knowledge of Edward, Tiptoft, when leaving for his province, received from the queen a command to compass, by whatever means he might, the death of the outspoken Irishman. On another occasion the Earl of Kildare refused to surrender up the government to Lord Grey, the successor appointed by the English King. The constable of Dublin
Castle, James Keating, one of the turbulent 45
[The Story of Dublin] Hospitallers of Kilmainham, closed the gates of the fortress against Grey and defied all attempts to force an entrance. Grey held a parliament at Trim and Kildare a rival assembly at Naas. Eventually a threat of confiscation of the priory lands induced Keating to acknowledge Grey’s commission and admit him to the Castle. At the same time the powers of nature were not beneficent to Dublin. A great storm blew in the east window of Christ Church and destroyed the numerous relics preserved under the high altar, sparing only the wonder-working Bacall-Iosa, the sacred staff of Jesus, believed to have been bequeathed by Our Lord to S. Patrick. A great drought reduced the Liffey to a mere rivulet. The chronicler says “the river was completely dry for the space of two minutes,” which seems incredible. Plagues and famines continued to visit the city with dismal regularity every fourth or fifth year. Money was debased and industry at a
standstill.
46
CHAPTER VI The Fall of the Geral dines 1485-1558 “Ye Geraldines ! ye Geraldines ! how royally ye reigned O’er Desmond broad and rich Kildare, and English arts disdained; Your sword made knight, your banner waved, free was your bugle call By Glyn’s green slopes and Dingle’s tide, from Barrow’s banks to Youghal.” Davis. LJENRY VII. found, on his accession, a strong Yorkist faction in Ireland. It had not been exhausted by a long war and crushed in a great battle, as had been the case in England. The country was ripe for an attempt to redress the misfortunes of the White Rose and to drive out the new king before he was well settled on the throne. The cold and cautious monarch saw the danger, but did not yet feel strong enough to cope with it. The Yorkist viceroy, the Earl of Kildare, was allowed to retain his position lest his disgrace might be a signal for the revolt of his powerful Geraldine followers. Before a year had elapsed a boy appeared at Dublin, who declared that he was the Earl of Warwick, son of Edward IV.’s brother, and, therefore, rightful heir to the crown. He had, he said, escaped from the Tower of London, where he had
been immured by the King. The Irish 47
[The Story of Dublin] nobles even the viceroy Kildare himself professed themselves fully satisfied with the truth of his statement. In vain did King Henry deny the story, and parade the real earl through the streets in England. Amid great enthusiasm the lad was installed in Dublin Castle and crowned king in Christ Church Cathedral with the approval of viceroy, hierarchy and citizens. Only the Ormond family, the city of Waterford, and one or two bishops and nobles held aloof from the popular movement. The Dubliners harassed the trade of the loyal city by a series of piratical raids. In return the men of Waterford received commissions from the King of England to retaliate in kind. The Yorkists held sway in Ireland, and all the acts of government ran in the name of Edward VI., the title assumed by the boy, whom his enemies declared to be a clever impostor named Lambert Simnel. In June 1487 an expedition, containing many leading Irishmen, set sail for England, but was utterly defeated at Stoke. The late Edward VI., who fell into the hands of the victors, was degraded to the level of a scullion in the royal kitchen. His Irish partisans were treated with the same lenity, though with less contemptuousness. Kildare was continued in his office, and the city of Dublin obtained pardon on the chief inhabitants entering into a bond of 1000 marks for future obedience to King Henry’s government. The only exception to the general amnesty was Prior Keating of Kilmainham, the man who had denied to a viceroy the right of entry into Dublin Castle. His latest action had been to refuse to deliver up his priory to one Lomley, an Englishman, who had been appointed to supersede him. When Lomley appeared to claim his right, he was maltreated and robbed of his credentials. Keating was excommunicated for this outrage, and retorted by throwing his opponent into 48
The Fall of the Geraldines prison. At last the authorities succeeded in evicting this singularly tenacious Hospitaller. He died in miserable exile. The citizens took care not to forfeit their recognizance during the attempt of Perkin Warbeck on the English throne. The pretender marched through Southern Ireland more than once without meeting with any support, and his ships were chased away by the ultra-loyal men of Waterford. Kildare was suspected of complicity with Warbeck’s project, and was removed from the viceroyalty. His successor was the celebrated Sir Edward Poynings, whose Act for restraining the liberty of Irish parliaments was, for the next three centuries, a great stumbling-block in the way of lovers of Irish autonomy. He had been instructed to take measures to prevent for the future any quasi-independent regime in Ireland, whether of self-aggrandizing viceroy or ambitious pretender. With this end in view, he passed a law providing that no parliament was to be held in Ireland until the intended legislation had been laid before the King and received his approval. At the same time he practically abolished the Fraternity of S. George, which had now become an instrument of exaction, not defence. The dues payable for its support were in future to go to the King. Poynings enclosed the English counties around Dublin with a double ditch as a defence against the incursions of the Irish. Thus the rather vague area, which acknowledged English authority, and was usually known as the Pale, received a distinct and definite boundary. Within his narrow fence the viceroy might enforce absolute order and form a firm base for the reconquest of Ireland. Poynings was a worthy forerunner of the great series of Tudor governors, an almost
unbroken line of statesmen remarkable for courage and ability, yet 49
[The Story of Dublin] stained too often by an almost cynical perfidy and cruelty towards the native inhabitants. The Geraldines received a sharp lesson when the new governor marched against them, besieged, and took their castle of Carlow. The great Kildare was accused of treason, and sent to London for trial. He was only saved from the block by his ready wit and blunt self-confident bearing. His enemies accused him of burning down the cathedral at Cashel, the archbishop of which was in league with the Ormonds. The earl saved them the trouble of proofs by a sudden admission. “But,” said he, with a round oath, “I would never have done it had it not been told me that the archbishop was within.” The prelate in question was present, and was taken aback at the unexpected retort, while the King was much amused to hear such a plea put forward for the defence. In further verbal encounters Kildare more than held his own, and gradually rose in the favour of his sovereign. “All Ireland cannot rule this man,” said the Ormond party. “Then he shall rule all Ireland,” said the King, and sent the earl back to Ireland as viceroy. Kildare showed his gratitude by the skill and energy of his administration. He carried his arms into the West of Ireland, untrodden by English foot since the hibernicising of the De Burghs. The mayor and citizens of Dublin followed in his train, and fought with their usual gallantry. At Knockdoe in Galway a great victory was won, which broke the power of the western clans. The new ruler even tried to conciliate the Ormonds, for generations enemies of his house. The head of the rival family was induced to attend a conference in S. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. The citizens, who were for the most part of the Gerald ine faction, mustered in
arms outside the church to protect 50
s. PATRICK’S CATHEDRAL. VIEW ACROSS NAVE TO SOUTH TRANSEPT.
The Fall of the Geraldlnes Kildare, seeing the strength of Ormond’s following. While the leaders were conversing within, a broil arose between the rank and file on either side. The Butlers were driven into the building, where the Dublin men pursued them, bending their bows in the sacred edifice itself. Their arrows were found after the fray sticking in the images of saints, which adorned the rood loft. Ormond feared treachery, and retreated to the Chapter House, where he barricaded himself until Kildare pledged his honour for his safety. An axe was then brought, and a hole cut in the door so that the two principals might shake hands in token of good faith. But Ormond was still suspicious, and would not put his hand out, fearing lest it might be chopped off by the axe, which he had heard at work. So the other, with his usual bluff readiness of manner, thrust his own hand into the midst of his enemies. The doubter was convinced, the barrier removed, and a sort of reconciliation took place. The historic door is preserved in the south transept of the cathedral. The sacrilege of the citizens in the affair was considered so heinous as to merit the special attention of a papal legate. The mayor and leading men of the town were ordered to do penance in perpetuity for their offence by walking barefoot before the Sacrament in the yearly Corpus Christi procession. The Reformation soon released them from their annual humiliation. The accession of Henry VIII. was celebrated in Dublin with much joy and ringing of bells. How little men know what they should rejoice at ! The new monarch was destined to add another evil, religious persecution, to the long catalogue of Irish ills. The early years of the reign are marked by little more than the usual campaigns of the citizens on the borders. The “sweating sickness,” or “English sweat” as it was called, probably from its being carried to Ireland 53
[The Story of Dublin] by strangers from across the Channel, carried off great numbers. Kildare died and was succeeded in both earldom and viceroyalty by his son Garret Oge (Garret the young), who had a hard struggle to retain his office in face of the intrigues of Ormond in Ireland and Cardinal Wolsey at King Henry’s court. He was more than once superseded, but usually regained his old position. Once, while he was thus in eclipse, there was a great riot between his partisans in the city and the soldiery of the viceroy by whom he had been supplanted. It arose out of a trifling cause. A drunken servant engaged in piling hay pitched some on to the hat of a passing soldier, who promptly resented the insult by hurling his dagger at the offender. The servant dodged the missile, and thrust his fork through the soldier’s shoulder. The quarrel was taken up by comrades on both sides, and many were wounded. The mayor issued out with the King’s sword to quell the disturbance, and met the Lord Lieutenant coming from the Castle with the same intention. The erring servant was delivered up to the forces of the Crown, but pardoned on the grounds that no loss of life had ensued. Earl Garret’s enemies at last succeeded in driving him from power. In 1534 he was summoned to London to answer various heinous charges and, on arrival, was committed to the Tower. Before his departure he had entrusted the government to his son Lord Thomas Fitzgerald, a high-spirited impetuous lad of twenty, whose fondness for gay attire had earned him the name of “Silken Thomas.” The unfortunate young man was too hot and hasty for the task before him. False reports of his father’s death on the scaffold in England were circulated by the Butler party and drove him
into a frenzy. He 54
The Fall of the Geraldines rode into Dublin at the head of 140 horsemen, burst into the Council Chamber at S. Mary’s Abbey, resigned his office and with it all allegiance to Henry VIII. The chancellor earnestly begged him to abandon a course, which could only end in ruin to himself and his father. His entreaties were almost prevailing, when an Irish bard from among the retainers outside struck up a Geraldine war-song, calling for vengeance for the earl’s death. The young lord flung down the sword of state, emblem of his office, on the council table, and rushed wildly from the room, an avowed rebel. The news killed his father, already smitten with palsy. Lord Thomas began the siege of Dublin. His allies, the O’Tooles of Wicklow, plundered the whole of the surrounding country and inflicted a severe defeat on the citizens, who tried to intercept them at the ford of Kilmainham on their return from a great foray north of the LifFey. While this disaster still lay heavy on the people, Thomas demanded a passage through the streets for his troops to assault the citadel. The municipal authorities hesitated and consulted both the King and the constable of the Castle. The latter cheerily professed his willingne;: to stand a siege, if the town would supply him beforehand with a sufficient stock of provisions. So the Geraldine army was admitted and planted its guns right opposite the main gate near the site of the present Grattan Bridge. The constable’s self-confidence was fully justified. Lord Thomas’s operations ended in complete failure. The Castle gunners from their superior elevation dominated their enemy’s lines. The townsmen suddenly rose and shut the city gates, making prisoners of many of the besiegers. Lord Thomas mounted guns on Howth Head to prevent reinforcements coming from England, but they eluded him by landing at Dalkey 55
[The Story of Dublin] on the other side of the bay. His cause was stained with murder. John Allen, Archbishop of Dublin, the foremost of his late father’s accusers, was trying to escape to England from the beleaguered city, when his ship was stranded at Clontarf. The Geraldine leader was but a mile away at Artane, and the unfortunate prelate fell into the hands of his bitter enemy. He fell on his knees and begged for mercy. “Away with the churl,” was the sole answer, and Lord Thomas’s retainers, interpreting the remark and the gesture, which accompanied it, as a death sentence, fell upon the unhappy captive and slew him on the spot. This deed brought down excommunication on the perpetrators. The besiegers now tried to storm the city, once by way of Ship Street, only to be foiled by the accurate fire of the Castle and the destruction of all the houses outside the walls, which might serve for cover. An attack from the west on the New Gate was on the point of succeeding, when the citizens sallied out with shouts of “reinforcements from England “and threw the Irish into a panic. It was all over now with the rash young lord. He was surrounded by treachery. The arrows shot by his men into Dublin were often headless and sometimes bore information of his plans. The siege had to be raised and the leader was soon obliged to surrender to the new viceroy. In 1537 Silken Thomas and his five uncles were executed at Tyburn. The ancient line of Fitzgerald was brought to the verge of extinction. A lad of twelve and an infant in arms were the only male heirs left alive. The boy was the mark of a thousand plots and intrigues, from all of which he escaped safely, to be the ancestor, in after years, of another long series of Geraldines. The Reformation reached Dublin in 1535. Archbishop Browne, who succeeded the murdered Allen, S 6
The Fall of the Geraldines was the first Protestant to occupy the see. The relics preserved in Christ Church, including the miraculous “Staff of Jesus,” were burned, the monks were expelled from the priory attached to the cathedral, and a parliament at Dublin in 1536 acknowledged the King as supreme head of the church. Another assembly in 1541 conferred on Henry the title of King of Ireland. His predecessors had only styled themselves “lords “of the country. The change indicated the new assertion of absolute authority instead of a vague and uncertain suzerainty. The Dubliners accepted the changes very calmly. Quarrels with domineering archbishops and with the numerous monasteries in and around the city seemed to have weakened their ardour for the faith. They fought on the Protestant side at Bellahoe, in 1539, the first armed encounter between the two creeds in Ireland. They even accepted the spoils of the Church. As a reward for their actions against Silken Thomas they received the lately dissolved convent of All Hallows, the site of which was subsequently utilised for the building of Trinity College. In 1551 the viceroy, Sir Anthony Sentleger, promulgated the ‘Book or Common Prayer” in Christ Church Cathedral, to the intense disgust of Dowdall, Archbishop of Armagh, who declared that “every illiterate fellow would now be able to say mass.” After this outburst, Dowdall held no further communication with the reformers. The authorities marked their disapproval of his conduct by transferring the primacy from his see to that of Dublin. However, there was as yet no persecution, and, apparently, very little excitement about the new doctrines. During the reign of Queen Mary the mass was restored in Dublin. But,
paradoxically enough, this town, the capital of a country predominantly 57
[The Story of Dublin] Roman Catholic, was the asylum of a number of Protestant refugees from Cheshire and other counties, who were fleeing from the persecutions in England. A story is told of the incident to which Dublin owed its lucky immunity. An emissary of Queen Mary charged with the extirpation of heresy in Ireland, while journeying thither, boasted of his mission to his hostess at Chester and displayed the royal warrant. She, however, fearing for the safety of some Protestant friends in that country, stole the fatal document from his luggage and substituted for it a pack of cards, which lay there until the Dublin Council asked to see his credentials, and the would-be persecutor was dismayed to find the trick that had been played on him. Would that all such missions might have met with such a laughable ending ! But, as the reign of Elizabeth shows, the evil intentions of government do not always miss their mark.
CHAPTER VII The Last Struggle of the Irish Clans 1558-1603 “Proudly the note of the trumpet is sounding, Loudly the war cries arise on the gale; Fleetly the steed by Lough Swilly is bounding, To join the thick squadrons in Saimear’s green vale. On, every mountaineer, Strangers to flight and fear ! Rush to the standard of dauntless Red Hugh I Bonnaught and gallowglass, Throng from each mountain pass; On for old Erin, O’Donnell
Aboo.” fif’Cann.
doctrines of the Reformation had never taken root in Ireland. Both the Anglo-Irish within, and the Irish tribes without the Pale, had been too much engaged with incessant internecine wars to have any time to spare for questioning the foundations of their belief. Many people in Dublin and elsewhere, not thinking the Church seriously threatened, had acquiesced in the changes made by Henry VIII. and Edward VI. while still hoping that the nation would yet return to its old faith. During Mary’s short reign their anticipations seemed to be realised, only to be doomed to perpetual disappointment under the long and determinedly Protestant reign of Elizabeth. As soon as the new queen was firmly established, a parliament was assembled at Dublin in order to restore the Protestant religion to the position it had
occupied before Queen Mary’s accession. Every holder of 59
[The Story of Dublin] office or benefice was to acknowledge the queen as supreme head of the Church. Conscientious Roman Catholics could not take such an oath, and saw themselves excluded from every post of honour or profit. At the same time the use of the Book of Common Prayer was enjoined on every church in Dublin, and printed Bibles were set out for public reading in Christ Church and S. Patrick’s. All the citizens were ordered to attend the new service under penalty of a fine. At first the Irish government connived at a good deal of evasion. Many people escaped scot-free by going to mass in the morning and to church in the evening. The parliament, on the grounds that English was not universally understood, and that printing an Irish version would be difficult, obtained permission to have the Prayer Book read in a Latin translation. To an audience of unlettered laymen a Latinised Prayer Book would seem almost identical with the mass. But the breach between Elizabeth and the Papacy widened until there was no room for such compromises. Soon a proclamation was issued against meetings of friars and priests in Dublin. Every man in Ireland was now compelled to range himself definitely on one side or the other. The day for Laodiceanism was past. The majority of the Anglo-Irish adhered to the old faith, which also received the strong and unwavering support of all the unsubdued native clans without exception. The viceroy and his officials, supported by some of the nobles, notably the Ormonds, formed the opposite party. Dublin, being the seat of government, was forced, rather against its will, to conform to the religion of the royal representatives. The antagonism of the greater part of Ireland to the emissaries of Queen Elizabeth was political as well as religious. Long before the Reformation the Tudor monarchs had determined to bring the whole country 60
The Last Struggle of the Irish Clans under the English authority. They were not satisfied with the uncertain tenure of three or four counties near Dublin and a very nominal suzerainty over the rest of the land. So Henry VIII. crushed the semi-independent Geraldines, and even the Catholic Mary drove out her co-religionists, the O’Moores and O’Connors, from the districts of Offaly and Leix. In compliment to the queen and her husband, Philip of Spain, this conquered territory was formed into two new shires called King’s and Queen’s County, with Philipstown and Maryborough as their chief towns. Elizabeth carried the policy of her predecessors to a successful issue after a fierce struggle, which lasted the whole of her reign, often threatening to end in the utter defeat of the English and their expulsion from the country. The O’Neills of Ulster were the leaders of the Irish resistance to religious and political innovations. The city of Dublin, under the watchful eye of the able governors whom Elizabeth appointed, slowly became Protestant. There must have been grave searchings of heart among the halting citizens when the roof and south side of Christ Church Cathedral fell in only a few years after its adaptation to the reformed docriiies. A littie later a plague, the worst recorded in its annals, so devastated the city that grass grew in the streets, and the mayor fled out of the pestilential town to hold his court at Glassmanogue, near Phibsborough, while the viceroy Sidney removed the seat of government to Drogheda. These events were probably interpreted as the judgments of Providence on a heretical people. The municipality is found sometimes energetically assisting the Protestant and Anglicising party, sometimes so backward in the service as to call down the censure of the authorities. Thus, in 1566, the Dubliners heard that Shane O’Neill was besieging Dundalk, and was likely to 61
[The Story of Dublin] capture not only the town, but Lady Sidney, who was staying there and would be a useful hostage in Shane’s hands, while he negotiated with her husband. They marched out at once under their mayor Sarsfield, forced O’Neill to raise the siege, and returned to Dublin with the lady, defeating on the way an attempt of the Cavan O’Reillys to intercept them. Sarsfield was knighted for his gallantry. Two years later, however, a subsequent mayor was fined ^100 and committed to the Castle for refusing to perform his military duties. In 1577 the citizens took part in a great constitutional protest. Sidney, presuming too much on his popularity and prestige, had ventured to impose a tax by virtue of the royal authority alone without obtaining the consent of an Irish parliament. A deputation, including Lord Howth and some leading Dublin men, was sent to petition the queen against taxation without representation. Elizabeth received them very graciously, though secretly annoyed by their opposition. They were soon thrown into gaol for contumacy and resistance to royal command. Their sympathisers in Ireland were sent to Dublin Castle. But Sidney soon found his position untenable and was forced to procure the assent of the representatives of the Pale to his plans. The prisoners in both capitals were released. In the meantime the policy of the Irish government in regard to the native clans was succeeding. The viceroys conciliated the great chiefs and tried to Anglicise them. They warred down the smaller men, or took hostages for their good behaviour. If an Irish leader proved amenable to neither treatment, they sowed discord in his sept, raised up a competitor from among his numerous brothers and cousins, and, if all else failed, compassed his death or capture by the treachery which the offer of a reward usually tended 62
The Last Struggle of the Irish Clans to produce. The O’Neills of Ulster, independent lulers of a whole province,
accepted the English title of Earls of Tyrone. In 1585 Sir John Perrott held
OLD CITY WALL AND SOUTH FRONT OF CASTLE. a parliament at Dublin, which was attended by many of the native warriors wearing, now for the first time, the English costume. The Irishmen felt very ridiculous in the tight and close dress then fashionable, which was such a contrast to their accustomed flowing mantles and brogues of soft, untanned
leather. One felt he 63
[The Story of Dublin] was giving such amusement to the populace that he begged Perrott to allow his chaplain to wear the Irish dress, so that the curious might be diverted from his own figure to a still stranger one beside him. About the same time two men, belonging to the western tribe of the O’Connors, agreed to settle their differences by the English custom of trial by combat. The lists were erected at Dublin Castle, and, in the presence of the viceroy, the parties fought their judicial duel to the death. After a long struggle, one of them succeeded in cutting off his enemy’s head, which he presented to the Lord Lieutenant. It is hard to say why this barbarous and already obsolescent mode of legal procedure was allowed. It can hardly have tended to the civilising and refinement of either the city of Dublin or the clans of Connaught. Towards the latter half of Elizabeth’s reign, the Irish beyond the Pale awoke to the designs on their independence. The resistance centred itself around the person of Owen Roe O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, a man remarkable for his ability both in war and diplomacy. He found it easy to unite his fellow-countrymen by appealing to their common religion and nationality against the English, who were both heretics and aliens. The effect of his intrigue, as far as Dublin was concerned, was seen in a revival of the activity of the O’ Byrnes. Tyrone was still nominally loyal, but his secret allies made trouble everywhere. Once an overhasty viceroy, burning to signalise his appointment by some striking success, pursued the O’Byrnes to their stronghold at Glenmalure, and, becoming entangled in a wooded and swampy ravine, suffered a complete defeat. In 1586 the mountaineers “singed the viceroy’s beard “by plundering his exchequer, though it lay not a hundred yards from the guns of the castle. In
1587 Perrott, a governor honoured by the Irish 64
‘The Last Struggle of the Irish Clans for his justice and moderation, stooped to an act of unscrupulous perfidy, which brought, as such things do, its own Nemesis on the perpetrators. He wished to have some hold on O’Donnell, chief of TyrconnelJ, the modern Donegal, and determined to effect his ends by entrapping his son, known as Owen Roe, or Red Hugh, and holding him as a hostage for his father’s good behaviour. A peaceful merchantman, apparently trading in Spanish wine, put into Lough Swilly. Young Hugh received and accepted an invitation to go on board to taste the wares of the captain. But the ship itself and the hospitable skipper were alike chartered by the viceroy. As soon as the O’Donnell and his companions were safely aboard, the hatches were closed and the ship put out to sea, to the great consternation of the people, who already loved their brilliant young chief. Hugh was kept in honourable, but close, restraint in Dublin Castle. From that moment he was a bitter and irreconcilable enemy to the English power. His great ability made him a most dangerous foe. He soon found means to escape. The cell, where he used to spend the nig^t, overlooked the back gate of the castle and a wooden drawbridge, which spanned the moat. Hugh and some others let themselves down, in the dusk of a winter twilight, by a long rope on to the bridge, and fastened the gate on the outside, thus imprisoning their guards and ensuring a long start for themselves. They passed in safety and unnoticed through the narrow and dimly-lit streets of the town to the open country. Their destination was the stronghold of the O’Tooles, near Glendalough, and their route lay across the shoulder of Three Rock Mountain, and over the jumble of hills that lies beyond. But the hardships of the flight told heavily on the fugitives. Their thin indoor shoes fell to pieces in the swamps, E 65
[The Story of Dublin] so that the gorse and sharp stones of the mountains tore their unprotected feet. By morning the soldiers were so close on their track that O’Toole dared not harbour the runaways, and, making a virtue of necessity, delivered the whole party to the troops. Hugh was brought back to his prison, and for the future was heavily shackled and closely watched. A year later he again succeeded in making his escape. It was Christmas night, 1591. He had only two companions, Henry and Art O’Neill, sons of the celebrated Shane. They filed off their fetters and let themselves down by a rope into the castle moat, which, in accordance with the primitive sanitary notions of the age, was little better than a common sewer. Half swimming, half wading, they passed through its mingled water and ooze to the opposite bank, where a guide waited to conduct them to the O’ Byrne fastness in Glenmalure. They bore more to the westward this time, avoiding the higher hills near Dundrum, but a snowstorm came on while they were still on the bleak uplands. Henry O’Neill became separated from the party and was lost. All night and next day they pressed on, sore distressed with the cold, for they had cast off their soiled outer garments on emerging from the moat. Art O’Neill, corpulent from much confinement and little exercise, broke down completely, and at last Hugh and he had to rest under a rock, while the guide ran on to Glenmalure. The chief Fiach MacHugh O’Byrne sent out a party to their assistance. Hugh was revived with difficulty, but Art died in the arms of his rescuers. The young O’Donnell, though for months afterwards his feet, frostbitten and sore, could not support the weight of his body, was eager to return to Donegal. The more practicable fords of the LirTey were watched by English
troops sent to intercept the 66
The Last Struggle of the Irish Clans fugitive. Hugh eluded his foes by the bold course of crossing at a deep and dangerous ford not far from the Castle itself, probably somewhere near the modern O’Connell Bridge. He reached Ballyshannon in safety, and was soon installed as chief of the O’Donnell clan, in the room of his aged father. Owen Roe O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, allied himself by marriage with his brilliant young neighbour of Tyrconnell. Tyrone’s bitterness against the government had been further increased by his quarrel with Sir Henry Bagenal, Marshal of Ireland. Mabel Bagenal and the earl had fallen in love, but their union was opposed by Sir Henry, who said Tyrone had a wife already. The earl replied that he was lawfully divorced, but Bagenal, unmoved, only answered by sending his sister in disgrace to Dublin. Tyrone boldly followed her, and they were married in the house of a friend in the suburb of Drumcondra. Bagenal took the only revenge in his power by detaining the lady’s dowry. The marshal and his brotherin-law became irreconcilable enemies. In 1 594 Tyrone and Hugh O’Donnell embarked on that great struggle which probably went near^.. to gaining Irish independence than any similar effort before or since. Amid these wars and rumours of wars Trinity College, Dublin, commenced its existence. It was founded with the avowed purpose of converting the Irish to the Protestant religion. By a liberal system of scholarships and an artful USL of the native tongue in instruction, it was hoped that the cleverest heads of the nation would be brought within the range of English influence. The original idea is ascribed to that subtle politician Sir John Perrott, who did not stay to see his plans realised. Elizabeth lent the project her moral support. The City Council gladly gave a site. In 1591 “the College of the Holy and Undivided 67
[The Story of Dublin] Trinity of Queen Elizabeth, near Dublin,” started on its long and illustrious career. The political troubles in the North, and the severe financial straits in which the institution soon found itself, went near to strangling the young foundation at its birth. For several years it had to depend on voluntary contributions. Its estates were for the most part in the hands of rebels, who confiscated the revenues to their own purposes. No rents could be collected in Ulster, or, indeed, in any other part of Ireland. In 1598 Tyrone, aided by O’Donnell, had defeated and slain his brother-in-law, Marshal Bagenal, at the Yellow Ford, near Armagh. The whole of Ireland was in a flame. The English troops, usually confident of their superiority over the irregular Irish guerrillas, were beaten again and again in open field until they lost their morale and disgraced themselves by panic flights and wholesale desertions. The queen’s favourite, Essex, came to Ireland with 20,000 men. He marched from Dublin to subdue Munster and Leinster, but could only take a single castle. The O’Moores of Leix, or Queen’s County, killed so many of his gay soldiery near Maryborough that they called the scene of the battle the “Pass of the Plumes.” Essex returned to the metropolis with a diminished army. After a short rest he went north to meet Tyrone in a conference. The Irish earl is said to have then suggested to Essex those projects of rebellion, which eventually resulted in his death on the block. He left Ireland amid the jeers of the people, who said he had only used his sword to make knights. Perhaps the sole ray of consolation for the Dubliners during the last decade of the seventeenth century was the final suppression of the O’ Byrnes. The same Fiach MacHugh O’Byrne, who had
assisted O’Donnell to escape, was surprised in his mountain hold and put 68
The Last Struggle of the Irish Clans to death. The power of the two hill clans was broken at last, and Wicklow became a county subject to English law. The citizens could sleep quietly in their beds, and the Black Monday muster lost its ralson d’etre. Mountjoy was appointed to succeed Essex. He soon showed a thorough grasp of t’he problem. His methods were merciless, but successful. Forts were planted in the enemy’s territory, and his lands were ravaged until famine compelled a surrender. The Irish called in the Spaniards, who landed at Kinsale and began to fortify the position. But the viceroy marched thither, and besieged the invaders before they had time to establish themselves. Tyrone and O’Donnell came southwards with large armies to the rescue, and practically surrounded the small investing force. The English army was between the anvil and the hammer. Its eventual defeat was certain, for before long half its total strength had wasted away. The Irish were too eager to grasp the prize. Against the advice of Tyrone, a night attack was resolved on. Some traitor gave the English warning, so that Mountjoy wao fully prepied. The Irish lost their way, and spent the whole of a tempestuous night in aimless wanderings. Daybreak found them near the lines where the English army was drawn up, fully prepared for battle. The viceroy sav. their weariness and disorder, and promptly attacked. The battle was soon a mere rout. The English were completely victorious, Kinsale was forced to surrender, and Ireland was saved to Queen Elizabeth. The gallant O’Donnell died in exile a few months later, a worn-out and broken-hearted man.
69
CHAPTER VIII 4 Triangular Duel Royalist^ Roundhead and Catholic 1603-1660 “Such as do build their faith upon The holy text of pike and gun;...... Call fire and sword and desolation, A godly, thorough reformation,...... And prove their doctrines orthodox By apostolic blows and knocks.” Butler. r\UBLIN was fortunate enough to escape the centre of the tornado of war, which traversed Ireland during the reign of Elizabeth. The raids of the Border tribes were annoying, but did little serious harm. The great leaders of the Irish did not make any determined attempt on the city. At the same time, as the whole of the country came under one authority, the importance of the capital increased with each accession of territory. Dublin gradually lost its character of being an English fortified post in the midst of the Irish enemy. It came to acknowledge itself as the metropolis of the nation, which was slowly forming out of the union of the native Celts with their Norman and English invaders. Long regarded as an alien city by most Irishmen, it now came to be the very heart and brain of the kingdom. Its trade had been much helped by the pacification of North Wales. Chester and Liverpool, released from the fear of raids on their flanks, 70
Royalist^ Roundhead and Catholic developed into commercial ports devoted to the Irish trade. Dublin was their most convenient harbour on the opposite shore, and soon began to surpass Waterford, the Irish port of entry for the older southern route by Bristol or New Milford. The commerce of the city increased greatly. The value of the customs rose so much that it was found necessary to construct a Custom House for their receipt. The dangerous bar which lies across the mouth of the harbour was marked by a buoy, and, a little later, steps were taken towards erecting a lighthouse or tower on the same spot. The municipality became wealthy and enlightened. New civic officials appeared. There was a city band of musicians, which played thrice a week through the chief streets gratis, a city physician, schoolmaster and train of artillery. There were even attempts at sanitation and protection from fire. The trade of the weavers, afterwards so prominent in Dublin history, was now first organised. The mayoral hospitality rose to a pitch never reached since. During his tenure of office, one Sarsfield kept open house to all comers from five in the morning till ten at night. His salary for the year was but twenty pounds, and his expenses five hundred pounds a sum which then had ten times its present purchasing power. The citizens were not induced by their new prosperity to neglect the old religion, to which many of them still clung. The Catholics were still both powerful and numerous. With the connivance of the authorities, they had often been able to evade the occasional persecutions of Elizabeth, The accession of James I., son of the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, awoke hopes of a toleration, if not a restoration, of their form of worship.
They drew up a petition for freedom of conscience, which, however, was so
[The Story of Dublin] unlucky as to be presented on the very day that news arrived of the celebrated Gunpowder Plot, in which their English co-religionists were believed to be implicated. No change could be made in the law at such a time. The statutes remained as repressive as before, and Dublin men of note were again fined for nonattendance at church. But, as often happens in Ireland, a harsh edict was rendered practically nugatory by the mildness of the executive. The total fines in a year only amounted to some ^14. If a viceroy insisted on prosecution, juries acquitted the accused in spite of the terrors of a court called Castle Chamber, the Irish equivalent of the Star Chamber. In 1613 the first parliament, representing the whole country, as distinct from the English Pale, met in Dublin. The authorities, knowing the preponderance of Catholics among the people, had taken measures to secure a Protestant majority. Forty new boroughs, each returning two members, were created for the occasion, mostly in Ulster, which had lately been colonised from end to end with Scots and Englishmen. The upper house was composed of fifty peers, of whom twenty-five were Protestant bishops. The Catholics were surprised and annoyed to find themselves in a minority, and a violent scene took place over the election of a Speaker. Votes were recorded in those days, not by both parties filing into lobbies, but by the “Ayes “leaving the chamber and being numbered outside, while the “Noes “remained inside to be counted. The Protestants, in support of their motion for the appointment of Sir John Davies, the historian, had gone out. Their opponents, left in possession, neglected to vote on the question before them and employed the interval by placing their own nominee, Sir John Everard, in actual physical occupation of the chair, surrounded by a ring of his partisans. 72
Royalist^ Roundhead and Catholic The “Ayes “returned in high wrath, and a regular melee took place in the House. The rival Speakers must have suffered severely, for they were the gages of battle on either side. Davies was borne aloft by his supporters and deposited in the very lap of Everard. Finally the Catholics retreated from the House, declining to take any further part in the proceedings. The viceroy, finding progress impossible, prorogued the parliament. Two years later there was a convocation of the Protestant clergy in Dublin. Under the influence of the celebrated Ussher, one hundred and four articles of religion were drawn up to represent the teachings of the Church of Ireland. These were so markedly Calvinistic in tone as to be somewhat displeasing to the King, but they remained in force until abrogated by Laud, who substituted for them the familiar Thirty-nine Articles of England. However, Irish Protestantism had contracted a strong leaning towards the austerities of the Puritans. It was unfortunate in many ways, for it rendered impossible any mutual toleiatlon, much less reconciliation, between them and theRoman Catholics, whose head, the Pope, was specially stigmatised as Anti-Christ by one of Ussher’s articles. The policy of Kings James I. and Charles I. in the religious, as in every other question, was largely controlled by their continual need of money. Charles bargained with the Catholics for a subsidy in return for certain concessions called the “Graces.” The extreme Protestants inveighed against “setting religion to sale,” but their remonstrances went for nothing. Charles obtained ^120,000, but, by avoiding the parliament necessary for confirming the Graces, evaded the complete fulfilment of his promises. However, the Catholics enjoyed for a
while a pre73
[The Story of Dublin]
carious toleration. Their enemies were irritated beyond measure to see them building convents and churches in Dublin and openly celebrating Mass. A Roman Catholic University was founded in Back Lane. The very name of the street chosen shows that the founders were not desirous that their creation should attract much public attention. They were soon to find how poorly freedom of conscience was guaranteed by the mere word of Charles I., unconfirmed by legislative enactment. In 1629 Falkland, a tolerant governor, was succeeded by two strongly Protestant lords justices, Lord Ely and Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork. The laws enforcing attendance at the service of the Established Church were at once put in motion. The fury of the new administration was especially directed against the monastic orders. The mayor and the Archbishop of Dublin, followed by a file of soldiers, burst into a Franciscan chapel at the hour of Mass. The mayor tore down the paintings and the prelate was proceeding to demolish the pulpit, while his followers arrested the officiating priest. A riot ensued between the angry congregation and the soldiers. The prisoners were rescued and the raiders mobbed and pelted back through the streets. The government, in retaliation, closed sixteen monasteries in the city and suppressed the college in Back Lane. In 1633 the most autocratic viceroy of all, Thomas Wentworth, afterward Earl of Strafford, was sent over by the King. He was a thoroughly loyal servant to his monarch. Careless of everything else, he pursued his great aims of building up an armed force and a steady revenue in Ireland to aid the King in his struggle with the English parliament. The Catholics could obtain a relaxation of the laws against “recusants “by a
liberal contribution to the royal coffers. The 74
Roy alis /, Roundhead and Catholic authority of the King was exalted in every transaction of the State. The Corporation of Dublin claimed an ancient exemption from the duty of maintaining soldiers. Strafford bluntly told them that “Ireland was a conquered country and the King could give them whatever laws he pleased.” The recorder pleaded the ancient rights of the city, but the viceroy, with a sneer at “old antiquated charters,” assured him that they were only of what value his majesty pleased. The proud civic officials resisted, but were dismissed from their positions and flung into gaol by order of the Castle Chamber, not to be released until they paid enormous fines running into thousands of pounds. Even the nobility could not withstand the browbeating governor. The Boyle monument, erected to the memory of the family of the Earl of Cork, was ejected from the chancel of S. Patrick’s, where it had horrified Laud by usurping the place of the high altar. The earl’s consequent enmity for Straffbrd had a great 75
BOYLE MONUMENT IN S. PATRICK’S CATHEDRAL.
[The Story of Dublin] share in bringing about the downfall of the great minister. One Irish lord had the courage to defy the terrible “Black Tom,” as the people, with their usual genius for a nickname, had styled him. The young Marquis of Ormond felt his order insulted by a regulation that peers attending the parliament in Dublin should come without arms. He haughtily refused to surrender his sword to Black Rod, and, when it was again demanded, threatened that the pertinacious official should receive the weapon, not in his hand, but thrust through his body. Strafford summoned the recalcitrant before his council. Ormond made the clever defence that he was summoned as a “belted earl,” one “cinctus gladio,” or “girt with a sword.” The viceroy accepted the plea and took Ormond into favour, either liking his high spirit, or not wishing to make an enemy of the chief of the great Butler family. In 1640 Strafford left Ireland, destined, though he knew it not, to be betrayed by his master to a shameful death at the hands of his enemies. His rule in Ireland was not unsuccessful, though his methods could not be defended. For his own ends he had granted toleration to the Catholics. In conjunction with Laud, he had repressed the laxity of the Irish Church, driving the revellers from the crypt of Christ Church and the gossips and loungers from its vaulted aisles. Laud had also reconstituted Trinity College on the lines followed at Oxford. Strafford had brought over in his train the English dramatic poet, James Shirley, and soon provided his protege with a field wherein to display his talents. The long and interesting annals of the stage in Dublin commence with the establishment of the first city theatre, in Werburgh Street, in 1635. The seeds of revolt had, however, been sown by one part of StrarFord’s policy. Colonies, or “plantations,” as they were called, brought in
money to the 76
Royalist) Roundhead and Catholic Crown, though they gave rise to bitter and murderous feuds between the new settlers and the dispossessed natives, who were thus ousted to make room for strangers. The landless men often became outlaws, lurking in dark glens in the hills or in the woody fastnesses of the bogs, from whence they conducted a war of savage reprisal. These were the robbers or “Tories” of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, whose name was afterwards transferred to one of the great English political parties. StrarTbrd had “planted “with a reckless disregard of the rights of the original holders, who saw themselves ejected by the high hand of the viceroy, or quibbled out of their lands by the subtleties of his lawyers. Despairing of redress, the unhappy men formed a project for expelling the planters by a simultaneous and universal rising all over Ireland. The castle of Dublin was to be surprised on the 23rd of October 1641. To the Ulstermen, under Sir Phelim O’Neill, a nephew of the great Tyrone, was assigned the attack on the north or main gate in Cork Hill. The Leinstermen, led by representatives of two tribes, which had sufTered much from confiscations, namely, the Wicklow O’Byrnes and rhe Queen’s County O’Moores, were to assault the south gate near Ship Street. On the same day every English castle and fortress in Ireland was to be assailed. The citadel of Dublin would have been a rich and an easy prize. Within its crumbling walls were stored 1 500 barrels of powder, 10,000 stand of arms, and 35 field-pieces, under the slender protection of eight aged warders and the viceroy’s ornamental bodyguard of forty halberdiers. A mere chance saved the unsuspecting lords justices from ruin. M’Mahon, one of the conspirators, while carousing with a certain O’Connolly on the eve of the attempt, was indiscreet enough to
boast of his designs. 77
[The Story of Dublin] O’ConnoIly was not so drunk as not to recognise the gravity of this intelligence, and, slipping out of the house on some pretence, went straight to the lord justice, Sir William Parsons, and revealed the whole plot. Parsons paid little attention to what seemed the maunderings of a half-drunken man, and dismissed O’ConnoIly after a brief interview. But a consultation with his colleague, Borlase, a veteran soldier, altered his views, and it was decided to send men to seek out O’ConnoIly and to arrest M’Mahon and the others. The former was easily found, for he had fallen into the hands of the watch on emerging from Parsons’ house. M’Mahon was captured, but most of his fellows escaped. While he was waiting to undergo his preliminary examination his guards were amazed to see their prisoner drawing figures of men hanged on gibbets or lying prostrate on the ground. His sardonic humour may have been busy with thoughts of his own probable fate, but, in the light of subsequent events, this strange choice of a subject was interpreted as showing that the captive was already gloating in anticipation over the cruel massacres, which marked the successes of the rebels in Ulster. The insurrection had hung fire in Leinster, but the lords justices had been thoroughly frightened during the night of panic and helplessness, which had lasted from the discovery of the plot until the unexpected arrival of reinforcements early next morning. Timidity is often the parent of cruelty. Their needless severities drove the loyal Catholics into revolt. Under the name of the *’ Confederation of Kilkenny “they set up what was practically an independent government, which held sway over the greater part of Ireland. Ormond became Lord Lieutenant
in 1644. His rule barely extended a score of miles from Dublin. 78
Royalist, Roundhead and Catholic Ulster was divided between Phelim O’Neill’s warriors and an invading army of Scottish Presbyterians under Munro. The authority of the confederation was respected all over the South. Ormond discharged his difficult task with great vigour and ability. He lacked both money and men for the defence even of the capital. The city was called on to furnish funds at the rate of hundreds of pounds weekly, while the viceroy spent ^13,000 of his private fortune. His wife headed a party of noble ladies who brought with their own hands baskets of earth to build ramparts behind the tottering walls of the town. The Catholic generals, Owen Roe O’Neill and Preston, blockaded Dublin itself, and harried the county, until the citizens could count no less than two hundred fires from their church steeples. Ormond lay quiet in his lines, and the besiegers were at length compelled to draw off for lack of supplies. In the meantime, the Parliamentary party, completely victorious in England, turned its attention to the sister country. Harassed on all sides, the faithful viceroy could not contend with this fourth antagonist. In 1647, by the direction of the King, and with the .consent of the Irish parliament and council, he delivered up the swq d of state to commissioners from England, and sought an honourable exile in France. The execution of the King in 1649 cause d a sudden revulsion among many of those who had hitherto silently acquiesced in the triumph of the Parliament. Ormond returned to Ireland, and put himself at the head of the Royalist army, which was now reinforced by many Catholics offended at the religious fury of the Puritans. It fell to his lot to besiege the very city which he had defended with such spirit. But Dublin was now garrisoned by soldiers of the new Cromwellian type, commanded by Michael Jones, an 79
[The Story of Dublin] uncouth and austere fanatic, but an excellent general. For some reason or other, Prince Rupert, the famous cavalry leader, now turned admiral, refused to lend his ships to cut off Jones’s supplies by a blockade of the harbour. Ormond encamped first at Castleknock, then at Finglas. Acting from this base, he succeeded in taking Dundalk and Drogheda. However, his great aim was to get near enough to the entrance of the port to control all approach to the city by water. His troops reached Rathmines, with the intention of working round to Ringsend, from which point any ship trying to enter the Liffey could be sunk by cannon shot. Ormond planned a night attack on Baggotrath Castle, near the present Baggot Street, with a view to mounting guns there, and rendering it impossible for Jones to graze his cavalry horses on the city commons at Stephen’s Green. It proved a complete failure. The troops took all night to march a single mile. In the morning the better-disciplined Parliamentarians advanced and routed them with ridiculous ease. Ormond hardly knew the battle had begun before the fugitives came pouring past his tent. Twelve days later, on the I4th August 1649, Oliver Cromwell with a large army landed at Dublin, determined to restore order and punish offenders with the utmost severity. The capital, which had just proved its faithfulness to the new regime, was kindly treated; but its near neighbour, Drogheda, was taken by storm, and the defenders put to the sword, together with many friars and non-combatant townsmen. This massacre, with the similar scene enacted at Wexford, left an indelible mark on Cromwell’s reputation. With a cold-hearted barbarity that mars his undoubted claims as a statesman and general, he records how some of the vanquished fled to the steeple of a church, which was
immediately, by his orders, set on fire. He was 80
Royalist^ Roundhead and Catholic
near enough to note the cries of his victims, for he heard one poor wretch say, “Damn me, I burn, I burn.” Still, with all his cruelty towards Irish Royalists and Catholics, a terrible, resistless savagery, which so impressed the natives that the “curse o’ Crummle” is even now a bitter imprecation in the South, he sometimes showed an insight into Irish problems. He was the first to convene a parliament for the whole of the British Isles, Ireland and Scotland as well as England. In 1654 Dublin returned its mayor as representative of the borough in a united parliament of the three kingdoms at Westminster. During the troubled interval between the death of *’ grim old Oliver “and the restoration of the Stuarts, Dublin showed itself once more Royalist. A party of officers suspected of favouring that cause seized the Castle and, finding themselves driven from thence by Sir Hardress Waller, rode through the streets loudly calling for “a free parliament.” Their cause was warmly espoused by the citizens. After a siege of five days Waller surrendered, and was sent to England under escort. The officers now openly avowed themselves in favour of a Restoration, and Charles II. was soon proclaimed king in Dublin.
81
CHAPTER IX Williamlte and Jacobite 1660-1702 “Lo ( this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.” Ecclesiasles. \A7HEN “the King came to his own again” Ormond was well rewarded for his fidelity to the Stuart cause. He was raised to the highest rank in the peerage, a dukedom, and reappointed to his old position as Lord Lieutenant. The pailiament, which met in Dublin in 1661, enthusiastically voted ^-30,000 to the incoming viceroy, while the municipal authorities entertained him with banquets, fireworks, and pageants. The city, which had been among the first to declare for the Restoration, was specially honoured by the King. The mayor received a gold chain as a mark of royal favour, and was allowed to dignify his office by styling himself the “Right Honourable the Lord Mayor.” The Irish capital was recognised as being no longer a mere provincial town, but the chief city of a large portion of the King’s dominions, and entitled to the same privileges and distinctions as London or Edinburgh. The metropolis seemed to rise to its true position. During the reign of Charles II. it expanded on all sides, especially to the east and north. For centuries the inhabitants, fearing mountaineers and marauders, 82
Williamite and Jacobite had huddled together in the network of narrow streets that was enclosed by the city walls, and protected by the towers of the castle. Cork Hill was their eastern boundary, the river their northern, S. James’s Gate, now the site of Guinness’ s great brewery, was the western entrance, while S. Patrick’s Cathedral lay in the suburbs some hundred yards outside the southern gate. The north bank of the river was probably destitute of human habitation save for a little cluster of buildings around S. Michan’s Church and the derelict S. Mary’s Abbey. The common called Oxmantown Green covered the greater part of the district now enclosed between the northern quays and the North Circular Road. This wide tract was now laid out for building and soon became the most fashionable quarter of Dublin, a position which it held till some fifty years ago, when its patrons forsook it and went to live in the southern suburbs or along the shores of the bay. Ormond was viceroy for some years of this period, and probably inspired most of the schemes -for the improvement of the city. He was a man of the type of Chesterfield, stately and dignified, yet urbane, well-mannered, and witty. The people ha,”e a great liking for a grand seigneur of this kind. During his two terms of office there was a continual interchange of compliments and presents between the Tholsel, or Town Hall, and the Castle. The first extension of Dublin was towards Stephen’s Green, one of the three ancient commons, where the cattle of the burghers were allowed to graze. Hoggen Green, later called College Green, had been already occupied by Trinity College and the new suburban thoroughfare of Dame Street, which connected it with the Castle and the city proper. The outskirts of Stephen’s Green were now divided into lots and disposed of to various purchasers, the proceeds to go 83
[The Story of Dublin]
towards enclosing the central space with a wall and planting it with trees. Oxmantown Green, portions of which still survive in Blackhall Place and Smithfield, was treated in much the same way. The wealthier traders built themselves houses and laid out gardens in the new quarter away from the congestion and squalor of the central streets. As Oxmantown
THE ROYAL HOSPITAL.
lay to the north of the LifFey, its occupation made it necessary to increase the number of bridges over the river. While S. Michan’s Church and a few houses round it constituted the only parish on the further bank, one bridge had proved sufficient for the traffic. To accommodate the rising suburb no less than four were built in rapid succession. Two were called after Ormond and his son Arran, another, after a subsequent viceroy, Essex, while the fourth, which was a wooden structure, received the ill-omened title of the Bloody Bridge, from a fierce riot at its opening between the soldiers and the apprentices. The latter had probably 84
Williamite and Jacobite been instigated to disorder by the owners of profitable ferries rendered useless by the new erection. About this period, too, the northern suburb was given a fine river front by the construction of a line of ornamental quays along the left bank of the river. At the same time Dublin, as if conscious of her destiny, began a series of great public buildings, fitted to adorn any capital in Europe. The Royal Hospital at Kilmainham was built as a home for Irish veteran soldiers. Its quaint piazza and graceful tower are from the designs of Sir Christopher Wren. A portion of Oxmantown Green was utilised for the site of a free school on the model of Christ’s Hospital in London. This is the present Bluecoat School in Blackball Place. As though it were intended to compensate the citizens eventually for the loss of their ancient commons, Ormond commenced to lay out the spacious Phoenix Park. It was originally intended as a hunting-ground and pleasaunce for the viceroys only, but was soon thrown open to the public generally. After the troubles of the Puritan epoch, Dublin enjoyed comparative peace during the reign of Charles II. The Catholics were completely submissive,’ heir spirits apparently broken by the cruelties of Cromwell. Many of them left the country in despair and placed their swords at the disposal of France and Spain. Those that remained enjoyed a precarious toleration, liable to be curtailed at any moment by the whim of a viceroy or the popular panic excited by a supposed popish plot. They were made to realise distinctly their inferiority. No office, in State or city, could be held by a Catholic, unless he chose to take an oath which was practically an abjuration of his faith. The King, however, as far as possible, favoured their creed, and his influence procured some relaxation of the laws against them. 85
[The Story of Dublin]
The Protestant Episcopal Church, ever a close ally of the monarchy, was restored to its former position. The Puritans of Dublin petitioned for the establishment of the Presbyterian form of worship, but found themselves forestalled. The first act of the new government was to appoint twelve new bishops to the vacant Irish sees. The whole dozen were consecrated together in S. Patrick’s Cathedral. Jeremy Taylor, the most poetic and spiritual of preachers, was one of their number and occupied the pulpit on the occasion. The anthem used at the ceremony has been preserved. It is more remarkable for its loyalty and orthodoxy than for either devotional feeling or literary merit. “Angels, look down, and joy to see, Like that above, a monarchic; Angels, look down, and joy to see, Like that above, a hierarchic.” Many of the courtiers of Charles II. were jealous of the brilliant Ormond. Buckingham, especially, was his bitter enemy. Intrigues were continually set on foot against the viceroy. It was insinuated that his rigid principle and decided Protestantism rendered him an unfit instrument for a king with a strong tendency to Catholicism and arbitrary government. In 1669, after eight years of office, he was recalled in disgrace. But his prestige and popularity were such that Charles was eventually obliged to restore him to his old post, which he held until the accession of James II. During his eclipse Ormond had taken a quiet revenge on his foes by the only method which he might use and they could appreciate, the making of epigrams. Colonel Gary Dillon entreated Ormond’s assistance at court, saying he had no friend but God and the duke. “Alas ! poor Gary,” said the latter, “thou couldst not have named two friends of less
interest or less respected there.” 86
Williamite and Jacobite The friendly relations between the Castle and the Tholsel were broken off during the supersession of Ormond. Essex, viceroy during this period, met with a stubborn resistance in his attempt to manipulate the corporation of Dublin in accordance with the royal wishes. The commons of the city refused to admit strangers and Catholics to the franchise. Even at the Lord Lieutenant’s orders they would not erase the record of their disobedience from the minutes of the assembly. They boldly questioned the claims of the King’s representative to override the laws of the land and the ancient privileges of their town. Essex was baffled. In face of the watchful hostility of the Country Party in England, he dared not push matters to extremes. He resigned soon afterwards, and the impecunious and profligate King is said to have offered the vacant post for sale. No one presented himself however. Public attention had just been called to the nobleman, who might justly claim the reversion of the office. Ormond had narrowly escaped assassination at the hands of Colonel Blood, one of the most picturesque and daring ruffians in history. This man, whose name well suggests his character, had headed a hare-brained attack on Dublin Castle soon after the Restoration, and was destined to make a celebrated attempt to seize the Crown jewels in the Tower of London. Blood stopped the Duke’s coach and dragged him out. Nothing hindered him from murdering his helpless enemy there and then, but Blood’s fondness for the sensational brought about his defeat. He determined to hang his captive at Tyburn so as to astonish all London next morning with the sight of “better company at Tyburn Tree” than the footpads and highwaymen who usually swung there. The delay gave Qrmond’s servants time to come up and rescue their 8?
[The Story of Dublin] master. This outrage produced a revulsion in the Duke’s favour. He was again sent to Ireland as viceroy and conducted the government there until the accession of James II. On his arrival he found the breach between the two religions wider than ever. The Catholics, believing themselves supported by Charles and his brother James, Duke of York, were becoming bolder in their attitude. The Protestants, dreading a recurrence of the scenes of 1641 in the event of a Catholic triumph, and alarmed by stories of plots and intended massacres, clamoured for severe measures against the rival creed. Ormond favoured his own co-religionists and issued proclamations against the Catholics. Papists were not to be admitted within the walls of Dublin Castle, and, as far as possible, were excluded from the fortified towns of Ireland. The Catholics throughout the country were disarmed, their priests banished from the kingdom. Peter Talbot, Archbishop of Dublin, though his ill-health might have precluded suspicions, was imprisoned in the Castle, where he lingered, slowly dying of kidney disease. In 1685 James II. ascended the throne, fully determined to restore Britain to the religion it had rejected a century before. Ormond was soon recalled. His successor was a Protestant, but a mere man of straw. Ireland was practically governed by the Catholic Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnell, who was made commander-in-chief. He was a reckless, hasty man, by no means fitted for the task of quietly engineering a revolution in a country seething with bitterness and distrust. The Protestants, to their alarm and disgust, found themselves treated as they had treated others in the past. They were disarmed and excluded from official positions. An attempt was made to
deprive them of the lands, which had once
W’tlliamite and Jacobite belonged to the native Irish, but had been confiscated by the government after the rebellion and conferred on Cromwellian troopers or faithful Royalists. In 1687 Tyrconnell became Lord Lieutenant. Something like a panic reigned among the English inhabitants at the news. The quays of Dublin were thronged with families fleeing in terror from the country. Yet one class of Protestants doggedly held by the city, determined to endure all rather than go on their wanderings a second time. These were the French Huguenots, persecuted at home by Louis XIV. until they fled to seek religious freedom across the Channel. They had settled in Dublin in great numbers and brought with them their trade of weaving. For many years they formed a little French colony in Dublin, having their own little churches and marrying, christening and burying in their own tongue and according to their own rites. Many of them rose to great eminence. Latouche’s Bank and D’Olier Street preserved the names of Huguenot immigrants. James II., the most pusillanimous of monarchs, abandoned two of his kingdoms to William of Orange without striking a blow. Somewhat tardily he made up his mind to fight for the third. The Irish rallied enthusiastically round a king of their own faith, and Louis XIV. sent assistance from France. James entered Dublin in triumph in a great procession accompanied by ecclesiastics in gorgeous vestments bearing the Host. Tyrconnell handed over the Castle to his master. In all Ireland only the two northern towns of Londonderry and Enniskillen held out against the royal forces. James went north to view the operations against Derry, but soon returned to the safer and more congenial task of holding a parliament of his sympathisers. The English connection and the Protestant establishment were alike abolished.
The Mass
‘[The Story of Dublin] was again celebrated in Christ Church. Trinity College was used as a barracks and a prison for recalcitrants. Its chapel was turned into a powder magazine. Most of the fellows had fled to England, but four had the courage to stand by their old home. James meditated handing over the college to the Jesuits. A Roman Catholic provost was appointed, who, at a time when the college was daily thronged by turbulent soldiery, did a great service to learning in Ireland by preserving intact the treasures of the library. James’s great need was money. Troops he had in plenty, but no pay for them. He resorted to an expedient long remembered against him. The coinage was debased to an almost incredible extent. To quote Leland, “brass and copper of the basest kind, old cannon, broken bells, household utensils, were assiduously collected; and from every pound weight of such vile materials, valued at fourpence, pieces were coined and circulated to the amount of five pounds in nominal value.” When brass and copper grew scarce, still baser coin was issued, made of tin and pewter. The citizens were compelled to give good bread and meat for these wretched counters. In Orange toasts, to this day, King William is hailed as the deliverer of Ireland as well from “brass money “as from “popery and arbitrary government.” The war went steadily against the Jacobites. Derry was relieved after enduring the agonies of slow starvation. The Enniskillen men did not wait to be besieged. They sallied out to Newtownbutler and defeated in the open field the army sent to invest their city. William and his aged Huguenot general Schomberg landed in Ulster and marched on Dublin. Cloudesley Shovel’s fleet hovered round the bay and cut off a convoy destined for France. The Irish troops lined the Boyne to prevent William’s
passage 90
Wllliamite and Jacobite southward. But, under the command of the incompetent James, they were no match for their veteran opponents. Important fords were left unguarded, and a whole English division crossed unmolested to fall on the Irish flank. The late King of Great Britain and Ireland took the greatest care of himself, while the Prince of Orange exposed himself fearlessly. A cannon-shot went so near to killing him that rejoicings for his death were ordered in Dublin and, later, in Paris. William and Schomberg headed their men in the dash across the fords of the Boyne. The Huguenot general, now over eighty years of age, was killed while rallying his compatriots for a charge. The Irish were completely routed, their king himself beginning the flight and being the first to arrive at Dublin with the news of his defeat. There is a story of his laying all the blame of the disaster on his troops. “The wretched Irish ran,” said he. “Yes,” retorted an Irish lady, “but apparently Your Majesty ran faster.” James shook the dust of Dublin and Ireland off his feet and returned to France. During the interval which elapsed between the evacuation of the Irish and the occupation by King William, order was maintained in Dublin by a member of the ancient Fitzgerald family. The dispossessed Protestant aldermen, who still claimed to be the only lawful municipal body in the city, emerged from their concealment and were confirmed in their authority by the King. The Anglophile party in Ireland were more afraid of Catholicism than ever. The dismal history of persecution begins all over again. A penal code was enacted surpassing all its predecessors in its stupid brutality. Catholics could not teach, keep arms, purchase land or rent it on long lease, vote at elections, hold any office or even possess a horse worth more than £5. These measures were forced on 91
[The Story of Dublin] William, naturally a tolerant man, by the dominant party in both countries. The only satisfactory points about the whole saddening record are firstly, that it is the last religious persecution in Irish history, and, secondly, that its more outrageous provisions were rendered a dead letter by the kindly connivance of Protestant magistrates entrusted with the execution of the laws. After the Revolution, just as after the Restoration, the city entered on a career of improvement and expansion. The dissenters, having proved loyal, were now more liberally treated. Meeting houses were erected in Dublin by the Presbyterians and the Quakers. The latter had been subjected to some persecution under Charles II. Their conscientious objections to paying tithes, closing their shops on churcli festivals, removing their hats or giving sworn testimony in courts of justice, had caused them to be regarded as a pack of noxious faddists, meriting the stocks or the gaol. But they gradually wore down the public prejudices and, like the Huguenots, became an important factor in Dublin commercial life. The Library Square in Trinity College was commenced about this time. Lamps were erected to light the streets, replacing the old haphazard device, by which every fifth house was compelled to put out a candle or a lantern on dark nights. The mayoral collar of SS, so called from the shape of its links, which had been presented by Charles II., had disappeared in 1688. It is probable that it was appropriated to the needs of government, like the Trinity College plate seized about the same time. William III. presented another of the same pattern, which is still used. The mayor who received this mark of royal favour was a naturalised Dutchman, Bartholomew Vanhomrigh, father of Swift’s unhappy Vanessa. In 1685 the first Dublin 92
Williamite and Jacobite newspaper was published, a single sheet twelve inches long by six inches wide, about the size of a modern handbill or circular. A statue, the oldest still standing in the city, was erected to William III. in College Green. The Protestants almost idolised this monument, decking it with orange ribbons on festival days, and compelling all who passed by to do it reverence. The Catholic Jacobites retaliated by nocturnal insults and gunpowder outrages directed against the unfortunate effigy. However, the war of creeds slowly died out. The parliamentary struggle for Irish autonomy took its rise towards the end of William III.’s reign. The English parliament, under the influence of traders jealous of the growing manufactures and commerce of Ireland, used its power to cripple the prosperity of its dependency. The bankrupt merchants of Dublin, with all their loyalty, felt with Shylock that “You take my life, when you do take the means Whereby I live.” The right of the assembly in London, where no Irishmen attended, to pass laws affecting the whole unrepresented territory of Ireland, rested on little basis except prescription. It was now boldly challenged by William Molyneux, a member for Dublin University in the Irish parliament. His book, called “The Case of Ireland,” excited the indignation of the English Commons to such an extent that they ordered it to be burnt by the common hangman. It is easy to burn books, and even to burn men, but not to burn ideas. The seed sown by Molyneux bore fruit in the constitutional struggle for Irish autonomy which lasted all through the eighteenth century. The capital was the centre of the fight throughout. The Celtic gift of eloquence, which had lain dormant for centuries, at last found a vent. The old Parliament House 93
[The Story of Dublin] sounded with the splendid oratory of generations of fervent and ardent patriots, while College Green outside was blocked by crowds waiting to acclaim the popular leaders and hoot the ministry. It is a singular contrast to the endless raids, sieges and skirmishes which precede this period, and to the dull, halfdiscontented apathy
consequent on the Union, which marked its termination.
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CHAPTER X Protestant Ascendancy and Commercial Restriction 1702-1760
“ O! it is excellent To have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant.” Shakespeare.
T
HE angry passions of the Jacobite wars soon died away in Dublin, and a reconciliation might have taken place had the victors shown the slightest disposition towards such a policy. Unfortunately the triumphant Williamites seemed to have taken as their motto, “to the victor the spoils.” Roman Catholics were ejected from every post of honour or profit in the municipality. Even the humble office of charwoman in the Tholsel was taken from its papist holder and bestowed on a Protestant. None of that persecuted religion had vote or voice in the affairs of his native town. Three-fourths of the people of Ireland were reduced by the penal laws to the position of the Gibeonites, “hewers of wood and drawers of water “to a dominant minority. But a Nemesis was at hand for the oppressors themselves. The Irish Protestants, though they were encouraged to ride roughshod over their theological opponents, were treated with bitter injustice whenever their trade prospered sufficiently to excite the jealousy of London. The handicaps on commerce were 95
[The Story of Dublin] numerous and vexatious. Tariffs, embargoes, Navigation Acts, restrictions of all kinds, were imposed on the unfortunate Irish merchant, who was almost always a Protestant and a Loyalist, sometimes by the English parliament, where he was unrepresented, sometimes by his own assembly in a fit of timid subservience. There was no possibility of retaliation, for Poynings’ Act made English approval a necessary preliminary to the passing of an Irish statute. The false colonial policy of the day treated the population of dependencies as mere ciphers in comparison with the home country, not as men of British birth, with a right to be consulted in all measures affecting their happiness, freedom and prosperity. The result was that America was lost for ever, and Ireland alienated for centuries. In 1703 a petition was forwarded from Dublin, praying for a complete union of the two countries on the lines afterwards adopted in 1801. The authorities in London rejected the proposal, preferring, it would seem, an arbitrary domination to a fair partnership. Union would necessarily have meant the removal of all obstruction to a free commerce between the countries, and the elevation of Ireland from the Cinderella-like position she was forced to occupy. The administration was conducted in the same spirit, regarding English interests rather than Irish welfare, which, after all, was really the greatest of English interests. The body politic of the British Isles could not be healthy so long as one member was chafing and inflamed. Lord Lieutenants were appointed who spent most of their time out of the country-they were supposed to govern. The great patronage at their disposal was used to fill every office in Dublin with place-hunters from Great Britain, men of a needy, avaricious type knowing little and caring less about the needs of Ireland. The hierarchy itself, the head of which was 96
Protestant Ascendancy usually called on to govern the country during the viceroy’s frequent absences, was largely composed of such undesirable importations. Swift’s jibe at the Irish bishops is well known. He said that, of course, Englishmen of character and piety were appointed, but, by some mischance, were always murdered on the way to their Irish sees by the highwaymen of Hounslow Heath, who travelled on to Dublin and presented themselves there with the credentials of their victims. In 1719 the supremacy of the English parliament reached its height. In that year it passed an Act affirming positively its power to bind Ireland by its decrees. This is the statute known to history as the Sixth of George I. In 1723 Walpole’s government gave to the Duchess of Kendal, a mistress of the King, a patent for supplying Ireland with copper coinage. She sold her concession to William Wood, an ironmaster of Birmingham. It was apparently an ordinary piece of jobbery, conducted throughout with the usual carelessness of Irish feeling. But the ministry had gone too far this time. The country was both alarmed and indignant. It had u keen remembrance of the suffering caused by the debased money of James II. There was no regular mint in Dublin, and no guarantee could be had for the goodness of the new pence and halfpence. The small change of the whole nation, affecting as it did the daily life of the very poorest classes, seemed handed over to the tender mercies of a commercial speculator. The general discontent soon found a voice. Jonathan Swift, dean of S. Patrick’s, had long cherished a grudge against a government, which had withheld from him the bishopric, that seemed a fit reward for his talents. With all the ardour and bitterness of his temperament he flung himself into the fray on the popular
side, and launched a series of pamphlets, the G 97
[The Story of Dublin] famous Drapier Letters, against Wood and his money. For the nonce he assumed the style of an honest, unpretentious city draper, a character which successfully masked the real fury and exaggeration of Swift’s attacks. In the same simple, direct language, that carries off the traveller’s tales of Gulliver, he draws pictures of ladies going shopping with a cartload of Wood’s copper, of a poor man giving thirty-six halfpence for a quart of ale, of the ruin even of the beggars, for to give a mendicant such a coin would “do him no more service than if I should give him three pins out of my sleeve.” Every word went home. The money which was not nearly so bad as Swift represented, was universally refused. Although the authorship of the letters was an open secret, the government dared not molest the dean. The printer was arrested, but the grand jury refused to return him for trial, afterwards ranging itself still more definitely on the side of “W. B. Drapier” by presenting as criminals all who took the money in payments. The obnoxious halfpence were eventually withdrawn, and the party of Irish autonomy secured its first victory. Swift had given an impetus to the movement started by jMolyneux. The fortunes of Ireland were now all centred in the parliamentary struggles at the seat of government, not, as of old, in the gallant unavailing resistance of chiefs and leaders in remote provinces. The focus of Irish politics is no longer at Benburb, Kinsale, Athlone, or Limerick, but at College Green, Dublin. The result was a great influx of the aristocracy into the capital. The effects of this immigration on the life of the city were manifold. There was a further expansion towards the north and south east. Whole streets of tall stately houses were erected on the north bank of the LifFey, nearer the sea than the suburb 98
Protestant Ascendancy built in Ormond’s time. This was the most fashionable quarter, rising gently as it does from the river and looking towards the midday sun and the distant blue ridge qf the mountains. It is now the home of a poor and swarming population. The grand entrances, wide stairs, and decorated ceilings of the Georgian period may still be seen falling to decay in the tenement houses of Great Britain, Dorset, Dominick and Henrietta Streets. The southern extension has fared better, and is still inhabited by the classes for whom it was first intended. It lies around Merrion Square, Dawson Street and Stephen’s Green. The greater nobles built themselves huge town houses in both districts, vicing with one another in the luxury and splendour of their new mansions. Most of these, after some vicissitudes, have now become government offices. Dublin society of the eighteenth century was brilliant with an almost feverish energy and restlessness. Theatres and music halls were found in almost every street, and were better patronised than they are in the present city, which has thrice the population. Handel chose Dublin for the first performance of his masterpiece. “The Messiah “was produced at a concert hall in Fishamble Street by the joint choirs of the cathedrals. Many of the aristocracy threw themselves into the struggle for self-government. Others, disliking and distrusting the tainted politics of the time, devoted themselves to encouraging Irish industries in every possible manner. In 1731 the Dublin Society was formed, a band of zealous amateurs, who set themselves each to study some particular branch of manufacture and the best method of fostering it. Prizes were offered for clever inventions and good workmanship. Irish art, as well as commerce, was developed by similar means. The Society’s “efforts
99
[The Story of Dublin] were crowned with success. The little association of 1731 has now a revenue of ^25,000 yearly, all spent in the furtherance of the ends indicated by the original founders. Its great annual Horse Show in August has spread far and wide the fame of that clever and courageous animal, the Irish hunter. The improvement of the port became a subject of concern to the corporation. They obtained permission to control the harbour and set up a Ballast Office for its regulation. The channel was walled as far as Ringsend, and a breakwater, now called the South Wall, was commenced. In 1726, a Linen Hall had been erected for the sale of that commodity, the only Irish manufacture which did not enter into competition with English productions and was therefore secure from crippling legislation. Charity was housed as well as industry. Steevens’ and Mercer’s Hospitals were founded. A workhouse was built to accommodate the indigent poor, and a Foundling Home added later. But there was a dark side to all this progress. The newborn vigour of the upper classes turned itself sometimes into evil channels. Dublin had its distinctive vices. It became noted for a peculiar recklessness, which heeded neither God nor man. Drinking, gambling, and even duelling may be passed over. They are the commonplaces of the social history of the period in every capital in Europe. But legends are rife of Irish gentlemen of birth and breeding delivering themselves over to a blasphemy and indecency, which recall Sedley and Rochester, of Hellfire Clubs mocking Heaven and worshipping the Evil One, of great lords exhibiting themselves naked and unashamed to the public gaze. The libertines of the day, unfortunately, did not confine themselves to
invoking shame and damnation 100
Protestant Ascendancy on their own heads. The Hellfire Club is a vague and rather shadowy tradition. But the abductions and forced marriages of Irish history are well authenticated, and show singular heartlessness and brutality in their perpetrators. Some rake, whose patrimony had vanished at the gaming-table, would mark out an heiress for his prey, lie in ambush near her house and carry her off to some obscure nook in the mountains, where a degraded parson or priest would be in readiness to perform the ceremony. The victim would refuse at first, but would be frightened into compliance by the threat of dishonour. Some, stubborn to the end, were submitted to that last of outrages, and, seeking in their shame “to be made honest women again “were joined to their persecutors in what must have proved a hideous mockery of “Holy Matrimony.” The culprit’s family connections usually secured him against any serious punishment; as a rule, he came off scot-free, with a second fortune to squander as he pleased. The country was the usual scene of these outrage-:, but they happened not infrequently in the city and suburbs.x’/ The populace had been corrupted by bad example, and admired these villains as bold, dashing fellows. It imitated from afar the practices of its superiors. The city was rent by the continual broils of local factions as purposeless and bloody as the feuds of Montague and Capulet or the circus riots of Byzantium. The weavers of the Earl of Meath’s Liberty around S. Patrick’s, calling themselves the Liberty Boys, fought desperate battles along the bridges and quays with the Ormond Boys, the butchers in Ormond Market on the opposite side of the river. One source of discontent in Dublin had been removed by the building of the Royal Barracks, commenced in 1704. Before that date soldiers had 101
[The Story of Dublin] been billeted on the citizens, who found their presence and their maintenance a great domestic evil. The Crown commenced to collect its troops all over Ireland into large structures specially constructed for their reception. This, like other concessions to the subject, proved the forerunner of many more. There was no legal provision for regularly calling a parliament in Ireland. Only financial needs compelled its assembly. If the government could manage on its revenues without imposing fresh taxes, no parliament need be summoned for an indefinite period. The drain caused by the barrack establishments necessitated a session at least every second year. In 1729, after the defeat of Wood, the Lords and Commons of Ireland determined to assert themselves by the erection of a splendid new Parliament House. The style adopted was the semi-classic, for which Irish irchitects still have a distinct preference. The )uilding was very successful, well-proportioned and full of graceful lines. Though now merely a bank premises, it still adorns College Green, as in the days when Grattan thundered inside the house, instead of standing, as he now does, with hand upraised in mute appeal amid the turmoil of the traffic outside. A party was formed to resist English authority by constitutional means. It received the name of “The Patriots,” and was in perpetual opposition to the Anglicising Ministry. In 1731 the government sought to remove a certain grant from popular control by vesting it in the Crown for twenty-one years. The Opposition resisted strenuously. On a division the votes were equal, when Colonel Tottenham, mud-splashed and top-booted from a long ride, hurried into the chamber and turned the scale against the government. “Tottenham in his boots “was
long a toast in Dublin. 102
Protestant Ascendancy In 1745 there was a welcome break in the long succession of absentee and faineant viceroys. The authorities in London, fearing a Jacobite rising in Ireland as well as Scotland, sent over the Earl of Chesterfield, with instructions to practise moderation. The new governor, who is known to literary history as the would-be patron of Samuel Johnson, was a man of cultivated tastes and polished manners. His tact kept the country perfectly quiet during the all but successful campaigns of Prince Charlie. Chesterfield saw that the laws against Catholics were a senseless oppression of a harmless class, and relaxed the severity of the code, so far as he could. He was aided in his designs by an accident, which had deeply impressed many of the Protestant citizens. Mass was being celebrated in the usual furtive way in a private house, when the beam supporting the floor gave way under the weight of the people. The officiating priest and several of the congregation were killed outright, while most of those present were injured. Chesterfield, while the tragedy was still fresh in the public mind, conceded full freedom of worship, when and where they pleased, to the suffering party. His advisers were full of forebodings, but the viceroy laughed them away with the remark that the beautiful Catholic lady, Miss Ambrose, the reigning toast of Dublin, was the only “dangerous papist “he had met in Ireland. After a subjugation of fifty years, the Catholics began to enjoy some of the rights of the subject. The Phoenix Park possesses a memorial of this conciliatory ruler. In its very centre he erected on a pillar a representation of the fabled classical bird, from which, according to one account, the park derives its name. The fierce westerly gales, that sweep across the wide uplands in winter, have not quite destroyed an avenue of elms planted by his 103
[The Story of Dublin] directions in the same neighbourhood. Chesterfield was recalled after a term of office all too brief. The old gang were restored to power, but they found it difficult to undo the past. The Opposition was led with great ability by Malone, Lucas, and the young Earl of Kildare. Lucas was driven into exile for a while, but soon returned as member for the city of Dublin. In 1753, l ^ e parliament asserted its rights to dispose of a surplus without reference to the King. Some of the Catholics, long so timid, began to lift their heads and claim an equality with Protestants before the law. But the days of O’Connell were not yet come. The leaders of the movement found their co-religionists dazed and hardly venturing to trust their newly-gained toleration. However, a “Catholic Committee” was appointed in Dublin to watch the course of events, and educate the people to a perception of their rights as British subjects. The reign of George II. ended in tumults directed against the ministry. A theatre was wrecked by a mob irritated at the prohibition of a certain speech in ** Mahomet,” which might be construed as a reflection on the viceroy of the day. The English connection had become odious on account of the misgovernment of its chief supporters. In 1 703 Ireland had petitioned for a closer union with England. In 1759, on rumours of such a project being noised abroad, the mob -of Dublin got out of hand, burst into the Parliament House, and searched for the journals, in order to burn the record of some obnoxious proceedings. An old woman was seated on the throne in mockery of the Duke of Bedford, who was Lord Lieutenant. The rioters set up a gallows to hang one of their enemies, but he was fortunate enough to escape. Every member they encountered was compelled to swear hostility to a union.
Despite the exertions of the troops, peace 104
Protestant Ascendancy was not restored till a late hour. No doubt, local feeling, as well as national patriotism, had a good deal to do with the resistance of the citizens on this occasion. Dublin was afraid of becoming a mere provincial town again. But the incident is significant of the new attitude of the greater part of the Irish Protestants to the British government. Twenty years later the same class won independence by open preparation for rebellion, at a time when England was entangled in a great
war, and the country was denuded of British troops.
CHAPTER XI The Volunteers and the United Irishmen 1760-1803 “Oh, the French are in the bay, They’ll be here at break of day, And the Orange shall decay, Says the Shan Van Voght.” Old Ballad. (~\N the accession of a new king Lucas returned to ^-”^ Ireland from his exile, and resumed the leadership of the popular movement. A rough and violent democrat, of a type not unlike Wilkes, he was nevertheless a most effective politician, and, under his guidance, the Opposition made great progress. In 1760 a bill was carried, limiting the duration of an Irish parliament to eight years. Before that date it might continue indefinitely during the king’s pleasure. George II., during a reign of thirty-three years, had never dissolved the parliament which had met when he ascended the throne. It may be imagined how corrupt and corruptible members would be when thus emancipated from control. Lucas established a paper for the propagation of his principles. It still exists, having maintained the same political tenets with hardly a single relapse for nearly a century and a half. Originally called the Citizens’ Journal, it is now the wellknown freeman’s Journal. The spirit of resistance quickly rose in Ireland. The viceroys found no subservience in the elected assembly, charm they never so 1
06
Volunteers and the United Irishmen wisely. Cajolery, bribery, bullying alike failed to produce any effect. In 1767 a Lord Lieutenant was appointed, Lord Townshend, a man of the generous, convivial type usually so popular in the country. Two years after his arrival a money bill for Ireland was drawn up by the English Privy Council, and sent over for docile endorsement by the people whom it mainly concerned. The Irish Commons, holding that the direct representatives should have the first voice in questions of taxation, rejected the measure, “because it had not its origin in their house.” Townshend called them to the bar of the House of Lords and read them a sharp lecture, which he ordered to be entered in the journals of both houses. The peers complied with his direction, but the lower house set him at defiance. The viceroy was unable to force his point, and found that he had only brought on himself a great deal of unpopularity. For the rest of his term of office he was annoyed by a perpetual fusillade of squibs and ballads, composed by the wits of the Opposition, who, as usually happens with militant minorities, quite outshone their opponents in this kind of warfare. In 1772 he gave up his post. A year previously Lucas had died. The stage was being cleared for a new set of actors, Henry Grattan and the leaders of the Volunteer movement. Grattan was born in Fishamble Street, Dublin, in 1746. A brilliant and moving orator, he entered parliament at the age of twenty-nine and soon assumed the leadership of the Opposition. The commercial restraints and the domination of the English parliament over the Irish by means of Poynings’ Law and the Act known as the Sixth of George I. were the objects of his unceasing attacks. By an unforeseen series of events, he was enabled to procure the repeal 107
[The Story of Dublin] of these clogs on commerce and good government in Ireland. The American war broke out in 1776, the year after he entered parliament. The Irish garrison was depleted to furnish reinforcements for the British armies in America. Soon the revolted colonists began to have the advantage, and were joined by France and Spain. England had to face a formidable alliance of three maritime nations. The navy was at a low ebb and suffered several defeats. The coast of Ireland was exposed to the raids of numbers of well-armed privateers. During this period the American corsair Paul Jones was a veritable plague to the seaborne trade of the British Isles. In self-defence the Ulstermen formed volunteer corps for their protection in case the enemy, emboldened by success, should attempt an invasion. The movement spread all over Ireland. Within a year 40,000 men were enrolled. Practically all were Protestants, for the law did not yet permit Catholics to carry or possess arms. The restrictions on Irish commerce had been probably felt in their own persons by all the leaders and half the rank and file of these citizen troops. Grattan boldly demanded freedom of trade, conscious that the claim was backed by thousands of bayonets. A motion to that effect was appended to an address sent by parliament to the Lord Lieutenant. The members determined to deliver this protest by their own hands. The Volunteers lined Dame Street and presented arms as the Commons, headed by their speaker, passed on their way to the Castle. The government of Great Britain was threatened in no uncertain terms with war, if it refused to withdraw the obnoxious laws. Reviews were held around the statue of King William in College Green, where mottoes were
displayed suchas “Quinquaginta millia parati pro patiia mori,” “Fifty thousand men prepared to die for their 1 08
Volunteers and the United Irishmen country.” More significant still, the mouths of the cannon were encircled with a legend which read “Free Trade or this.” The Volunteers gained the day without recourse to bloodshed. In 1779 Lord North introduced measures into the British parliament, permitting free export of Irish wool and woollens and unrestrained intercourse with the Colonies. Grattan, still strong in the support of the armed manhood of Ulster and Leinster, went on to demand self-government. The Crown, he declared, was the only constitutional link between the two kingdoms. In a famous phrase he asserted “the King with the lords and commons of Ireland “to be “the only power on earth competent to exact laws to bind Ireland.” At the same time, to show that he had no desire of complete separation, he affirmed that “Great Britain and Ireland were inseparably united under one sovereign.” The American war was still dragging on. England, harassed on all sides, yielded again. In 1783 the assembly at Westminster by a special act renounced its claims to pass laws affecting Ireland. The parliament at College Green was made arbiter of the destinies of the country, restrained only by the influence of the viceroy. Its first act was to vote 1 00,000 and 20,000 men to the British Navy in a great burst of gratitude. Grattan himself received a donation of ^50,000, which enabled him to settle down as a country gentlemen at Tinnehinch near Enniskerry. The incoming Lord Lieutenant wished to present him with the viceregal lodge in the park, but Grattan declined an honour which might be misinterpreted. The new system of government, for which its founder had hoped and prophesied a perpetual existence, only lasted nineteen years. The man who 109
The Story of Dublin had hailed it with “Esto perpetua “was fated to stand gloomily by at its early death. It fell largely through its own faults, factiousness, intolerance, narrowness of view and a disposition to extreme measures. Yet it certainly conferred many benefits on Ireland in general, and Dublin in particular. The law and the revenue were splendidly housed in two great edifices placed, with a nice regard to their artistic effect, on the quays fronting the river. The Four Courts and the Custom House, especially the latter, are beautiful examples of the semi-classic style. Their cost ran into hundreds of thousands. They are much larger buildings than the Parliament House itself. A state bank with a capital of ^1,500,000 was set up in the obscure street known as S. Mary’s Abbey. The members, as they voted its establishment, little dreamt that their creation would live to store its gold and post its ledgers in the very chamber where they sat. The activity of Grattan’s parliament extended in every direction. Dublin began to be honourably distinguished for the number of its foundations for the advancement of science and the mitigation of pain and suffering. The Royal Irish Academy was founded, with one branch for the study of science, the other for “polite learning and antiquities.” Hospitals rose all over the city. In 1784 the College of Surgeons was incorporated, and built itself a house on Stephen’s Green in the sombre classic style of the time. Eighteenth century architecture in Dublin, when not elevated by a dash of genius in the designer, is somewhat heavy and depressing, in spite of its never-failing dignity and sense of proportion. Leinster House, the Rotunda Hospital and the Provost’s House in Trinity College are fair examples. The
difference between the old and the new taste in private residences is shown no
Volunteers and the United Irishmen by contrasting Harcourt Street or Merrion Square, where the houses are as tall and uniform as a row of grenadiers, with a modern suburb like Palmerston Road or” Leeson Park, a picturesque medley of villas, lawns, flowers and trees. The Catholics began to contribute in some degree to the adornment of the city. Relieved from the fear, which had long pressed upon them, they commenced to erect churches in the older parts of the city, where they were very numerous. Meath Street and A.rran Quay Chapels were among the earliest to be built. Even yet, however, they did not care to attract the attention of their enemies by any attempt at ostentation. The older Catholic churches do not proclaim their mission by lofty steeples or ornate exteriors; they are often situated in obscure bye-streets and approached by narrow passages. But the devotion of the worshippers found full expression in a gorgeous interior hidden away from the jealous glances of the casual passer-by. The white gleam of marble, the glowing hues of stained glass, sacreH picture and statue of saint combined to make these edifices, like the “King’s daughter,” “all glorious within.” Dublin progressed materially also. A penny post was established for the city and a district of eight miles around. There was a remarkable development of the means of communication. A great system of inland navigation was initiated. The Grand Canal, a hundred miles long, running into the Shannon near Banagher, and the Barrow, near Athy, connected the capital with the greater part of the midlands and the south-east. The Royal Canal, joining the Shannon further up stream than the Grand, brought the turf fuel and cheap provisions of Connaught and North Leinster to the city quays. Docks were built on both sides of the river. A daily service of sailing packets in
The Story of Dub/in to and from Holyhead was started. Coaches commenced to run to the chief provincial towns. A new staple industry replaced the vanished woollen manufacture. Brewers were encouraged by the Irish parliament to establish themselves in the city. Paradoxically enough, this was considered a temperance policy at the time, as providing a milder beverage for the consumption of the people than the whisky, which they had distilled and drunk from time immemorial. Guinness’s huge brewery dates back to the end of the eighteenth century. It is a strange fact that a town, rent by internal faction and popular turbulence, should have made so many advances. Dublin was very restless and uneasy during the interval between the establishment of independence and the passing of the Union. G rattan was not able to control the forces he had called into being. His party clamoured for parliamentary reform and Catholic emancipation from civil disabilities. But their leader, while favouring both measures, deemed it wiser to obtain the desired concessions piecemeal, rather than to alarm the vested interests and inherited prejudices of his opponents by too bold and sweeping a demand. He was soon displaced by the extremists, who now began to avow their hopes of absolute separation from England. The Volunteers ran after such false gods as Frederick Augustus Hervey, Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Londonderry. It was unfortunate that brilliant eccentricity should outweigh moderation and common sense, but the mob is easily dazzled. The clerical nobleman called for war and separation. He drove into Dublin in great splendour, clad in purple, with diamond shoe and knee buckles, gold tassels dependant from his gloves, even his horses caparisoned in the imperial purple. He was escorted by a mounted troop of citizen soldiery, who heralded 112
Volunteers and the United Irishmen his arrival at the Parliament House by a fanfare of trumpets. Hervey was graciously condescending to the astonished members as they poured out, and passed on his way amid popular plaudits. Under such influences a convention of armed delegates from the Volunteer regiments met in the Royal Exchange, now the City Hall, on Cork Hill, from whence they removed to the Rotunda. A plan of reform was put forward, but sharp dissensions in the assembly caused the postponement of any measure for the relief of the Catholics. The government refused to be dictated to by an armed body of men, sitting not half a mile from the Parliament House. At College Green the Volunteer proposals were rejected by 159 votes to 77. There were grave fears of a civil war in Ireland between the two parties, but the situation was saved by the moderation of Lord Charlemont, the Volunteer commander, who obtained an adjournment of the convention for an indefinite period. The whole movement collapsed as suddenly as it had begun. But the more ardent spirits were not satisfied with this tame result. The agitation was driven underground. Secret societies were founded, and their members drilled and instructed in the use of arms. In Dublin the mob became very troublesome; isolated soldiers were beaten and maimed in the streets; prominent members of the dominant party were mobbed and their houses attacked. Master manufacturers, now beginning their long fight with the trade unions, were subjected to the same treatment. To cope with the disorder, a force of constables was established in 1786, replacing the old city watch. The body thus formed developed into the present Dublin Metropolitan Police, celebrated for the giant physique of its members and the genial manner in which they discharge their sometimes unpleasant duties. H 113
[The Story of Dublin] The French Revolution began in the year 1789. Ireland was in a fit condition to catch the spark from that great conflagration. Like France, she was suffering from widespread poverty, lack of popular representation, an ascendant caste, and an unsympathetic church endowed with tithes extorted from starving peasants. In 1791 Wolfe Tone, a Francophile Dublin barrister, then in his twenty-eighth year, established the society of the United Irishmen. Its avowed aims were Reform and Catholic Emancipation, but, in its later years, it degenerated into a treasonable conspiracy. An alliance was formed with the democratic section of the Catholic Committee, which soon bore fruit. Back Lane, so curiously connected with the struggles of the old faith in the capital, was the scene of an assembly of Roman Catholic delegates. The hostile party sneered at the * Back Lane Parliament,” but, nevertheless, were obliged to pass a measure admitting Catholics to the franchise, the army, navy, and civil service, the jury box, and even the judicial bench. Trinity was freely thrown open. But there were still many disabilities left for O’Connell to remove thirty years later. It was probably French intrigue that mainly tended to seduce the United Irishmen into projects of insurrection. Nearly all the leaders gallant, highspirited young men as they were came to the miserable end that awaits the unsuccessful rebel. The government was watchful. Sometimes by bribery, sometimes by playing on the fears of a timid conspirator, over whose head they held a mass of evidence sufficient to hang him at any time, they secured full information of all the society’s most secret proceedings. Their spies, as in the case of Leonard MacNally, were for years thought to be heart and soul with the United movement. In 1794 the tragedy began. Jackson, 114
Volunteers and the United Irishmen an Irishman entrusted with a mission from France, was being tried in the old Four Courts, when he was seen to. be strangely agitated. The prisoner, foreseeing his fate, had taken arsenic, and died in the very dock. There was a brief interlude during the viceroyalty of Fitzwilliam, sent by Pitt, with instructions to conciliate all parties and complete the process of emancipation. But the new viceroy was a little too hasty. He ejected certain holders of high office with scant courtesy. One of these, Beresford, Commissioner of Customs, went straight to Windsor, and induced King George III. to veto Fitzwilliam’s proposals. The plans of the viceroy, and of the greater man who had inspired him, were thus foiled. A recall soon came, and the late Lord Lieutenant, after but three months’ tenure of office, returned to England through a city bearing every appearance of mourning. The United Irishmen increased until they numbered half a million. Lord Edward Fitzgerald, brother of the Duke of Leinster and a member, of the historic Geraldine family, joined their ranks and became a prominent leader. A conspiracy was formed for a general rising on the 23rd May 1798. The signal was to be the stopping of the Dublin mail coaches on that night. But the government, as usual, held the plotters in the hollow of its hand. Two months before the date fixed a raid was made on a committee meeting in Bridge Street, and many persons were arrested. Lord Edward escaped, but a reward of ^1000 was offered for his apprehension. He was captured in a house in Thomas Street, after a desperate struggle, in which he wounded several of his captors, but received himself a bullet in the shoulder, from the effects of which he died in
prison a month later Wolfe Tone met with a similar fate. He was on board
[The Story of Dublin] a French invading fleet, which was defeated, and fell into the hands of the English. The victors recognised one of their prisoners as the celebrated United Irishman. He was tried and sentenced to be hanged, though he begged, as a French officer, to be allowed to suffer the less shameful soldier’s fate of being shot. On the execution morning Tone, by cutting his throat with a pen-knife, escaped either alternative. Pitt was deeply impressed by the troubles of Ireland and the outrages of both soldiers and rebels in Wexford. He determined on a complete union of the two countries, coupled with full emancipation, as the best solution of the problem. The Irish parliament was strongly adverse, but a majority was secured by wholesale bribery. Dublin was very hostile, and had to be held down by a display of armed force. Grattan, ill and feeble, came to the House in his old Volunteer uniform to inveigh against the overthrow of his great achievement, the Constitution of 1782. His exertions were of no avail. The Union was carried by considerable majorities, and Dublin ceased to be an independent capital. There was one last belated rising of the United Irishmen in 1803. Robert Emmet, a brilliant and eager youth of twenty-four, framed a project to seize the Castle and the Pigeonhouse Fort. The authorities were for once taken by surprise, but the insurrection was a hopeless failure. Country contingents failed to arrive, or, arriving, found no one to lead them. Emmet himself, with no more than a hundred men, marched against the Castle from his headquarters in Marshalsea Lane. The first patrols encountered were almost sufficient to disperse such a body, armed, as most of them were, with only the traditional pike of Irish rebellion a steel spear head mounted on a long wooden shaft. Some yeomanry, however, hastening 116
Volunteers and the United Irishmen to join their regiments, were killed at their own doors in Thomas Street, and Lord Kil warden, a just and humane judge, was dragged from his carriage and piked to death by a section of the mob. But the fighting was soon over, and Emmet was a fugitive. With a lovable, but, perhaps, a foolish romanticism, he hazarded capture by staying to take leave of Sarah Curran, to whom he was secretly attached. The delay was fatal. Major Sirr arrested the unfortunate young man at Harold’s Cross on 2jth August. A month later he was hanged outside S. Catherine’s Church, in Thomas Street. Sarah Curran died of a broken heart. Moore has enshrined the whole pathetic story in a touching little ballad : “She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps, And lovers are round her sighing; But coldly she turns from their gaze and weeps, For her heart on his grave is lying. “She sings the wild songs of her dear native plains, Every note which he loved awaking; Ah ! little they think, w*iO delight in her strains, How the heart of the minstrel is breaking.”
CHAPTER XII Gradual Progress and Conciliation 1803-1906 “And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light; In front, the sun climbs slow, how slowly, But westward, look, the land is bright.” Clough. \A/HATEVER its effects on Ireland generally, the Union was a severe blow to Dublin. With the abolition of the native legislature, a stagnation set in. The political battle ground which always attracts the rank, wealth and intellect of a nation, had shifted from College Green to Westminster. The Irish nobility, always prone to become absentees from their own country, found less than ever to interest them at home. With one accord they sold their city mansions to the government, to societies, to manufacturers, to any one who would take them off their hands. Scarcely a dozen Irish peers now reside in or near Dublin. For a while it seemed as if the capital of a once independent nation were destined to sink into a sleepy, decaying, provincial town. The city had no manufactures to turn to, now that her political influence was gone. The Nationalist party, as it may now be called, was prostrate after its severe defeats. In view of the British naval supremacy after Trafalgar, no help could be hoped for from abroad. The nineteenth century 118
Gradual Progress and Conciliation has seen several conspiracies, but nothing that merits the name of a rebellion. The giant figure, in both senses of the phrase, of Daniel O’Connell, is the first to enter upon this empty stage. Catholic Emancipation was to have been coupled with the Union, but had to be dropped owing to the hostility of King George III. The Catholic masses
SACKV1LLE STREET AND O’cONNELL MONUMENT. of Ireland, now beginning to awaken to a sense of their strength and their just rights, resented their exclusion from the privileges of citizenship. O’Connell, a man of great eloquence and vehement enthusiasm for his faith and his country, became the mouthpiece of this inarticulate discontent. He was soon a popular idol. His forensic skill was used to baffle and defeat the Crown lawyers, to the great delight of the people, who love a battle of wits almost as dearly as an actual physical combat. A regular contribution called the “Catholic Rent “was made from every parish for the expenses 119
[The Story of Dublin] of the movement. Every behest of the “great tribune” was obeyed with a ready alacrity never accorded to the orders of Dublin Castle. O’Connell, though raised to a power and authority which might have turned the head of a lesser man, behaved throughout with a sagacious moderation. Though his enemies watched eagerly for a false step, they could never prove him guilty of any illegal act. Finally his cause triumphed. The Duke of Wellington, in order, as he said, to avert a civil war, was obliged to make the tardy concession, which should have been made twenty-eight years before in 1801. Soon after the removal of the Catholic disabilities the close Protestant corporation of the city of Dublin was reformed and its franchise freely extended to the inhabitants generally. In 1841 Daniel O’Connell was elected Lord Mayor and was the first Catholic to hold that office since the days of Tyrconnell. After his first triumph the “Liberator,” as he was popularly known, set himself to procure the repeal of the Union. He was greatly helped in his propaganda by a knot of brilliant writers, known as the “Young Ireland” group. Their journal, the Nation, in which appeared the vehement poems of Thomas Davis, the Tyrtaeus of the party, had an effect akin to that of the famous Drapier Letters. O’Connell was eventually undone by his allies. They went lengths and advocated measures, to which he, who had seen popular fury let loose in Paris during the Revolution, was utterly averse. The severance came in 1843. A great mass meeting, one of those huge assemblages, which O’Connell’s oratory was wont to sway just as a breeze ruffles and bends to its will a field of standing corn, was to have assembled at Clontarf, the Dublin suburb, where Celtic Ireland won its greatest victory. The long -pending choice between constitutionalism and 1 20
Gradual Progress and Conciliation armed force was to have been finally made on that historic spot. But the government forbade the meeting altogether. “Young Ireland” wished to accept the challenge, but the old leader, moderate to the last, declined. His influence waned from that moment. A few years later he died half forgotten and but little regretted. The young men, from whom he had seceded, made their essay at revolution in 1848. It was a hopeless, not to say ridiculous, failure. For the next eighteen years Dublin was peaceful and progressive. The effects of the great famine, however, which had desolated rural Ireland, were felt in the shape of a terrible epidemic of cholera, originally produced by the nettles, docks, and other garbage eaten by the starving country people. In 1849, while the pestilence was still raging in the city, Queen Victoria, with a courage truly queenly, paid her first visit to her Irish dominions. She was well received in Dublin and declared herself delighted with the island and its inhabitants. By this journey and that of her predecessor George IV., the stigma of royal neglect was taken from Ireland. From then till now monarchs and princes of the blood have frequently crossed the Irish Sea, though, perhaps, not often enough even yet. Taking example from the great London Exhibition of 1851, Dublin devoted herself, with considerable success, to the organisation of similar displays. The Irishman makes a good entertainer and a genial host. Although the extravagant hopes once cherished of a general millennium to be produced by huge collocations of art and industry were nowhere realised, yet the particular towns, where these exhibitions were held, felt a quickening impulse thereby. The Irish National Gallery is the fruit of the exertions made on such an
121
[The Story of Dublin] Without any serious provocation disturbances again began to rise in 1866. A conspiracy for armed insurrection, which took its rise in foreign countries, slowly penetrated to Ireland. There were many Irish soldiers on both sides during the American Civil War. When the Southern States were finally defeated, most of these men were eager to use their military experience on behalf of their native country. Irishmen at home were mostly disinclined to such a course, but it is a remarkable fact that the Irish exile is always more extremist than his brother, who has not crossed the sea. The plans of the Fenians, as they were called, were welllaid. Their emissaries had entered the government services and tampered with the fidelity of the men. The police was suspected by the authorities, the army was so tinged with principles of rebellion that regiments had to be hastily sent out of the country, and even the prison warders neglected their duties and permitted persons in their custody to escape. The Fenian chief, Stephens, was arrested and lodged in Richmond Gaol, but was soon at large again, owing, undoubtedly, to the connivance of officials. But in the field little was effected. At Tallaght, beyond Terenure, in County Dublin, a large, irregular mob marched to attack a constabulary barracks, but was dispersed after receiving a deadly volley in a narrow roadway from the rifles of a mere handful of police. In 1869 the Protestant Episcopal Church of Ireland was disestablished, though its continued support by the State was one of the conditions of the Union. Still it was manifestly unfair to tax the whole country for the maintenance of the church of a minority. After the severance of the tie which bound it to government, it entrusted itself confidently to the devotion of its congregations, with the result that it has never been so strong and popular as it is now. 122
Gradual Progress and Conciliation After the Fenian rising there was again peace for a quarter of a century until the Land War broke out in 1.88 1. The interval was marked by considerable civic progress. In 1 8^8 the problem of the water supply was solved. An aqueduct over twenty miles in length was constructed from the heart of the Wicklow mountains into the city. Along it ran a plentiful stream of pure, soft water, furnished by a distant river and reservoir called Vartry. In 1872 a step was taken, which has had a remarkable effect on the old town. The first tramline was laid from Nelson’s Pillar to Rathmines. In time the present suburban network grew all round Dublin. The middle classes left the heart of the city, where they had long lived, and went to dwell in the outskirts amid brighter and more airy surroundings. The exodus had hitherto been confined to the wealthy, who had carriages to take them to and from their business. But the tram is everybody’s carriage. The fine streets of the central districts have now been, for the most part, abandoned to the poorer grades of artisans and labourers, whose scanty wages cannot even afford tramfares. The old houses are so neglected by their landlords and suffer such hard usage from their occupiers that few of them will last another fifty years. The Royal University of Ireland was set up in Dublin in 1879. It was not intended to rival or supplant Trinity College, but to furnish education for those who, from conscientious scruples or for pecuniary reasons, could not avail themselves of the older foundation. On account of the difficulties inevitable in the case of a teaching and residential university in the midst of a people still sharply divided by politics, religion and race, the functions of the new body were limited to the examination of students and the conferring of degrees. The Royal 123
[The Story of Dublin] University, though obviously but a makeshift, has proved successful in its own sphere. It has certainly extended education to thousands, whom Trinity would never have reached. In 1880 S. Stephen’s Green, one of the prettiest little paries in the United Kingdom, was laid out at considerable expense and opened in its present form. The munificent donor was Lordj Ardilaun, a member of that generous Guinness family,/ which never seems to “weary in well-doing.” In the following year the fiery cross went round once more. The strife was now centred in the land. The relations of landlord and tenant in Ireland, never very amicable, became more strained than ever. There was dragooning and eviction on one side, and murder and boycotting on the other. The problem of land tenure was difficult, but certainly not insoluble by ordinary constitutional methods. To all appearances it has just been settled by a great scheme for purchase by the tenants, assisted by a loan from Imperial funds. But Irishmen, unfortunately, have not the happy English genius for compromise. Neither party will yield an inch. There is always a call for force, a tendency to rush into extreme measures on both sides. The Parliamentary Nationalists, the Fenians of America, the discontented peasantry were joined together by Parnell in a close alliance against the landlords and the government. Dublin, though, as a city, she was little interested in this peasants’ question, was Nationalist enough to take the popular side. There were riots in the capital on the arrest of Irish members. But the worst incident of these troubled times was the cold-blooded and deliberate assassination of Lord Frederick Cavendish, Chief Secretary, and Thomas Burke, Under Secretary, in the Phoenix Park on the 6th May 1882. Burke, as the actual, though not the nominal, head of the Irish administration for many 124
Gradual Progress and Conciliation years, had long been marked out for vengeance, but Cavendish was an Englishman newly arrived in Ireland^ The crime was the work of the physical force extremists, who conducted their operations from America. The official Nationalist party, though it hastened to disassociate itself from the plotters of such an outrage, was undoubtedly discredited for the time. The Land League was put down by the authorities with a strong hand, and the movement had apparently failed for the moment. But, under the leadership of Parnell, a man of strong character and great ability, it soon recovered. By skilfully using his compact phalanx of eighty members to harass and obstruct the business of the Empire, and to make and unmake British Ministries, he succeeded in gaining considerable concessions in the way of land legislation; and, indeed, all but won self-government, or Home Rule. Mr Gladstone had introduced one bill to repeal the Union. It had been defeated, but he was known to be ready to bring in another when occasion should offer. When things were at this pass, Parnell suddenly fell. The proud and fierce, yet taciturn leader, whom even his colleagues feared rather than loved, had one weak side, which proved his undoing. He had, it appeared, been guilty of a liaison with a married woman. Divorce Court proceedings ensued, and his secret fault was soon revealed to the whole world. He was at once disowned by his English allies and most of his Irish followers. A scanty remnant still clung to the fallen politician, who fought on in a hopeless endeavour to overcome the forces now arrayed against him. He was insulted, and even mobbed in places where he had once been an idol. After a few months of bitter contention, Parnell sank into the grave, a broken-hearted man. I2C
Tbe Story of Dublin He is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, where annual pilgrimages are still made to his place of interment. There are few stories in history so tragic as that of the swift and unexpected overthrow of the * uncrowned King of Ireland.” Since that day there has been a peace in Ireland, which may, as most of us hope, be due to an increasing tolerance and a growing spirit of conciliation among all classes. Yet it may be but a period of exhaustion, of slow recuperation until some other great spasm of the body politic shall supervene. There are signs of improvement, however, though one has to survey the centuries to gain the true perspective. The turbulence of 1882 is not likely to be repeated. The Fenians of 1866 could not arouse the people as the United Irishmen did in 1798. Cromwell, Mountjoy, Phelim O’Neill seem like a long past nightmare of blood and horror. The clouds gather sometimes and obscure the dawn, but behind them the sun is still slowly rising. Each successive paroxysm of Ireland is so much milder than the last that there is some ground for hoping that they will soon cease altogether. Meanwhile, the city has pursued its path of improvement. In 1890, the splendid Museum and Library in Kildare otreet were opened. In 1900, the suburbs on every side except the south were incorporated with Dublin for municipal purposes. The action of the late Queen, when, in the last year of her life, she crossed the Irish Sea to pay a compliment to the gallantry of her Irish troops, not the least distinguished of whom were the Dublin Fusiliers, the city regiment, touched a chord in the hearts of the people. King Edward has twice visited Dublin since his accession. His unequalled tact and diplomacy has made a whole half-hostile nation his warm
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Gradual Progress and Conciliation admirers. His Majesty is well-known to entertain a kindly feeling for both the country and the people. While his genius for producing peace and concord exerts its influence over his Ministers and his subjects on both sides of the channel, the ancient quarrel begun near eight hundred years ago by Strongbow may yet be reconciled. Then the old city on the Liffey, which has been successively a Danish stronghold, an English outpost, an AngloIrish capital, and a disaffected Irish subject town, may settle down into its true position as the centre and heart of not the least among the great confederation of free and prosperous nations, which compose the British Empire.
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PART II The City SECTION I Christ Church Cathedral “How reverend is the face of this tall pile, Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads To bear aloft its arched and ponderous roof, By its own weight made steadfast and immovable Looking tranquillity.” Congrcve. I JNLIKE most old cathedrals, Christ Church is quite easy of access from the modern part of the town. A main thoroughfare, about half a mile in length, consisting of Dame Street and its continuations, Cork Hill and Lord Edward Street, leads directly from College Green to the open space, in which the old church stands. It is the most ancient building in Dublin. The see was established in 1038 by a Christianised Danish king, Sitric III., the first bishop being Donatus, whose name is possibly a Latin rendering of the Irish appellation Donough. A rude edifice was probably constructed on this spot by the inhabitants of the little seaport. A vague tradition asserts that the Danes built certain vaults, which were incorporated in the later structure. In 1172, Strongbow 128
Christ Church Cathedral
aad his capraias, fresh from the conquest of Leinster, determined to coastiuct a church movie in accordance with Morman notioas of what was fitting in ecclesiastical architecture. It is likely that they swept away the Daman erection, or ased its stones as balding material. The cathedral took some fifty yean to build, aad was completed early in the ihiileeath century. For seven hundred years Christ Church, from its little hill, has watched over Dublin city. The exterior shows little of the luxuriant ornament aad soaring spire and pomade usually associated with Gothic edifices. Like most Dubfia holdings k produces its effect by the harmony and broad digamy of the design rather than by elaboration of detail. The high-peaked central tower, whether seen from the west at the end of an avenue of flying buttresses, or, as it appears from the east, lifting itself serenely over a cluster of picturesque one-story chapels, combines with the rest of the church to form a spectacle full of quirt charm and restfulness. The ages, as they pass, leave this stamp on almost every antique building. The tower, curiously enough, for all its venerable appearance, is not nearly so old as other parts of the fabric. It was built about the year 1600, two previous steeples having been destroyed, one by fire, the other by tempest. The old doorway in the south transept is worthy of notice. It is a low arch ornamented with a peculiar zig-zag moulding, which was often used by those who designed this cathedral. The interior is strikingly beautiful. The most remarkable feature is the splendid stonework of the nave and aisles. The arches are very graceful in shape and the supporting piers, though very massive, are chiselled with such elaboration and delicacy that no heaviness is perceptible anywhere. A modern screen of yellow stone divides die chancel from the body of 131
[The Story of Dublin] the church. Handsome as it is, it undoubtedly breaks up the view of the choir and the transept. The upper
CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL, SCREEN, PULPIT, AND SOUTH TRANSEPT. story of the north wall of the nave contains some very old work. In fact this part of the building has tilted nearly a foot out of the perpendicular, as may be clearly seen by anyone standing at the communion rails and facing west. The subsoil here is part of the great 132
Christ Church Cathedral subterranean peat bog, which lies below Dublin, and the foundations have gradually subsided. The flying buttresses of the exterior, which formed no part of the original plan, have been introduced to prop these weak portions. The floor is covered with tiles of a bold design and a very rich colour. They are exact copies of the ancient tiling, some specimens of which are preserved in one of the side chapels. The transepts, though not so beautiful as the nave, are very interesting. Their great age and the black limestone of which they are built give them a sombre aspect, which rather takes away from their architectural effect. They date back to Strongbow’s time, and present several examples of the zig-zag ornament characteristic of that period. The southern transept contains two remarkable monuments, one a fine group to the memory of the nineteenth Earl of Kildare, representing his family in attitudes of grief around his corpse, the other an Elizabethan wall tablet to Francis Agard and his daughter, who are shown in the full costume of the period kneeling opposite one another as if in prayer. These devotional figures in ruff and hooped petticoat appear on the walls of several Dublin churches, and have always a quaint old-world appearance. A chapel dedicated to S. Lawrence O’Toole opens off the south transept. Here are to be seen two ancient effigies, one apparently of a bishop, the other of a lady. The male figure has been identified with S. Lawrence himself, the Irish cleric, who, with Strongbow, built Christ Church in 1172. The woman is said to be Eva, the daughter of Dermot MacMurrough, and wife of the great earl. There is also a fourteenth century inscription in Norman French, believed to refer to one ** John Lumbard of Parma and his wife,” who lie buried below. The words, 35
[The Story of Dublin] however, are not very legible, and a rival interpretation declares the “John” in question to be the “masterbuilder “or architect of the cathedral. In the other chapels behind the altar there are some curious memorials. In one is a casket containing the heart of Bishop O’Toole. While returning from Rome, he fell suddenly ill at Eu in Normandy and died, entreating with his last breath that his heart might be preserved for burial in his beloved church. His wishes were respected by his followers, who brought home this somewhat gruesome relic and deposited it in the cathedral. There is also an effigy said to represent Basilea, that affectionate sister of Strongbow, who referred to her deceased brother as “that great jawtooth, which had long been troubling her.” However these identifications of nameless figures are pure conjecture. The stonework of the choir and the eastern chapels is very fine. A good deal of it is modern, but two of the old arches of the chancel still stand, showing that the restorer has faithfully followed the ancient design. The old work in Christ Church may be easily distinguished from the new by its much darker appearance. A brass lectern standing inside the communion rails is a link with the early days of the Reformation. The first public reading in Ireland of an English translation of the Scriptures took place on this spot. Out of service hours the volume was left open on the lectern that “he who runs might read,” but was secured against theft by massive chains, the holes for fastening which are still visible at the sides. At the head of the main aisle to right and left are the pews of the Lord Lieutenant and Lord Mayor, marked respectively by old oak carvings of the Lion and the Unicorn of Royalty and the Three Castles of Dublin City. The warrior earl, who founded the 136
Christ Church Cathedral cathedral, lies buried under one of the southern arches of the nave. His monument is a strange one, embodying a story characteristic of the ferocious warrior of the period. Strongbow’s son, a high-spirited lad, but still too young for war, had obtained from his father the command of a troop of cavalry in some expedition. When battle was joined, the boy, rash
STRONGBOWS TOMB.
and inexperienced, was overwhelmed by masses of hostile Irishmen and disgraced his ancestry by a wild panic-stricken flight. Strongbow, in ungovernable fury, plunged his sword in the body of his child. The tomb in Christ Church commemorates the tragedy. Father and son lie side by side, the former at full, the latter at half length. The youth has his hands pressed over a gaping wound in his stomach. The subject is a singular one for a sculptor. Possibly Strongbow died penitent for his “most unnatural mur’der “and took this method of confessing his guilt and repentance
tte Story of Dublin to succeeding generations, or it may be that the monks of Christ Church themselves ordered the sin to be recorded permanently as a warning to all those inclined to offend in the like way. Far from horrifying or impressing people, however, the monument became in later times the Change of Dublin. In old leases and deeds it is the place usually specified for making the payments agreed on by the parties, and a cup-shaped depression in the head of the statue marks the place where the money was deposited. The clink of coin and the coming and going of merchants must have marred the religious atmosphere of the great church, but, as will be shown, the men of the middle ages were not particular in such details. In the north aisle nearly opposite to Strongbow’s tomb is an incomplete monument to Sir John Stevenson, who collaborated with Moore in the production of the famous “Melodies.” Like the Homeric poems, the tunes in this collection were composed in the remote past by obscure minstrels, and lived for centuries in the hearts and on the lips of the people without ever being set down in definite musical form. In the eighteenth century the old airs, so full of tender pathos and infectious gaiety, were harmonised and arranged by Stevenson, while Moore substituted his graceful lyrics for the trivial or obscene words, to which they were often sung. Such was the genesis of “The Vale of Ovoca “and “She is far from the land.” Stevenson’s monument requires another choir boy to complete the design, but the tale goes that the sculptor found such difficulty in getting payment that he refused to supply a second figure. Christ Church has played an important part in Irish history. In 1486 Lambert Simnel, king for a brief space, until fortune’s wheel flew round and made him a mere scullion to a
king, was crowned as Edward VI. 38
Christ Church Cathedral amid great enthusiasm. The lad was hoisted on the shoulders of a tall country gentleman named Darcy, so that all might see and acclaim their new lord. In 1551 the English Liturgy was read for the first time. In 1 562 a good half of the building, including the roof and the south wall, fell in. The damage was repaired at the expense of Sir Henry Sidney, Lord Lieutenant, whose action is recorded by a commemorative tablet on the wall. The coming of the Reformation did not improve the behaviour of the frequenters of the cathedral. Laud and Strafford were horrified at the state of things they found there. The adjacent Winetavern Street, which received its name from the number of inns it contained, had turned the crypt into a sort of annexe. The vaults of the church became a series of wine cellars and underground shebeens. The situation gave rise to an irreverent distich : “Spirits above and spirits below, Spirits divine and spirits of wine.” Matters were not much better in the church overhead. Apprentices and servant maids sat tittering on the communion table, while no man thought fit to doff his hat even during service. The heavy hand of Strafford effected a considerable improvement. During the Puritan period, however, communicants received the sacrament seated at tables, which extended from the choir down the main aisle. October 1689 is the last stirring period in the history of the fabric. James II.’s troops seized the cathedral, which was used again as a Catholic church until the Boyne ruined the hopes of that party. The tabernacle and candlesticks employed in the celebration of mass before King James are preserved in the crypt. Duringjthe wars and religious disturbances of the six139
[The Story of Dublin] teenth and seventeenth centuries, the old stained glass disappeared. The present windows, though very effective, especially when the afternoon sun streams through the western front, are quite modern. A few steps near the entrance of the south transept lead down to the crypt (p. 10). The masonry of this great underground chamber is extraordinarily massive, so much so that its vaulting sometimes sustains the whole weight of the huge piers of the cathedral proper overhead. Its plan follows that of the superstructure very closely, and the area is almost exactly the same. The work is rude and antique. In fact the crypt has been thought to be anterior to the Norman invasion, but this is hardly likely to be the case. The dim, receding vistas of square pillar and low-browed arch produce a weird effect, which is heightened by the thought of the ancient torchlight burials here, and that grim tale of the lieutenant who was left behind on such an occasion and fell a victim to the rats. He was found a cleanpicked skeleton, his hand still grasping his sword, while the desperation of his last struggle in the darkness and silence of the crypt was shown by the numbers of dead vermin that lay around. Many monuments, whose artistic merits or historical associations deserve a better fate, have been relegated to this obscurity by the Chapter on the grounds that they would unduly crowd the church. Kirk’s masterpiece, the Sneyd memorial, lies here in a corner. Sneyd was shot by a maniac in Westmoreland Street. He is represented lying dead with a female figure weeping over him. The limpness of a body out of which the life has gone is beautifully rendered, and the fidelity of the details is really wonderful. In another monument here, that to the memory of Abbott, a philanthropist, Kirk has essayed, not unsuccessfully, the difficult task of reproducing a liquid form in the hard, unyielding 140
Christ Church Cathedral material with which the sculptor has to deal. One of the orphans, whom Abbott befriended, is depicted lamenting his fate, and the very tear itself is shown trickling down her cheek. Statues of Charles II. and James II., that once adorned the Tholsel and were dethroned for political reasons, now lie here, forgotten and unseen. There is also a Latin inscription to William Cadogan, secretary to “Thomas the renowned Earl of StrafFord.” He defended Trim against “the wicked traitors Phelim O’Neill and Owen Roe,” and died in 1660, “having first witnessed what he so earnestly desired, the safe return of His Most Gracious Majesty Charles II. from his unjust exile.” The stocks are here too. They only contain accommodation for five legs. The fifth hole is smaller than the others, and may have been used for naughty boys, who were perhaps rendered still more ridiculous to their companions by having one leg in durance and the other out. And, lastly, there is the “cat and the rat.” These desiccated bodies were found behind the organ-case in a dry and leathery, but undecayed, condition, and were posed in a glass case so as to form a sort of tableau. The soil in this part of Dublin has often a strange preservative effect. At S. Michan’s, across the river, human bodies, centuries old, are shown in much the same state. On emerging from the church, a tablet is to be seen in the porch, bearing a somewhat verbose Latin inscription to the memory of Thomas Prior, founder of the Royal Dublin Society. The remains of an old chapter house, which was burnt down, are visible in the churchyard. The lower portions seem to have escaped the fire, and were brought to light in some recent excavations. It must have been a singularly beautiful little building. It could have been no larger than a modern parlour, but every foot was enriched 141
[The Story of Dublin] with most elaborate stone carving. Even mutilated as it is, the fineness and delicacy of the work command admiration. In the days when Christ Church was a monastery as well as a cathedral, the cloisters, where the monks took their exercise, ran along the northern side of the churchyard. However, the monastic side of the establishment came to an end, like all similar foundations in Ireland, during the reign of Henry VIII. In 1871 the cathedral was mouldering away piecemeal, when it was most splendidly and lavishly restored by Mr Roe, a Dublin distiller. The cost ran into hundreds of thousands, and the generous donor, who had never anticipated so vast an expenditure, was brought to the verge of financial disaster.
SECTION II The Castle “A palace and a prison on each hand.” Byron. NEXT to the cathedrals the Castle is the oldest institution in Dublin. Time has dealt hardly with the fabric, but the authority of which it is the symbol, though often threatened, still holds sway, just as at the period when “castrum nostrum de Dublin “was a fortress that stood *’ four square to all the winds that blew,” and half the barons in Ireland held their estates therefrom on condition of supplying soldiers to the state in time of need. Two large flanking towers and part of a curtain wall are all that now survive of the original stronghold, but they are sufficient to give an idea of its character in the days when it bridled a fiercely struggling country and a turbulent
capital. The quadrangle known as the Upper 142
The Castle Castle Yard has been the seat of Irish government for so many centuries that it teems with historic memories. Coming along Dame Street from College Green, a turning to the left, called Palace Street, runs into the Lower Yard, a modern enclosure formed by taking up ground immediately beneath the old towers. Just above the place where Dame Street merges into the rise known as Cork Hill, a similar side street forms the state entrance to the Upper Yard. In 1205, acting under instructions from King John, Meiller Fitzhenry, an illegitimate connection of Henry II., commenced to build a stronghold “as well to curb the city as to defend it.” The Upper Yard roughly represents the space enclosed by the original four walls of the Castle. There were towers at each corner, one of which, the Record Tower, can still be seen lifting its head over the south-eastern corner of the court. Another, the Bermingham Tower, at the south-western angle, is no longer visible from this side, having been cut down and modernized into a supper room and a kitchen. The whole of the north front, including the old gateway towards Cork Hill, with two small towers on either side of it, and the two large flanking towers at the north-east and north-west corners of the quadrangle, has vanished. The Castle, now merely the seat of a few government departments and the occasional residence of the viceroy, has in its time played many parts. It has seldom been used in its original capacity as a fortress. The only attempt at a siege was during the disastrous rebellion of Silken Thomas. On that occasion the royal gunners, firing from their lofty towers, dominated the camp of the rebels, and rendered an assault impracticable. Through all the vicissitudes of Irish history the native party has never been able to gain possession of this post, which has, perhaps for that H3
[The Story of Dublin] reason, become emblematic to them of all that they most vehemently detest. Before the erection of a special building in College Green, Irish parliaments occasionally met here. Within the same narrow compass were crowded together the Courts of Justice, the Exchequer, the Mint, the Viceregal residence, the repository for records, and the prison. The Lord Lieutenants found the near neighbourhood of the felons so noisome and unhealthy, especially in hot weather, that, during the reign of Elizabeth, they abandoned their town abode and settled at Kilmainham, well outside the city boundaries. After their departure the place was allowed to fall into decay. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the authorities took little or no care of the fabric. When a large portion was destroyed by fire, the viceroy of the day airily told the King that he had lost nothing except some barrels of powder and the “worst castle in the worst situation in Christendom.” During the eighteenth century the debris was removed, and the old quadrangle enclosed with a complete set of buildings in the heavy, sombre style of the period. These constitute the Upper Castle Yard as it appears at present. Some relief, however, is afforded by the entrance gate itself, which is of a pleasing classical design, and a tall and graceful clock tower in its vicinity. From one corner the topmost battlements of the Record Tower can be seen over the roofs, as if trying to look into the enclosure, of which it was formerly a chief protector. The atmosphere of sharp controversy and bitter, almost savage, political strife still hangs heavy over the Castle. The wits of the Opposition mocked at the figure of Justice that adorns the Cork Hill gate, finding a certain appropriateness in the circumstance that she is represented with her face to the viceroy and her 144
The Castle back to the people. This portal stands on the site of the old main gate, where the heads of such Irish chieftains as were executed by the government were exposed on poles until they rotted away. The moral was clearly indicated by an old distich of the time of Elizabeth “These trunckless heddes doe playnly show each rebelles fatall end, And what a haynous thing it is the quene for to offend.” Hooker relates a trial by battle which was decided in the Castle Yard before the Lords Justices during the same reign. The parties were both Irishmen and of the same sept. A number of details are given, which serve to bring out the naked brutality of the whole affair. The appellant was Connor MacCormack O’Connor and the defendant Teague MacGilpatrick O’Connor, and the quarrel related to the killing by Teague of certain of Connor’s clansmen, who were under royal protection. The weapons were sword and shield. The fight went against Connor, who received three wounds, two in the leg and one in the eye. Weak and half-blinded from the blood that streamed down his face, he made a desperate attempt to close with his enemy, hoping in the struggle to reach some vital spot. But Teague “pummelled him until he loosed his hold, then with his sword cut off his head and, on the point thereof, presented it to the Lords Justices.” The spectators, says Hooker, much moved by the vigour and resolution of the combat, wished it had fallen rather on the whole sept of the O’Connors than on these two gentlemen. The State apartments, which form the official residence of the viceroy, occupy the southern side of the enclosure, and may be entered by a door at the south-western angle. As is often the case with the K I 45
[The Story of Dublin] buildings of this period, the interior is more successful than the exterior. The rooms are on quite a small scale, but show considerable luxury and good taste. The prevailing scheme of decoration is white and gold, a combination, which rarely fails to produce an impression of splendour, coupled with refinement. The Throne Room is remarkable for a fine curved ceiling, a great canopied chair of state over two hundred years old, and some pretty wall medallions ascribed to Angelica Kauffmann. At the head of the main stairs are two curiosities. One is a beautiful inlaid table worked by a poor prisoner in the Marshalsea, the debtors’ prison of Dublin. Here and there on its surface appear certain black dancing figures, which look distinctly diabolical. In all probability the artist, with the grim self-tormenting humour characteristic of old prison life, is jesting at his own wretched position and possible fate. The other is an oak carving said to be taken from a ship of the Spanish Armada, wrecked on the Irish coast in 1588. It represents a Roman emperor receiving the submission of a conquered nation. S. Patrick’s Hall is, perhaps, the most impressive of all these apartments. It was designed by the elegant Chesterfield during his term of office, is well-proportioned, and has a lofty painted ceiling with three pictures in panels. The subjects are S. Patrick preaching, the coronation of George III., and Irish chiefs doing homage in the reign of Henry II. The banners of the Knights of S. Patrick are suspended from the wall on either side. The combined effect of the whole is decidedly picturesque, a touch of bright colour being given by the crimson draperies and hangings. This hall is used for great State functions of every sort. The supper room has associations with the old 146
The Castle Norman builders of the Castle. It is portion of the rebuilt Bermingham Tower, which was partly taken down as being unsafe, owing to the effects of an explosion in a neighbouring store. The authorities were unduly apprehensive, as the event proved, for the workmen found it impossible to break up the old masonry by the ordinary means, so solid was the cement. In the end it had to be chipped away piecemeal by the chisel. The Tower was set up again in its old position, but in a much less substantial manner. When the Castle was used as a fortress, this was the key of the situation, being the highest and strongest part of the whole. Its name is said to be derived from John de Bermingham, who defeated Edward Bruce in the great death struggle at Faughart in 1318. The history of the little court at Dublin faithfully reflects the characteristics of the old Irish nobility, who were its chief supporters until the Union transferred the centre of Irish politics from College Green to Westminster. Like them it was gay and brilliant, full of wit and high spirits, which sometimes found vent in fantastical extravagance. Wild horseplay, in which the ladies’ ribbons suffered severely, was not unusual in the days of Swift. A little later the fashion was a luxurious and tasteful magnificence. The long gallery used as a dining-room was laid out with counters, whereon were disposed cold dishes, wines, and sweetmeats. The only light admitted found its way through transparent paintings, which gave an effect of moonlight. Unseen musicians played upon flutes and other soft instruments, while *’ fountains of lavender water diffused a grateful odour through this fairy scene, which certainly surpassed everything of the kind in Spenser.” The court never fell into that dull decorum and; formal etiquette which render many palaces so tedious to their occupants. The national talent for satire and M7
[The Story of Dublin] repartee was often strikingly manifested. Perhaps the earliest rejoinder of this kind recorded is that of a native cleric to Giraldus Cambrensis when the latter, in his usual tactless way, was arguing that Ireland could not be a very religious country, since it had never produced a martyr for the faith. “Oh, well,” said the Irishman significantly, “now that we have a nation come among us that knows how to make martyrs, no doubt we will have our share.” The allusion to the recent murder of Archbishop Becket at Canterbury was too obvious to be missed. Until recently ladies being presented were solemnly kissed by the viceroy. After an evening in which he had saluted some hundred or so, old and young, beautiful and the reverse, one holder of the office is reported to have said that he got his kisses as a young spendthrift borrows from a usurer, “part in old wine, part in dubious paintings, part in bright gold and silver.” With all this wit and brilliancy was combined a low state of political morality. Bribery, corruption, and sordid place-hunting were so common at one time that the square beneath the State apartments was nicknamed the Devil’s Half-acre.” An archway leads from the Upper to the Lower Yard. The latter was occupied formerly by the chapel, the moat, and, probably, some outworks. The hill on which the Castle stands shows itself here in a marked slope downward from the site of the old walls. The Yard is surrounded on three sides by commonplace offices. On the fourth, however, a venerable circular tower, black with age, and a small, but pretty, Gothic chapel, form a pleasing combination, the stern solidity of the one providing a perfect foil to the profuse ornament of the other. The old Wardrobe, or Record Tower, as it is now called, is a surviving fragment of the ancient fortress, as 148
‘The Castle it left the hands of its first constructors. It is in such good preservation, both internally and externally, as to furnish an excellent example of mediaeval fortification. The walls are ten feet thick, and the lower stories are lit only by small windows, set at wide intervals, marking the places where sharpshooting archers were stationed at loopholes in order to pick off the leaders of an attack. The Chapel Royal, to the left of the Record Tower, is the private church of the Lord Lieutenants. It is modern Gothic and was built a century or so ago to replace a ruined church on the same site. The interior is worth a visit, containing some fine carvings, especially those executed in a substance peculiar to Ireland the black, hard, half-petrified wood found buried in swampy places, and known as bog oak. This strange product is probably an intermediate stage in the development of coal from wood long sunk in the earth. The middle portion of the west window of the chapel is believed to be very ancient. It was presented by Earl Whitworth, a Lord Lieutenant, who is said to have obtained it in Russia. Its age is attested by the archaic look of the figures and the beautiful deep hues of the glass. Passing round the outside of the Chapel Royal, a small door on the right marks the entrance to the State Paper Office, the department which uses the Record Tower as a repository for the historical documents of the last two centuries. Permission to view the interior is usually granted without much difficulty. There are three circular rooms, one above the other, off each of which run four or five long narrow cells built in the thickness of the wall and lit only by a small window at the far end. A perpetual twilight reigns within, appropriate to a building which has been used as a state prison and has heard the
[The Story of Dublin] dull clank of chains and the heart-breaking sob of despair. On the first floor is shown a cell said to have been occupied by Silken Thomas after the failure of his rash insurrection. It is somewhat airier and lighter than the others, as befitted the rank of the captive. Near at hand is a secret chamber hidden in the wall and only accessible by a revolving door. Nothing is known of the history of this cell, but, on looking into its gloomy recesses, devoid of air or light, one remembers the oubliettes of the Continent, and wonders whether these dark walls have seen similar horrors. On the next floor is the cell from which, according to tradition, Owen Roe O’Donnell made his memorable escape in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. He must have been sorely cramped, for it is quite the smallest of all these places of confinement. The moat, which was reinforced by the waters of the Poddle, lay below, but Owen let himself down, gallantly swam the stream in midwinter, and was rewarded for his pluck by getting clear away to the mountains where he was beyond pursuit. From the top story a fine view can be obtained of the southern half of Dublin city, with the tall spire of S. Patrick’s to the right, and, in the distance, forming an eifective background, the mountains to which O’Donnell escaped on that cruel winter night. Just below is the private garden of the viceroy, laid out in the oldfashioned style, and consisting merely of a wide grassy lawn enclosed by clumps of shrubs and practically destitute of flowers. The Tower has not been used as a prison since the days of Emmet and Lord Edward, but, curiously enough, the documents relating to the rebellions of 1798 and 1803 are preserved here in the very cells where the men of whom they tell lay waiting trial and 152
The Castle sentence. All who have studied the history of that period must pity the high-spirited young dreamers who Jed these insurrections and, for the most part, perished so miserably. The late Mr Lecky, during his researches here, often came upon the private papers seized on prominent United Irishmen at the time of arrest. According to his description, these subverters of established authority were as sentimental as lads fresh from school. Romantic Damon and Pythias friendships, love letters, rude poems, reflections on life and maxims of conduct noted and copied from some exemplar, medals and badges with high-flown inscriptions, such are the pathetic and incongruous memorials they have left behind them in the dusty cartons of the Tower. Rebellion should be made of sterner stuff. Often in the very same box lie the long and detailed nightly reports of their doings sent to the government by a comrade whose treachery was never suspected. One cannot help feeling sorry for such gallant men engaged in a hopeless struggle with superior forces and encompassed in an invisible web of espionage and deceit. The end of it all was too often the bitter cup of lifelong exile, or a cell in the Tower to-day with the prospect of the scaffold at dawn to-morrow. “Sunt lacrimae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt.” Leaving the State Paper Office and turning to the right, we pass under the old south front of the Castle. Some parts of the curtain wall are still standing between the Record and Bermingham Towers, though it is not always easy to distinguish old work from its modern imitation. The road is terminated by the Ship Street gate, which leads into an ancient and decayed street of that name. The Poddle, once a navigable stream but now a subterraneous sewer, lavedthe walls of the Castle here, and was spanned by a bridge, upon which Owen 153
7 be Story of Dublin Roe O’Donnell descended in his first futile attempt at escape. The brook still flows in its old course under the road. Close to this gate and forming a continuation of the south face of the Castle is a high stone wall pierced with loopholes and running some forty yards before it merges into the ordinary houses of the street (p. 63). This is a part of the old city wall of Dublin, erected in the thirteenth century and often hastily repaired in time of stress. It seems to have had projecting bastions, pentagonal in shape, at intervals along its front.
SECTION III Trinity College “ ... Provost and Fellows of Trinity Famous forever at Greek and Latinity.” Graves.
<>[Trinity College] is remarkable among ancient seats of learning for the severe dignity of her architecture and her peculiar situation in the very heart of a great town. The noisy tide of commerce streams incessantly around three sides of the building. The long facade towards College Green, so beautiful in its wellbalanced exactness, has looked down on many a stormy scene in the history of Ireland. Even within the quadrangles the distant hum of the city pervades the air, and tall mercantile structures overtop the grey granite walls. The academic seclusion of Isis or Cam is unattainable. Perhaps, for this reason, Trinity has always been deeply immersed in the national life. Political and religious controversy have been, and still are, the very breath of her nostrils. However, it was no fault of the founders that the college is not now
[Trinity College]
surrounded by meadows and riverside walks. The old monastery which provided a site was well outside the walls, but the city, spreading towards the harbour, has long since encircled the institution she planted more than three centuries ago on the banks of the Liffey. Towards the end of Elizabeth’s reign a number of leading Dublin men, anxious to civilize and Anglicise, if possible, the wilder of the native tribes, contributed about 2000 towards founding a university in Ireland directed to that end. The chief workers in the movement were Loftus, Ussher and Chaloner. The corporation, for their part, gave the ground and building of All Hallows Monastery, lately dissolved by Henry VIII. and by him presented to the city. In 1591 the queen gave the projectors their charter, and, two years later, the first student was admitted. Loftus became the first Provost. Trinity was intended to be the first, but not the only college in the university. It has remained without a companion to this day. The early struggles were very severe, chiefly on account of the lack of endowment. Elizabeth had given the estates of some rebel chiefs, but, while Ireland was harassed by O’Neill and O’Donnell, no rents could be collected in Ulster or Munster. The benevolence of the public could not be relied on indefinitely. At one time the college could not afford a Provost, even at the moderate stipend of £40 a year. In 1596 the total income was ^300. Somewhat tardily a royal grant of £200 came in 1 598. James I., with a further donation of £400 a year and some estates in Ulster, set matters on a firm financial basis. In 1641 the college was again in great straits. The rising in Ulster stopped all supplies from that quarter. The Provost fled, and the Fellows, who stood by the ship, were obliged to sell the plate piece155
[The Story of Dublin] meal to procure the necessaries of life. Troublous as the times were, the citizens came to the rescue. Subscriptions tided over the eight lean years which intervened until Cromwell pacified Ireland in 1649. Its last period of serious tribulation was in the reign of James II. during the Jacobite occupation of Dublin. Since the days of Laud and Straffbrd, Roman Catholics had been excluded from office in Trinity. In 1686 Tyrconnell, the Lord Deputy, sent an order requiring the Provost and Fellows to appoint a Catholic named Green to a certain post. The request was evaded by the authorities of the university. Somewhat alarmed, however, at the tone taken by the Irish government, they sent a deputation with a loyal address to the King at Chester. James’s reply was curt, not to say snappish. “I thank you for your address, and I don’t doubt of your loyalty or of any others of the Church of England.” Soon after their return from Chester they were confronted with a demand for the appointment of another Catholic to a fellowship. The royal nominee was rejected, this time on his refusal to take the oath prescribed by the statutes. Tyrconnell, in retaliation, discontinued the payments usually made to the college by the Crown. The pinch was felt at once, and the usual remedy, the sale of the plate, could not be applied, as the requisite consent was withheld by the viceroy. Among other expedients of extreme economy the nightly supper in hall was abolished, as involving an expenditure for coal. By the time James arrived in Dublin the Provost and most of the Fellows had fled to England. Four stood by the college throughout. In September 1689 the scholars were turned into the street, being allowed to carry away nothing but their books. The buildings were now used for military purposes. The King had 156
[Trinity College] no leisure to carry out his scheme of remodelling the university on a Catholic basis. He did little beyond appointing some priests of his own church to offices in Trinity. To these men, Dr Moore and Father McCarthy, are due, firstly, a service to humanity, the alleviation of the lot of the Protestant prisoners confined in the college; and, secondly, a service to learning, the preservation of the valuable library with its unique collection of Celtic manuscripts. During the reigns of William and Anne the college, like the rest of Dublin, entered on a period of rapid growth and development. The present structure mostly dates from this time. The extensions were helped by liberal grants from the Irish parliament, whose generosity is commemorated in the name of Parliament Square. The library was provided with the splendid habitation it now occupies. Jacobitism still simmered in the breasts of the younger generation, who had not seen themselves ejected by soldiers. The heads of the college were staunch Whigs. Quarrels and broils ensued. Students were expelled for various acts of disrespect to the new dynasty, such, for instance, as maltreating the statue of King William in College Green and drinking to the memory of the horse from which he was thrown. Indeed rulers and subjects were at open war in the university. Once an unpopular tutor fired on some undergraduates who had broken his windows. They returned with their own weapons and shot him dead when he appeared. This tragic affair happened at No. 25. Famous names now begin to appear on the books, among others Swift and Berkeley, one a maker of laughter, which ever failed to warm his own heart, the other a spinner of deep metaphysical problems, but in private life the most simple and virtuous of men. The programme of studies widened. The logicians and 57
[The Story of Dublin] grammarians, Burgerdiscius, Smiglecius and the rest, whose very names suggest dusty brown volumes and crabbed Latinity, give place to classics and mathematics. Euclid was first introduced in 1758. The gownsmen took the greatest interest in the proceedings of the Parliament House, where they were long accorded the privilege of free admission to the gallery at all times. Towards the end of the eighteenth century the college was suspected of sympathising with the United Irishmen. In 1798 Lord Clare came from the Castle to conduct a special visitation, as a result of which Robert Emmet and seventeen others were expelled. Amongst those who were noted as contumacious, but were not further dealt with, was Thomas Moore, then a lad of nineteen. The note of the present buildings of Trinity is austerity, hardly relieved by the trees and lawns, in which it abounds. Grey granite and rectangular classic forms recur on every side. The main entrance is from College Green between the statue of Burke and Goldsmith, two distinguished alumni. The first quadrangle is the Parliament Square, which recalls the liberality of its neighbour, the former House of Commons. To the right is the Examination Hall, to the left the Chapel and the Dining Hall, while confronting the spectator is a Campanile, or bell tower, of beautiful and original design erected in the nineteenth century. The Examination Hall is not remarkable for its internal appearance, being too small for its purpose and somewhat chilly and bare in its general effect. The ceiling is fairly successful. The pictures, however, are interesting. They include the learned Ussher, one of the first Fellows, Bishop Berkeley, Lord Clare, whose force of character and, according to his enemies, absence of scruple crushed more than one rebellion, 158
[Trinity College] Dean Swift, Edmund Burke (portrayed by Hoppner), and Queen Elizabeth. By a singular superstition the foundress is believed to bring ill luck to students who sit within her sphere of influence at examinations. On the side wall opposite the stern queen is a sculptured group to the memory of Baldwin, perhaps the greatest of all the provosts. He was a man more remarkable for a strong, autocratic disposition than for brilliant scholarship. He held office for forty-one years, from 1717 to 1758, and during that time practically rebuilt the college. When he died he left all his real estate and ^24,000 besides to the institution he had governed so long. An anecdote will show the man. Dr Delany, a friend of both the viceroy and the all-powerful Dean Swift, took occasion to preach at Baldwin in the College Chapel. The Provost took no notice until Delany presumed to deliver him a copy of this sermon. “You did, then, sir,” he thundered, “preach this sermon against me. You must, then, beg my pardon publicly in the College Hall or I will expel you.” An apology was refused. The Provost was taking steps to execute his threat, when the viceroy intervened, first with mild entreaties, then with a covert menace. “Tell the Provost,” he said, “that his house is made of glass and that I have a stone in my sleeve.” “Tell His Excellency,” retorted Baldwin, “that if Dr Delany does not beg my pardon in the College Hall to-morrow, I will expel him there at 12 o’clock.” In such a quarrel the viceroy dared not use his power of removing a provost from office. Delany had to make his apology in due form. After this it is not astonishing to hear that, when the collegians marched in procession to S. Patrick’s Cathedral, the resolute figure of the Provost at their head was sufficient to deter the Liberty Boys from their usual attacks on the party. L 161
[The Story of Dublin] The gilt organ-case in the gallery has a curious history. It was made in the Netherlands and, while on its way to some Spanish destination, was captured in Vigo Bay by Admiral Rooke in 1702. The Duke of Ormond, serving in the fleet, obtained the organ as part of his spoil, and, during his viceroyalty, presented it to the college. The old pipes have been replaced, but the case remains. Another relic of the past is the great chandelier, which once adorned the House of Commons, and was transferred to Trinity after the Union. The Chapel contains some fine wood carving, especially in the pulpit and lectern. In the open air to the east of the chapel lies the neglected statue of Luke Chaloner, one of the first promoters of the college. The rain has beaten on the alabaster of his recumbent figure so many years that it has long since washed away any resemblance to humanity. The Dining Hall has an old-fashioned interior, marked by ancient wainscoting and a quaint little wooden pulpit once used in the Elizabethan chapel, and now occupied at dinner time by the scholar who recites the Latin grace. From its shape it has been irreverently nicknamed the “egg-cup.” Beyond the dining hall is Botany Bay, a small remote quadrangle, which received its name from the prison-like style of its architecture and the supposed character of the undergraduates, who resort there as to an Alsatia out of the reach of the law. To the right of the Campanile is the Library. The interior of this building is celebrated and deservedly so. It is a long room with a succession of bays on either side, which provide shelf room for thousands of books. The entrance to each recess is flanked with beautiful red-brown old oak carvings, beneath which stand white busts representing great names in science 162
[Trinity College] and literature. The perspective is very fine, the arched roof of pinewood, the endless bays, the sculpture, all filing away into the remote distance. The proportions have been so well handled that, despite its great length, 240 feet, the library does not look narrow, no matter where the point of view is taken. It is splendidly lit from both sides, for each bay to right and left terminates in a large window, and the daylight streams in through no less than a hundred openings. In glass cases down the centre are contained the artistic and literary treasures of the college, so numerous and interesting as to form a fine museum. Illuminated manuscripts, early printed books, first editions, historical letters, gilt bindings, old woodcuts and engravings, biblical texts, Shakespeare, Caxton, Elzevir, Pindar, are all represented here. The most famous item in the collection is the Book of Kells, the product of an eighth century Irish monastery. It is a manuscript of the Gospels in Latin, illuminated in a most varied and intricate style. The colouring is delicate and harmonious. Each page of this work must have taken months to execute. The marvel of the achievement is that such skill and taste were shown in Ireland at a time when all Europe, including England, was sunk in the barbarism of the Dark Ages. Such books were highly valued, and sometimes formed part of a king’s ransom during the tribal wars of the period. The Library owes its existence to soldiers. The army in Ireland, after the defeat of the Spaniards at Kinsale in 1601, celebrated its victory by subscribing 700 for the purchase of books for the infant college. Again, under Cromwell, these military patrons of learning bought up Ussher’s vast and unique collection of books
and manuscripts at a cost of ^2200 and pre163
[The Story of Dublin] sented it to Trinity, thus placing her at a single stroke in the front rank among the great storehouses of knowledge. From the door of the Library, in the direction of Nassau Street, may be seen the Fellows’ Garden and the Provost’s House. The latter, the best side of which is turned towards Grafton Street,
TRINITY COLLEGE LIBRARY.
is perhaps the most successful example in Dublin of the classical style applied to domestic architecture. The usual stories of wild undergraduate and eccentric tutor are told of Trinity, as of every other college. There was one curious feature about the early methods of instruction. For a long time the Irish language was used in the classrooms, no doubt with a view to attracting the Celtic clansmen. The practice was discontinued eventually, perhaps from a fear lest Trinity, while trying to Anglicise the natives, might itself become Hibernicised by its own students. 164
[Ill. MONOGRAM PAGE, BOOK OF KELLS]
<>[Trinity College] The quaintest figure in the long roll of Fellows is Dr Barrett, nicknamed “Jacky.” His huge learning, to which his colleagues referred for facts and dates as confidently as to an encyclopaedia, his parsimony, his ignorance of the world, his untidiness and general singularity of behaviour, were a perpetual fund of interest to town and gown. He rarely went outside the gates. On one of his infrequent expeditions he saw some sheep in a field and enquired what sort of animals they might be. On being told that they were sheep, he evinced a childlike delight at seeing “live mutton.” His previous acquaintance with the animal had been confined to the roast and boiled of dinner in hall. His account of the sea at Clontarf on the same eventful day is a delightful piece of pedantry : “A broad flat superficies, like Euclid’s definition of a line expanding itself into a surface, and blue like Xenophon’s plain covered with wormwood.” Yet he must have had his unregenerate days. Any unusual excitement would bring to his lips an irrepressible volley of strange oaths, which caused great glee among the undergraduates, and gave deep shame to the doctor himself the moment after. “May the devil admire me ! “and “Hell to my soul,” were not unusual expressions when “Jacky” was moved to anger or amazement. His greatest achievement in the field of scholarship was the discovery of a palimpsest of S. Matthew’s Gospel. Another curious academic figure is Hutchinson, the political provost, known as the “Prancer,” because he was more remarkable for dancing and duelling than for learning or piety. The neighbourhood of a large city has rendered it impossible to keep so close a watch as at other universities on the behaviour of the undergraduates. No proctors stalk the streets of Dublin. The stocks and whippings of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries 165
[The Story of Dublin] could not curb the high spirits of youth. Strafford issued an Act of State against innkeepers “who harboured Collegians,” and one Elizabeth Jones performed a sort of public penance for such an offence at the Market Cross in 1638. Still, despite the authorities, the “Trinity Boys,” as the Dubliners half affectionately called them, would sally out armed with their peculiar weapons, the massive keys of their rooms, slung in handkerchiefs or in the tail of an academic robe. Allying themselves to the weavers from the Liberty, they fought Homeric combats with the butchers of Ormond Quay. Once the college got a bad fright. Word was brought that the fight had gone in favour of the Ormond Boys, and that the cruel victors had hung their captives from the meat hooks in their shops. As the rescuing party approached the market it seemed only too true. Helpless swinging forms in cap and gown were discerned from afar. But the butchers had been magnanimous enough to hang their victims by the waistbands of their breeches, not by the insertion of steel hook into tender human skin, as had been feared. In the centre of the quadrangle formerly stood the college pump, for centuries the focus of academic disorder. Here any bailiff who dared, in the pursuit of his quarry, to violate the sacred precincts of Trinity, was purged of his guilt by a thorough sousing in cold water. The Fellows connived at such proceedings. Once a certain Dr Wilder was crossing the court while a bailiff was under discipline. Either pretending to interfere for the man or mistaking their intentions he cried out, “Gentlemen, gentlemen, for the love of God don’t be so cruel as to nail his ears to the pump!” The students took Wilder’s remark as a veiled and indirect hint, procured a hammer and nails at once, and nailed up the hapless man there and then. This Fellow was Goldsmith’s college tutor, so
it is 166
The Old Parliament House not surprising that the pupil was riotous and dissipated under such guidance. The future poet was often censured, and was once sent back to a lower grade. Burke, on the other hand, was a steady and consistent worker, who saw his object and knew his capabilities from the very beginning. In 1747 he founded the Historical Society, a debating club, which still flourishes within the walls. Swift was wilful, and followed his own path. He would not study logic or physics, but delighted in classical literature. His degree was only conferred by the authorities on sufferance. As a youth he attracted very little notice among his contemporaries, who little guessed the strange fancies that worked in the brain of the lonely orphan lad, already growing soured by the struggle for life.
SECTION IV The Old Parliament House “Here, where old Freedom once was wont to wait Her darling Grattan nightly at the gate, Now little clerks in hall and colonnade Tot the poor items of provincial trade. Lo! round the walls that Bushe and Plunket shook The teller’s desk, the runner’s pocket-book.” FOR more than a century the Bank of Ireland has now held undisturbed possession of the classical building that was once the home of a native parliament. Many Irishmen, however, have fond memories of the past and fond hopes for the future of the “old house in College Green,” and, even to this day, as political processions file past the Ionic colonnades, hats are lifted in token of respect and remembrance. The site was first used for state purposes towards the end of the reign of Elizabeth. Sir George Carey, 167
[The Story of Dublin] or Carew, Mountjoy’s second in command during the wars of O’Neill and O’Donnell, built an hospital in what was then an eastern suburb of the city. Carey’s Hospital passed through the hands of various officials, until it came to Sir Arthur Chichester, viceroy from 1604 to 1615, a lucky soldier of fortune, whose war services and exertions in planting Ulster with English and Scotch were rewarded with grants of land around Belfast. During his tenancy it became an official residence, and was renamed Chichester House. It was here that warning of the intended rising of Ulster and plot to seize the Castle was brought to the lords justices in 1641. A Privy Council was at once convened, and sat in anxiety through the night. At five in the morning one of the conspirators was arrested and brought before them. He confessed his guilt, but was defiant. “It was true they had him in their power and might use him how they pleased, but he was sure he would be revenged.” When daylight came the lords justices removed to the Castle, still very feebly garrisoned, and were relieved on their arrival to find that a body of troops, changing stations from its country quarters, had just reached Dublin and completely altered the situation. The commander had been quick to note the disturbed and panic-stricken condition of the city, and had taken measures accordingly. The first parliament after the Restoration met in Chichester House. The speaker congratulated the new assembly on being the “choicest collection of Protestant fruit that ever grew within the walls of the Commons House.” It turned its attention mainly to wholesale confiscation of the lands of the defeated party. The same policy was pursued by a parliament of William III., which met in the same place after the defeat of the Jacobites at Limerick. Twelve years later three eminent barristers, appearing at the 1 68
The Old Parliament House bar, vainly entreated the Commons not to proceed with the first instalment of the penal code against Catholics. Chichester House now began to fall into decay. In 1729 the present structure was commenced. The front towards College Green was the first part erected. The parliament was not at this time so popular as it became later. Its subservience to Westminster had roused the indignation of the people. The Act called the Sixth of George I., which gave the British parliament the right to ride roughshod over Ireland, had been accepted with hardly a protest. The general scorn soon found vent in a nick-name. The new chamber, having a high dome-shaped roof, and not being remarkable for the intellect of its members, was christened the “Goose Pie,” a name, that remained even when the cupola was destroyed. Dean Swift, angry at the part played by the parliament in a dispute over tithes, satirised it fiercely under the name of the Legion Club. The lampoon is a good specimen of the scathing bitterness of that terrible man. “As I stroll the city, oft I / See a building large and lofty, / Not a bowshot from the College, / Half the globe from sense and knowledge./ Tell us what the pile contains? Many a head that holds no brains. / These demoniacs let me dub / With the name of Legion Club; / Such assemblies, you might swear, Meet when butchers bait a bear, / Such a noise, and such haranguing / When a brother thief is hanging; / Such a rout and such a rabble / Run to hear Jack-pudding gabble.” Swift did not scruple to mention names. 169
[The Story of Dublin] “In the porch Briareus stands, Shows a bribe in all hi* hands, Briareus the Secretary, But we mortals call him Carey.” The writings of Lucas, over-violent as they were, brought a new spirit into Irish politics. The first definite stand against external influence was made in 1753, when the House, by 122 votes to 117, asserted its right to dispose of a surplus as it pleased. The city rang its bells and lit its bonfires, while the members, who had carried the vote, were escorted home by thousands bearing torches. The feeling rapidly rose. In 1759 there were rumours of a union between Great Britain and Ireland. The mob beset the Parliament House for some hours, and compelled both peers and commoners to take oaths to resist the Union. Lord Inchiquin was severely handled because a natural impediment in his speech was thought to be assumed in order to avoid the pledge. Sir Thomas Prendergast, happening to look out from a window, was haled forth by the nose and rolled in the gutter. The riot was put down by cavalry with a considerable loss of life. As the parliament rose in popular estimation, men of high character and talents threw themselves into the struggle. Grattan, Flood, Philpot Curran, Hussey Burgh, Hely Hutchinson, and many other brillant orators appeared during the latter half of the eighteenth century. The debates were fully reported and the division lists published, so that the proceedings in the House were well known to every citizen of Dublin. The leaders of the Opposition, mostly fervent and patriotic young men, became the darlings of the people in this intellectual arena, while the Ministry of the day was derided as a pack of crafty intriguers and placemen, caring only for their 170
The Old Parliament House sinecures and salaries. The agitation against the restriction on Irish trade came to a climax during the American War. The bayonets of the Volunteers in College Green threatened England with a second colonial war, if she refused Grattan’s demand. There was great excitement both inside and outside the House. Hussey Burgh delivered a famous speech. He declaimed against a legal system so often heedless of the suffering it inflicted on one part of the Empire. Penalty, punishment and Ireland were, he said, almost synonymous. The English had sown their laws like dragons’ teeth, and they had sprung up as armed men. The telling classical allusion, with which he closed, called forth rounds of applause. When order was restored, Burgh’s voice was heard resigning his office under government. Grattan welcomed him with the cry, “the gates of promotion are shut; the gates of glory are opened.” Before the year was out, the British Ministry withdrew the commercial restrictions. Grattan followed up his advantage. Still backed by the Volunteers, he demanded complete selfgovernment. Again he was successful. The Irish parliament was released from the two fetters that hampered all its movements, Poynings’ Act and the Sixth of George I. Grattan broke into a great apostrophe. “Spirit of Swift ! spirit of Molyneux ! your genius has prevailed ! Ireland is now a nation ! in that new character I hail her, and, bowing to her august presence I say Esto perpetua.’ “It was the proudest day of Grattan’s life. His efforts had been crowned with a complete triumph, and, for the moment, it seemed as if the eternal problem of Irish government might be solved along the lines he had indicated. But men of his moderate character and high principles were lacking to Ireland 171
[The Story of Dublin]
at this juncture, when they were especially needed to work a new constitution. Grattan Jived to see himself disregarded between persecutors on one hand and revolutionaries on the other. The Volunteers were either disbanded or became secret societies, drilling and arming by stealth. Agrarian outrages began to occur all over the country. The example of the French Revolution unsettled the minds of the subjects in every land, and terrified their governors into a policy of reaction and harsh repression. Ireland burst into rebellion, which was put down with the utmost severity. The great English statesman, William Pitt, now determined to apply to Ireland a scheme of full and complete participation in the privileges of Great Britain. This was the Act of Union. The old feeling against such a measure was very strong. The first debate in the Irish House resulted in a Ministerial majority of one vote, the second in a minority of six. The populace drew the Speaker’s coach home with their own hands, and were with some difficulty restrained from tieing up the Lord Chancellor, a prominent Unionist, to the pole and compelling him to assist in the triumphal march. Pitt was not discouraged. Every kind of influence was brought to bear on the recalcitrants. Offers of pension, place and title were made, and had their due effect. A majority was gradually ensured for the Union. Grattan was very ill, but the danger impending over the Constitution of 1782 would not suffer him to rest. Leaning heavily on the shoulders of two friends, and dressed in his old volunteer uniform, he entered the House to record his protest. It failed to shake the solidity of the government forces. The Union was carried by considerable majorities amid a state of popular feeling so intense that the streets had to be patrolled by cavalry, 172
The Old Parliament House and an infantry regiment lay under arms in the colonnades. Corry, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, denounced Grattan as an “unimpeached traitor.” He was answered by an invective, the phrases of which are steeped in anger and scorn. “Has the gentleman done? “said Grattan. “Has he completely done? He was unparliamentary from the beginning to the end of his speech, but I did not call him to order why? because the limited talents of some men render it impossible for them to be severe without being unparliamentary; but before I sit down, I shall show him how to be severe and parliamentary at the same time...... I will not call him villain, because it would be unparliamentary, and he is a privy councillor. I will not call him fool, because he happens to be Chancellor of the Exchequer; but I say that he is one who has abused the privilege of parliament and freedom of debate to the uttering language which, if spoken out of the House, 1 should answer only with a blow.” A duel was inevitable after such a stinging retort. It was fought at Ballsbridge almost immediately before a crowd of spectators cheering for Grattan. Shots were twice exchanged, and Corry was wounded in the hand. The bloodshed, as often, brought about a reconciliation between the parties, who separated better friends than they had been for years. Grattan took farewell of his parliament in another splendid speech. “Yet I do not give up the country I see her in a swoon, but she is not dead though in her tomb she lies helpless and motionless, there is on her lips a spirit of life and on her cheek a glow of beauty “Thou art not conquered; beauty’s ensign yet Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, And death’s pale flag is not advanced there.” 73
[The Story of Dublin] So passed away the Irish parliament after a chequered career lasting through six centuries. No one can say even yet whether the last scene in its history took place when it abolished itself in 1800. The Bank of Ireland bought the buildings for ^40,000, and converted them to its own purposes, but some parts of Jt the interior are Still as they were before the Union. The exterior has often been admired. The receding front, with its beautifully grouped Ionic columns, produces the true classical effect of dignity, harmony and simplicity. The eastern portico towards Westmoreland Street represents the solution of a difficult architectural problem. An extension of the House of Lords was projected, which necessitated the building of another entrance. As the levels were different, it would have been impossible to carry the Ionic pillars round from the College Green side, so orthodoxy was sacrificed and a new portico of the tall and slender Corinthian order was erected. The Parliament House thus embodies two styles of Greek art. The chamber, where the House of Lords used to meet, has been left untouched. It is quite small and would hardly seat more than sixty members. The Irish peers numbered about a hundred, including a score of Protestant bishops. The walls are hung with two pieces of old tapestry, manufactured in 1733, representing the Battle of the Boyne and the Relief of Derry. In the former King William is shown on a prancing horse entering the river, where Schomberg, mortally wounded, is falling from his horse. In the latter King James and Sarsfield are directing operations against the Maiden City, which is visible on a hill in the distance. In vignettes on either side are a picture of the breaking of the boom, so graphically described by Macaulay, and a portrait of George Walker, the 174
The Old Parliament House warlike clergyman, who inspired the resistance and was promoted to a bishopric for his services. Walker, apparently, liked his new profession better than his old. Instead of going to his see, he followed the army and was shot dead in one of the fords of the Boyne, fulfilling in his person the prophecy that “he that taketh the sword, shall perish with the sword.” The Lord Chancellor used to preside from a seat placed where the statue of George III. now stands. Close by are two old boxes, said to be King William’s treasure-chests. They have curiously large and complicated locks covering all the inner side of the lid. Around the walls some fine wood carving is to be seen, especially in the mantelpiece. The chairs and the large and highly-polished mahogany table are the same that did duty during the deliberations of the Irish Parliament. The arrangement is rather that of a board room or council chamber than a large assembly. Apparently the lords rarely gathered in full strength. As usual in hereditary bodies, a certain proportion were too careless and indolent to discharge their duties. The Parliament House did not figure in the lives of such men until it became their Nemesis. Noblemen have been tried here for no less a crime than murder. Lord Santry, while in his cups in an inn at Palmerstown, had, from some whim or other, enjoined silence on all present and run his sword through an unfortunate porter who disobeyed. When charged with the crime, he elected to be tried by his peers in this chamber. The proceedings were very solemn. The executioner stood beside the prisoner, bearing an axe, which was held with edge averted until the moment of sentence, when it was turned towards the prisoner. Each juror gave in his verdict separately. In every case it was * Guilty, upon my honour.” Santry was condemned to death, but his family connections proM 177
[The Story of Dublin] cured him a reprieve and, eventually, a full pardon, which was quite undeserved. The body of the Duke of Rutland, who died in the viceroyalty, lay in state in the House of Lords, pending its removal to England. It must have been a sombre and impressive scene. The walls were draped for the occasion with black cloth hangings, which bore the insignia of the deceased. A number of mutes in long dark gowns and caps stood on either side, bearing branches of tapers. By the bier were motionless military figures, soldiers of the ancient corps of Battle Axes, the personal bodyguard of the departed ruler. Rarely has a Lord Lieutenant died in harness. In a sense, Rutland fell a victim to the duties of his position. His banquets were so splendid and numerous that the health of the host was undermined with overmuch conviviality. The visitor can pass through the division lobbies of the old Parliament House. They enclose a rectangular space formerly occupied by the House of Commons. The site is now taken up by a number of small bank offices. The celebrated octagonal chamber, with its gallery capable of accommodating 700 persons, has been cut up and altered out of all recognition. A small room associated with the Speaker is still preserved, and the Court of Requests, where deputations waited to present petitions to parliament, has become the public cash office of the bank, daily thronged by busy commercial men, who seldom give a thought to the historical memories of the place where they draw their cheques and make their deposits.
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S. Patricks Cathedral SECTION V S. Patricks Cathedral “An instinctive taste teaches men to build their churches in flat countries with spire steeples, which, as they cannot be referred to any other object, point as with silent finger to the sky and stars.” Coleridge. IT must have been very galling to the monks of Christ Church to see a new cathedral on a larger and more splendid scale than their own rising not two hundred yards from their cloisters. The two churches are so close together that the easiest way to S. Patrick’s, which lies in a network of obscure streets, leads past its old rival. From the western end of Christ Church a southward turning called Nicholas Street, almost opposite the Synod Hall, leads directly to the soaring spire of S. Patrick’s. This approach is interesting in another way. It shows the open air market so characteristic of ancient Dublin. Street traders of the very humblest type sit on the ground selling an extraordinary assortment of articles, mostly decidedly secondhand. The progress of modern improvement, however, threatens to drive these people from their old haunts and immure them in a large and well-fitted, but entirely commonplace, market building. The new park has cleared away a number of the houses, winch obscured the cathedral, and the long, irregular, but highly picturesque north face is now completely visible (p. 25). The architecture is Early English, with some modifications suitable to Ireland. The battlements round the roof and the turrets at the corners show that the builders, knowing their church was to be outside the city wall, determined to render it secure against predatory tribes from the mountains. 179
[The Story of Dublin] The steeple is in two sections, one built four hundred years later than the other. The lower consists of a square tower, massive and defensible, almost coal-black with the deposits of six hundred years. The upper is a grey granite needle-shaped spire, superposed in the eighteenth century by the directions of a bishop, whose
s. PATRICK’S, FROM THE CLOSE. will left special funds for the purpose. The effect, though architecturally incongruous, is pleasing to the eye. The great height of the steeple, over two hundred feet in all, adds to the stateliness of the exterior. The site is peculiar and ill-adapted to the use to which it has been put. S. Patrick’s is only seven feet above the waters of a subterranean brook called the Poddle, the same which flows beneath the Lower Castle Yard. Dublin rivers, being fed from the mountains, are liable to sudden floods. The cathedral 180
S. Patrick’s Cathearal has been often inundated. Under the circumstances, it was impossible to include a crypt in the design. The sanctity attaching to the spot, however, compensated, in the minds of the founders, for its physical drawbacks. S. Patrick was believed to have called forth a holy well on this very place, an island between the branches of the Poddle. The early Norman archbishops, seeking to raise up a rival to Christ Church, availed themselves of the hallowed associations of * S. Patrick’s on the Island.” An existing wooden church was replaced by a lofty cruciform edifice in hewn stone, which was consecrated in 1191 and was raised to the status of a cathedral in 1219. The present building is probably an amplification of the designs of Archbishop Comyn in 1191. It is assigned to the year 1225. The whole of the thirteenth century is taken up with quarrels with Christ Church. S. Patrick’s has taken a deeper hold of the affections of the people than its neighbour. The archbishops have often been so fond of the younger church as to be willing to transfer the metropolitan see thither. In 1300 a compromise was affected, by which Christ Church was formally recognised as senior and superior, while most of the customary ecclesiastical privileges were fairly divided between both. Nowadays the distinction is much the same as that between S. Paul’s and Westminster Abbey. Christ Church is assigned to the see of Dublin, S. Patrick’s is the National Cathedral. While Edward Bruce was hovering around the city in 1316, the burghers set fire to the church, lest it might be used as a stronghold by the Scots. Not much damage was done, however. Stone walls do not easily burn down. In 1362 an accidental fire destroyed the north-western corner. Archbishop Minot, in the succeeding year, repaired the damage. He seems to 181
[The Story of Dublin] have had a love for the grand style. The four arches of his rebuilding are at the western end of the nave on the left hand side. They are so much higher and wider than their fellows that they cause a break in the continuity of some of the architectural lines. Minot’s great work is the tower. Like the cathedral itself this addition was designed for defensive purposes. It is not unlike the tall, narrow castles, half fortress half look-out place, which occur every few miles in Ireland. Its walls are ten feet thick, like those of the Record Tower. Battlement and turret add to the resemblance, while its great height, 147 feet from the ground to the parapet, must have rendered it very useful as a watch upon the movements of the mountain septs. All “idle and straggling fellows,” in other words “the unemployed,” were requisitioned by the archbishop to aid in the erection of his tall belfry, of which he was so proud that he took as his crest the figure of a bishop with a steeple in his hand. In the tower still hangs a whole peal of bells, cast in the seventeenth century, and bearing characteristic mottoes, such as “Henry Paris made me with good sound To be fift in eight, when bells ring round.” or “Feare God and honnor the King For obedienc is a vertuous thing.” The wars of York and Lancaster, or rather their Irish counterpart, those of Butler and Geraldine, found their way into the sanctuary in 1492. The citizens, who ever loved the Fitzgerald family, went near to massacring their rivals in the sacred precincts. It was on this occasion that the leaders of the two hostile parties shook hands through a hole specially made in one of the church doors. 182
S. Patrick’s Cathedral With the Reformation came days of darkness and danger. The Chapter of S. Patrick’s resisted the new doctrines more stubbornly than their fellows at Christ Church. The greater number of them were expelled. The Tudor monarchs did not approve of the superstitious reverence in which the cathedral was held. Henry VIII. confiscated its revenues. Edward VI. reduced it to the status of a parish church. Sir John Perrott, Lord Deputy under Elizabeth, was strongly in favour of converting it into a university. “S. Patrick’s,” he said, “is superfluous except to maintain a few bad singers and to satisfy the covetous humour of some that eat up most of the revenue of that church.” The project came to nothing. However the building has some academic associations. It was the home of a university, which was established by the Pope in 1320, and had a hard struggle for existence during two centuries of disturbance, until it was finally dispatched by Henry VIII. The Reformers cast out the images of the saints, whitewashed the walls and replaced the paintings by inscriptions containing the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments. During the religious wars of the seventeenth century Cromwellians and Jacobites are said to have stabled their horses in the aisles. The last great epoch in the cathedral history is the thirty years during which Dean Swift controlled its fortunes. In the nineteenth century it was going to decay, when it was splendidly restored by Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness. To the same family is due the pleasant little park, which occupies the site of an evil slum called Bull Alley. The donor, Lord Iveagh, deserves great credit, chiefly, of course, for the benefit his action has conferred on the inhabitants of a poor district, but, incidentally, for the beautiful view it has disclosed of the fine old church. 183
[The Story of Dublin] The interior is, like Minot’s tower, built in the grand style. Not, perhaps, so picturesque nor so delicate as Christ Church, its great length and height render it very impressive. Monuments crowd every available inch of space. The banners, helmets and swords of the Knights of S. Patrick at the time of disestablishment hang over the choir stalls. The bright heraldic colours contrast well with the grey stone arches around. These, however, are only warlike emblems. They have never left their present abode. A more thrilling sight is afforded in the nave by the colours of historic Irish regiments affixed to the walls, the very tattered silken fragments, that pressed, it may be, into the breach at Badajoz or waved indomitably hour after hour over the bullettorn squares of Waterloo. They are hung too high, unfortunately, for the date of their deposit to be ascertained. Some of them are threadbare with age, a mere webbing from which all vestige of a pattern has vanished. How many brave Irishmen have perished beneath those folds ! To the left of the entrance porch is a low and dark baptistery, believed to be the oldest surviving part of the church. Just beyond it is the Boyle monument, “the famous, sumptuous and glorious tomb of my Lord of Corke,” in its day accounted almost a wonder of the world (p. 75). It is erected to the memory of no less than sixteen persons, all relations of Richard Boyle, first Earl of Cork, and all depicted either standing, kneeling, or lying in some part of the monument. The founder of the family, with his wife, is shown in the second tier. He was a successful soldier and adventurer during the reign of Elizabeth. In a niche just below is his brother Robert, the chemist, who discovered “Boyle’s Law.” With its columns of black marble and its rows of quaint red-tinted figures, 184
s. PATRICK’S THE INTERIOR.
S. Patricks Cathedral this lofty and ancient piece of work, while not deserving Brereton’s encomiums, has a sort of barbaric splendour. At the west end of the northern aisle is the stone inscribed with a Celtic cross, found during some excavations and believed to mark the site of S. Patrick’s holy well. To the left is the plain wooden pulpit used by Swift. The north aisle contains a number of pleasing monuments. Philpot Curran, Carolan, last of the Irish bards, contemporary and protege of Straffbrd, Samuel Lover, song writer and novelist, whose “Handy Andy “and “Widow Machree “breathe the very essence of Irish humour, are among those commemorated. The Elizabethan taste in sculpture is again exhibited in the monument to Archbishop Jones, who was dean of the cathedral in 1581. The style is very much like that chosen by the Boyles, though the proportions are much smaller. In the north transept are many memorials to the Royal Irish, a regiment with a history that goes back to Charles II. During the wars of William III. it was strongly Protestant, and was the only Irish regiment to enter the British service after the siege of Limerick. At Namur it showed such headlong gallantry under the very eyes of the King that it was given as its crest a Hon, with the motto “Virtutis Namurcensis Praemium,” “A reward for valour at Namur.” Its former comrades, who adhered to the cause of James II., became the Irish Brigade in the service of France. At Malplaquet, all unwitting, the Royal Irish encountered a battalion of their compatriots in a wood, and, by steady platoon firing, drove them back. It was not till they began to pick up the wounded that they found out, from a Lieutenant O’ Sullivan, the identity of their late foes. The Franco-Irish, however, had their revenge at Fontenoy 187
[The Story of Dublin] some forty years later. A British force, advancing with cool determination through a withering fire, had almost penetrated the French lines, when the Irish Brigade, who had been held in reserve all day, was launched as a forlorn hope against the head of the all but victorious column. Their desperate charge turned the scale and gave the victory to France. Subsequently the Royal Irish defended Gibraltar against the Spaniards, and Toulon against a French force, which included a young artillery officer named Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1801, it helped to drive the French out of Egypt, thereby ruining Napoleon’s schemes for the conquest of India. It has associations, too, though melancholy ones, with the American War of Independence. The first shots of that contest were fired on the Royal Irish at Lexington, and the regiment formed part of the British attacking party, which stormed Bunker’s Hill outside Boston, after a desperate resistance, which proved, once for all, the military worth of the, till then, despised Colonial. In the right hand corner of the north transept is a bluish-grey tablet to the memory of Dame St Leger, a much -married lady of the times of Elizabeth. Her first husband was Thomas Sidney, by whom she had three daughters; her second was Nicholas Gorge, who left no offspring. The third was Sir Conyers Clifford, Governor of Connaught, and killed there in battle by Owen Roe O’Donnell. To him she bore two sons and a daughter. Lastly she wedded Sir Anthony St Leger, by whom she had two children, but died in childbed of the second. She was thirty-seven at her demise, and had had four husbands and eight children. The whole of this “strange eventful history” of marriages and christenings is related in quaint Elizabethan English on the monument. This transept was long partitioned off from the rest of the cathedral, 188
S. Patricks Cathedral and used as the parish church of S. Nicholas Without. In the north choir aisle to the left is a marble effigy of an archbishop, believed to represent Fulk de Sandford, who held the see in 1271. Opposite is Swift’s epitaph over Schomberg, a characteristic piece of work, intended rather to libel the living than to praise the departed. It is in Latin, and records how the cathedral authorities often entreated, to no purpose, the heirs of the great marshal to set up some memorial, and, in despair, at length erected this stone, that posterity might know where the famous Schomberg lies. “The fame of his valour,” Swift sums up, “was more effective with strangers than his nearness of blood was with his kinsmen.” The Lady Chapel behind the altar is very beautiful, presenting quite a contrast to the numerous pointed arches and long aisles of the cathedral proper. It is supported by slender pillars, which spread out fanwise to form a roof. A light and graceful arcade runs round the lower part of the walls. During two centuries a French Huguenot congregation worshipped here, using the ritual of the Church of Ireland translated into their own language. Here is the statue of Archbishop Tregury, who died in 147 1, and was, apparently, “of Cornish crew,” as is shown both by the “Tre “prefix to his name and the “three Cornish choughs “here shown in his coat-of-arms. In the south choir aisle are two fine old preReformation brasses of Deans Sutton and Fyche. Both begin with “Pray for the soul,” etc., in Latin. In the corner of Dean Sutton’s is an obliterated design, probably representing the Trinity, over which the initials R. S. have been written. The workmanship of the other is better, and in this case the scene to the right, representing the entombment of Our Lord, has 189
[The Story of Dublin] been left untouched. The figures of the dean in prayer and of the mourning Virgin are particularly good. There is here a tablet to Charles Wolfe, a poet known to literature by a single work, “The Burial of Sir John Moore.” The south transept and the huge arches of the crossing are ancient work practically unaffected by restoration. The aisles here retain their original roofs of dark grey stone. This part of the church was at one time boarded off from the rest and used as a Chapter House. Resting against a pillar is the identical door through which Ormond, from his last refuge, shook hands with his great enemy Kildare. The door is stout and solid, and the hole is squarely and evenly cut, showing little sign of the excitement which must have surged in and around the cathedral at the moment when it was made. A bracket on the opposite wall bears a curious archaic figure found some seventy years ago, and believed to represent S. Patrick. Some fine sculpture of the century before last, erected mostly to the memory of archbishops, occupies the greater part of the south wall of this transept. The south aisle of the nave is for ever associated with Jonathan Swift, the greatest of all the many deans of S. Patrick’s, and his unhappy, but devoted, lover, Esther Johnson, the “Stella “of many verses and fond epistles. With an ordinary man such an attachment would have found its natural end in marriage and domestic happiness, But to Swift, haughty and ambitious, even matrimony seemed a yoke. He was in daily intimacy with Stella to the very day of her death, but was ever so scrupulous of conventional propriety that no charge could be brought against the honour of the woman he loved. There were stories of secret marriage, probably unfounded. As time wore on and Stella’s charms faded, the friendship, though 190
S. Patrick’s Cathedral
strong as ever, became rather intellectual than sentimental. A strange and sad complication now arose. A romantic girl, Esther Vanhomrigh, fell violently in love with Swift, who, while not apparently returning her passion, allowed the affair to drift on unchecked from day to day. The character of their intercourse is shown by the playful poetry that passed between them, one writing as “Cadenus,” an evident anagram on the Latin word for “Dean,” the other as “Vanessa,” a combination of the lady’s Christian and surname. The climax came when Vanessa grew jealous and wrote to Stella, inquiring as to the real nature of her connection with Swift. The latter is said DEAN SWIFT. to have intercepted the letter, rode out to Cel bridge, and flung it down in terrible, silent wrath before the writer. He never saw nor spoke to Vanessa after that day. She died a few weeks afterwards of a broken heart. Stella only survived her five years. Swift dragged out his lonely and darkened life seventeen years more, growing ever sourer and more misanthropic. The last four years of his existence were inexpressibly gloomy. The fertile brain was sometimes harassed by attacks of acute dementia, sometimes it relapsed into the dead passivity 191
[The Story of Dublin] of the imbecile. Death came in 1745. Stella and the great, but unhappy, dean lie side by side to the right of the entrance porch. In death, at least, they are not divided. Over the door that leads to the robing-room is the epitaph Swift composed for himself, which seems to hint indirectly at the furious madness which racked him ever and anon, even as the unclean spirits tore and mangled the sufferers in the New Testament. “Here,” it runs, “lies buried the body of Jonathan Swift, dean of this cathedral, where fierce indignation can no longer rend his heart. Go, traveller, and imitate, if thou canst, one who used his utmost endeavours in the defence of liberty.” Close by, his features are depicted in a fine marble bust, which was presented to the cathedral by the nephew of Swift’s publisher. Emerging from the great church, the air of which seems heavy with human tragedy, and turning to the left, the way leads through a quiet close with a pleasant backward glimpse of the tall steeple peering over the lesser turrets and pinnacles of the cathedral (p. 180). Here is Marsh’s Library, founded by an archbishop of the early eighteenth century, whose monument is in the south transept. The interior is unchanged since its first arrangement two hundred years ago. The carved oak stalls and shelves for the books are quaintly picturesque. The traces of the old system by which the literary treasures of an institution of this kind were secured against theft, by chains fastened to a rod, may still be discerned here and there. In glass cases there are some interesting bindings of very ancient date, ranging from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. The volumes here are mostly theological. One, Clarendon’s “History of the Great Rebellion,” contains marginal notes by the hand of Dean Swift himself, expressed in his usual trenchant and anything but clerical style; 192
The Royal Hospital, Kilmainham another records the impression Jeft on the mind of no less a reader than Archbishop Laud. The great prelate wrote a very fine and delicate hand, and his remarks, being in abbreviated Latin, are not easy to decipher.
SECTION VI The Royal Hospital, Kilmainham “The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay, Sat by his fire, and talked the night away, Wept o’er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done, Shouldered his crutch and showed how fields were won.” Goldsmith. THE Royal Hospital lies about two miles west of College Green. Dame Street is the commencement of a long chain of thoroughfares with a variety of names, Cork Hill, Christ Church Place, Cornmarket, Thomas and James’s Streets, which joint into one another to form the backbone of old Dublin. At the further extremity of this line is Kilmainham. The entrance of the Royal Hospital is on the South Circular Road between Kilmainham and the Liffey. The castellated gateway once adorned the quays of the city, but was removed to its present position in 1846, as it obstructed the rising traffic from Kingsbridge along the south bank of the river. From here a fine old avenue, nearly half a mile in length, leads directly to the main building. On the left is an old disused cemetery, known by the curious name of Bully’s Acre. It is by far the oldest burying ground in Dublin. Here stood for many centuries the great cross of Kilmainham, of the same type as the lofty and beautiful memorial crosses of Monasterboice and
Clonmacnoise. The N 193
[The Story of Dublin] shaft is still standing, but the decorated upper portion is gone. Popular tradition identifies the spot with the place of interment of Murrough, son of Brian Boru, killed at Clontarf. The Irish camp before the battle was at Kilmainham, so that the story is not improbable. Antiquity and hallowed association endear certain graveyards to the Irish heart, though, in course of time, frequent and continuous burials render them hopelessly insanitary. So it was with Bully’s Acre. Fierce riots foiled an attempt to close it in the eighteenth century. Subsequently an epidemic of cholera crowded it to such an extent, that the populace, in a revulsion of feeling, gladly acquiesced in the proposal, which they had formerly resisted. At the head of the avenue the west front of the Royal Hospital becomes visible. The building was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, and is characteristic of that architectural genius in his less classic moods. It is a quadrangle surmounted by a light and graceful tower rising from the middle of one face (p. 84). Numerous dormer windows give a touch of picturesque irregularity to its lines. The outlook here is very pretty, across the tranquil LifFey to the swelling uplands and wooded copses of the Phoenix Park. The Royal Hospital was established as a home for military pensioners of Irish nationality, and is also used, at present, as an official residence for the Commander of the Forces in Ireland. All through its history this site has had either military or monastic associations. The monks began when Maignend, a Celtic saint, set up his church there. Kilmainham means “the church of Maignend.” The Normans introduced a blend of both elements. The lands were given to the Knights Hospitallers, a strange order, who were vowed to win Jerusalem from the infidels, and spent the intervals of campaigning in 194
The Royal Hospital^ Kilmainham monastic seclusion, where their time was divided between prayers, psalms, and warlike exercises. The soldier-monks failed to drive out the Saracens from the Holy Land, but waxed very rich and powerful in their own country. Their Priory was splendid enough for a royal residence. The headship of the order carried with it a seat in the Irish Parliament. In 1418 the Prior of Kilmainham led 1600 Irish warriors to assist Henry V. in France. Wealth in a religious community breeds luxury and spiritual decay among the members, while it arouses the greed of a host of powerful enemies. Henry VIII. suppressed the Hospitallers in 1541. The last Prior tamely surrendered his charge to the King, and was rewarded for his subservience by the title of Viscount Clontarf. The buildings were derelict for a while, but were used as an occasional residence by the viceroys of Elizabeth and James I. After 1617 they were allowed to go to utter ruin. In 1679 Charles II., whose kindness to old soldiers and sailors is an admirable trait in a complex character, authorised the erection of an hospital, or rather, as we should say, a retreat, for worn-out veterans in Dublin. His great model, Louis XIV. of France, had recently founded the “Invalides” in Paris for the same purpose. The site of Kilmainham Priory was utilised, and the new institution was called the Royal Hospital, a curious title, which seems to recall the Hospitallers and their hospitals, or guesthouses, in which they entertained soldier and pilgrim on their way to the Holy City. The rest of the pensioners has been very little disturbed by the storms of Irish politics. In 1688 the viceroy, Tyrconnell, sought to annul the charter and resume possession of the ancient church lands, and so frightened the registrar that he sought safety in flight, taking the precious document with him. It was lost 95
[The Story of Dublin] for one hundred and sixty years, but was recovered in 1848 by an officer, who found it among some family papers, and restored it to the institution. After the battle of the Boyne the Royal Hospital was used as an hospital in the modern sense of the term, for the sick and wounded of William’s army were received there until the close of the campaign. Since 1691 the quiet quadrangle has known no stir, no wave breaking into its seclusion from the troubled seas around. The building is designed in the manner usually associated with old colleges. It is a rectangle, enclosing in the centre a wide space of grassy lawn, intersected by paths. A covered arcade or cloister runs around three of the sides, providing a walk for the inmates in wet weather. Under an old sundial is the door giving access to the Hall. This is, perhaps, the most picturesque interior in Dublin, with its roof supported by great beams, and its walls lined with beautiful carved oak and covered with old armour, flags, and trophies of every kind, Spanish helmets from the Armada, strange Mahratta shields with pistol barrels projecting from their centres, regimental colours, modern hand grenades, mediaeval instruments of torture. In a glass case is the flag that was carried by the Inniskilling Dragoons at the Boyne. This regiment, like its fellow infantry battalion, the Inniskilling Fusiliers, was formed from the inhabitants of Enniskillen in County Fermanagh. James II. had marched to besiege their town, but they met his troops on the way and inflicted on them a decisive defeat. On the arrival of William III. they were incorporated into his army, the mounted citizens becoming dragoons and the foot an ordinary infantry regiment. Their old flag is now a mere “moth-eaten rag on a worm-eaten pole,” but the old Inniskillings
have gone far and suffered much since the days when it was new. Dettingen, 196
The Royal Hospital, Ktlmainham Minden, Albuera, Waterloo, Balaclava are but a few of the honoured names that now adorn their colours. Curiously enough, there is here no memorial of the territorial regiment of Dublin, the Dublin Fusiliers. The reason is that this corps was, until 1858, a European regiment in the East India Company’s service. It was so full of Irishmen that, when the Imperial authorities took over the Company’s forces after the Mutiny, they thought well to associate the regiment definitely with some district of Ireland. Its record is fine, though, of course, exclusively Indian, including the famous victory of Plassey, which won for Great Britain a new dependency at a single stroke. It took its rise somewhere about the time when young Clive led out a small corps of white volunteers to avenge the cruelties of the Black Hole of Calcutta. The Bengal Tiger is still one of the regimental emblems. There are some interesting portraits on the walls of the great Hall. Among those on the north side are William III. and his queen Mary, also his successor, the commonplace Anne, and her equally undistinguished consort Prince George of Denmark. On the east are Archbishop Marsh, who founded Marsh’s Library, near S. Patrick’s Cathedral, and James, the great Duke of Ormond, the virtual founder of the Royal Hospital. He was viceroy for quite half of his political life, and conferred many benefits on Dublin. The most notable person depicted on the western wall is King Charles II. himself. A fine wrought-iron gate gives access to the Chapel, which is remarkable for its splendid wood carvings from the hands of Grinling Gibbons, and for a most beautiful and elaborate ceiling in stucco designed by Cipriani. The latter is perhaps the richest example of this form of art to be found in Dublin, although there is an abundance of such work in the older houses of 199
[The Story of Dublin] the city. The east window is the only surviving portion of the priory of the Hospitallers. Its stone tracery served the same purpose in the chapel of the soldier-monks that it now does for the more humble pensioners. The upper panes still contain the ancient stained glass, remarkable, as always, for its indescribable richness of hue. The walls here are also adorned with the colours of various regiments, mostly English and Scotch. The soldier, like the sailor, has no abiding city anywhere during his term of service. He leaves memorials of his presence all over the world, sometimes far from his native soil. Not always does he return to a quiet retreat such as this, where his wearied frame, enfeebled by wounds or by tropical fevers and agues, may find rest for a while. Indeed some of the pensioners, under the careful and regular regime of the Hospital, have attained great ages. In the Hall there is a picture of one who died here aged 106.
SECTION VII College Green and Dame Street As centuries go by, place names that were once highly descriptive lose their appropriateness. So it is with College Green. The college is still there, but the only trace of the ancient city pasture is the small, railed-in plot of grass where stand Foley’s statues of Burke and Goldsmith. Before the erection of Trinity the spot was called Hoggen Green from the “Hogges,”, or hogbacked hills in its neighbourhood. The builders of Nassau and Great Brunswick Streets levelled these hillocks, regardless alike of their historical interest and picturesque effect. College Green lay well outside the city wall, but 200
College Green and Dame Street was jngre jmportantthanthe other suburbs, since Jt lay on theroad fdThe harbourr Here an incoming^ viceroy was usually received in state by th? Lord/ Mayor and Corporation arrayed in all the bravery! of crimson robes, gold chains, and long, white wands of office. Here, too, before the erection of a regular theatre, the guilds of Dublin gave their rude performances on the great Church holidays such as Christmas and Easter. The entertainment provided was a curious medley of Scripture and the classics. .To each trade was assigned a story suited to its special characteristics. The tailors depicted the nakedness and clothing of Adam and Eve, the vintners Bacchus, the carpenters Joseph and Mary, the smiths Vulcan, and the bakers Ceres. College Green was long-used as the place^ of public execution. In 1327 Adam Duff* LTTooIe was burned ft tn>“Hogges “for heresy. During Lambert Simnel’s brief tenure of authority a messenger, who had been sent by the loyal city of Waterford to bid defiance to the pretender^ was hanged here by order of the viceroy, Kildare, who was a warm supporter of the impostor. ? The bearer of unwelcome news hath but a losing office.” After the foundation of Trinity College in 1591, the city began to stretch its arms towards the important institution outside its eastern gate. Commerce revived after the long wars of Elizabeth, and the harbour road became lined with houses. As Dame Street grew, College Green, the old free commons, where every citizen’s cattle might graze, was gradually curtailed until it reached its present proportions. Though the herbage has disappeared and the dimensions of the open space are smaller than of old, College Green is wide enough to form a dignified centre of civic life. Architecturally, it is the finest part of Dublin. The 201
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college provides a fine background, while on one side lies the old Parliament House and on the other there is a succession of banks built in a stately, massive style, which harmonises well with the older structures. Four statues give that final touch of distinction, which it is
KING WILLIAM S STATUE.
the special privilege of sculpture to bestow. Three of these are artistic successes, the fourth has a long and troubled history, which partly accounts for the singular appearance it presents. The figures of Goldsmith and Burke inside the rails of Trinity, and of Grattan pleading with uplifted hand outside the Parliament House where once he triumphed, are from the chisel of Foley, and, like all his work, are both graceful and lifelike. Grattan’s figure is the very personification of eloquence. 202
College Green and Dame Street The equestrian statue of William III. is by Grinling Gibbons, an artist of great reputation in his day. It was erected in 1701 at the expense of the Corporation. The triumphant party in Dublin at that time idolised William. A parade round the statue, with volleys of musketry in the air as feux-de-joie, became an annual feature in the life of the city. The Jacobites, too weak for open resistance, revenged themselves by midnight insults. The “Trinity Boys” were the first assailants. Their zeal against the King was inflamed by the slight to their whole body implied in the position of the figure with its back towards their college. In 1710 they daubed it with mud and carried away the sword and truncheon. The guilty parties were discovered and expelled from the university. The outrages went on, however, marked often by that freakish humour which betrays the undergraduate all the world over. A common joke was to set a second rider, made of straw, behind the King. So, with orange ribbons and flags by day, and nameless indignities by night, the statue passed a chequered existence till 1779. T ne Volunteers took William, the asserter of civil and religious liberty, as their prototype. College Green was the focus of their activity. Their quaintly named citizen regiments, the Castleknock Light Horse T Upjiercross Fusiliers and Sputh^ Circular Road Infantry^ were reviewed here. J i’he Tnuch enduring figure enjoyed a brief popularity. It soon passed away. In 1798 the sword was wrenched away, and a determined attempt was made to file off the head. In 1805, just before the annual celebration, the Catholic party, by a clever trick, gained access to the statue and succeeded in marring the intended festivities. At midnight on the eve of the holiday a man, dressed like an artisan, presented himself to 203
[The Story of Dublin] the watchmen in their hut at the base of the statue, saying that instructions had been given to paint the figure overnight with its accustomed coat of white, lest mob violence might be excited if the task were done in the daytime. His story was accepted and he was allowed to begin his duties forthwith. After working for an hour or so, he left, in order, as he said, to procure more material. But he never returned, and the Orangemen of Dublin were horrified in the morning to see their King daubed from head to foot with a hideous mixture of tar and grease almost impossible to remove. The last attack was only seventy years ago. An explosive was used, the King was blown from his horse several feet into the air and fell, half-shattered, into the roadway. William III. is now fading into the shadow of history, and his name no longer lets loose such a torrent of frenzied devotion on one side and passionate hatred on the other. The statue is now left in peace. But it is no wonder, after such experiences, that the horse seems quite unlike other animals of his race, and that the rider, despite his serenity of countenance, does not look altogether at home in the saddle. Opposite the battered monument of William of Orange is Church Lane, a short hill which leads from College Green to S. Andrew’s Church. This little rise has many historic associations. It is the remains of the “Hogge “or hillock which served the Danes as a seaward look-out place, and a Thing-Mount or hill of assembly. When they were driven out by Strongbow and returned to besiege him in Dublin, the hill was occupied by MacGilleMocholmog and his Irish troops, who were under obligation to preserve neutrality to both Dane and Norman until the day was definitely decided. During the Commonwealth some mutinous troops took up a defiant attitude here, 204
College Green and Dame Street but were subdued with the strong hand characteristic of Puritan methods. Eventually the knoll was levelled, and the soil used to raise Nassau Street to its present elevation above the College Park. The church, which crowns all that is left of the “hogge,” is modern, but contains in its churchyard an old statue of S. Andrew from the porch of its predecessor, which was long the parish church of the Irish Parliament. Proceeding westward, the next street on the left hand is Trinity Street, called not, as might be imagined, after the college of that name, but after its only offshoot, the bygone Trinity Hall. This was, early in the seventeenth century, established as an overflow residence for the undergraduates of the college. But the authorities found it difficult to enforce discipline on these out-dwellers. They neglected chapel and lecture, pleading as excuse that they could not hear the summons of the great bell from their distant quarters. It was impossible to keep them from “town-haunting,” a heinous crime in a scholar. So, when Dr Stearne proposed to take the hall for a new I College of Physicians, the Provost and Fellows gladly I consented, with the stipulation that they should be allowed to nominate the President, and should receive medical attendance free of charge. The tie between the two institutions lasted until 1692, when the physicians obtained the special charter under which they still hold examinations and confer diplomas. On the north side of College Green, just beyond the Parliament House, is an old building now occupied by the Yorkshire Assurance Company. This was formerly trie fashionable JJaly’s^Clyb. where the “bucks” or dandies of the past used to assemble. It communicated with the Parliament House by a private way, so that legislators, bored by a long financial discussion or a succession of third-rate 205
[The Story of Dublin] orators, might retreat unobserved to its luxurious precincts. Dicing, duelling, high play, and heavy drinking were frequent. Sometimes the watchmen would hear loud outcries in the club, followed by the opening of an upper window, and the precipitation of a human form therefrom. This was the summary method of dealing with a cheat. There are stories, too, of midnight orgies that found their climax in blasphemous indecencies, such as characterised the notorious Hellfire Club. Certainly there was a good deal of wild revelry here. One of the leading bucks, named English, was almost led into repentance by an elaborate trick played on him by his fellow-members. While he lay prostrate after a night’s debauchery, they put oat the lights and arranged to keep on talking in the darkness as if it were broad daylight and they were still gaming away. When English woke, he fell into the trap, and imagined himself blind, since he heard men all around him apparently pursuing their ordinary amusement, but could see nothing, peer as he would. With exclamations of tender pity the players rose, bandaged his eyes, and led him away to a dark room, where he was visited by sham doctors at intervals. The victim was thoroughly frightened and penitent. His outpourings gave the greatest amusement to the wags who attended him. At last his eyes were, literally, opened to the mockery of which he had been the subject. So far from turning over a new leaf, English for days was seeking the blood of the jokers who had brought him into such an edifying state of mind. A fine ceiling in the boardroom is the only relic remaining of the bygone splendours of this famous aristocratic rendezvous. Beyond Daly’s Club is Anglesea Street, connected with a strange romance of the peerage. The junior 206
College Green and Dame Street branch of the family which gives the street its name bears the Altham title. The fourth Lord Altham had a legitimate son, James Annesley, whose existence was very obnoxious to the paramour who had succeeded the lad’s dead mother in his father’s affections. He was at an early age sent off to harsh boardingschools, from whence he ran away, and began to earn a precarious livelihood by running errands for the students of Trinity. A butcher named Purcell took pity on the boy, and rescued him from the street. Lord Altham soon died, and should, of course, have been succeeded by his son. However, his brother, the uncle of James, stepped into the vacant place, treating the true heir’s claim as negligible. But many people knew the story of young Annesley, and the usurper was so taunted at the Castle and elsewhere that he determined to remove his nephew from his path. The first attempt was foiled by Purcell, who threatened to raise the market on the emissaries of Altham, when they tried to seize James in his shop. At last the boy was arrested by constables on a charge of having stolen a spoon, and was hurried away to Philadelphia, where he was sold as a slave. Meanwhile Lord Altham succeeded to the Earldom of Anglesea. After thirteen years of suffering, his victim escaped to Jamaica, and entered the navy as a man before the mast. Admiral Vernon took up his case, and the uncle was almost driven to a compromise, when Annesley was unfortunate enough to kill a man accidentally. Lord Anglesea now bent his energies to getting his nephew hanged for murder, but failed. The prisoner was acquitted, came to Dublin, and claimed the Anglesea estates. A jury decided in his favour, but the party in possession raised all kinds of side issues, and delayed matters in so many ways, that the suit became an Irish equivalent of “Jarndyce v. Jarndyce.” 207
[The Story of Dublin] After it had lasted sixteen years, James Annesley died, leaving his uncle still in possession. This story, with its kidnapping of the heir, his return, his accidental manslaughter and false imprisonment, bears a remarkable resemblance to Scott’s “Guy Mannering,” and may have been in the author’s mind when he was constructing his plot. After Anglesea Street is passed, College Green becomes narrower, losing its character of an open space until it finally merges into Dame Street, one of the oldest thoroughfares in Dublin. Its name appears in the records as “Damask Street,” “Dammes Street,” and even “Dam Street.” The derivation is not from the “Dame” in “Notre Dame,” ^ but from a mill-dam in the Poddle. close to th p f-a’gti*’ w~alh Rebuilding goes on so fast in a commercial j O O centre that ancient houses have little chance to survive. So it is that Dame Street bears small resemblance to its forerunner, as shown in old prints. On the north side, however, and more especially towards the western end, the characteristic high-peaked gable of bygone domestic architecture has, in several instances, remained to this day. The little side streets running down to the river have been less touched by the hand of change. Heavy decorated doorways and windows, crowned with triangular or bow-shaped mouldings, occur frequently. The houses here, now occupied by solicitors’ offices, agencies and stores, formed at one time a fashionable ^residential quarter. 7 Fownes Street received its name from the philanI thropist, who persuaded Swift to leave his money to I found a hospital for lunatics. t-Crow Street, opposite Hely’s, dark and narrow as it is, was once nightly thronged with people resorting to the theatre, which stood on the site of the Catholic University Medical School. The Dublin audiences 20?T
College Green and Dame Street were almost all that could be desired from an actor’s point of view. Quick comprehension, cultivated taste, ready and generous recognition of merit, characterised all parts of the house. The subtleties of dramatic art were at once appreciated and applauded. Native talent, from Peg Woffington downwards, flourished in this fertile soil, until it was transplanted across channel to win even greater celebrity in London. But Dublin playgoers had one incurable fault. They were very turbulent! “When their wrath was aroused, they would wreck the theatre and bring the manager in a single night from prosperity to ruin. Crow Street theatre im-j poverished six men in succession. The proprietors were/ accustomed to spend so much money in trying to excel their older rival in Smock Alley that the extra expense of refurnishing the house after a tumult brought them over the narrow margin of solvency. If one theatre made a hit, the other must come out immediately with the same piece, or as close an adaptation as possible. Once Crow Street spread abroad for several weeks its intention of presenting, in a certain Chinese play, the exact costumes of the country, made in London from models imported from China at great expense. Smock Alley answered the appeal to luxurious taste by an appeal to patriotism. It suddenly issued bills announcing the production of the identical piece that very evening with characters dressed exclusively in garments of Irish manufacture. This clever move put Crow Street under the stigma of not encouraging home industry, as it ought. Smock Alley forestalled its competitor by some days, and the rival venture, when it did appear, was a costly failure. Barrington gives a curious account of the drama in his time. The actors, when not speaking, turned aside occasionally to snuff the tallow candles, which were the only means of o 209
*Ihe Story of Dublin illumination. The actresses wore great hoops, and i made a point of changing sides at the end of every speech. Two soldiers with fixed bayonets stood at the corners of the proscenium to preserve order, a necessary, but often ineffective, precaution. At some of the scenes recorded a whole battalion would have been required. A manager named Crawford fell into monetary difficulties, from which he tried to extricate himself by rigid economy. The orchestra struck for the arrears of their wages, the actors rebelled against “property” suppers of pasteboard and coloured water. The climax came in the minuet scene. “The Duke” remarked that he would have to whistle the air himself for lack of music. “Stand away,” said the disgusted “gods,” “and we will provide the tune.” With that they hurled everything they could wrench up or teari down benches, chandeliers, rails, and bottles on to ] the stage. Another manager, Jones, irritated the audience by his pretence at gentility and his open espousal of the unpopular side in politics. In this case the riots continued night after night until Jones was compelled to relinquish altogether his connection with the theatre. Crow Street has sad memories of the times of confiscation. Here in 1657 Petty drew up a great survey of Ireland in order to discover the exact extent of the estates deemed forfeited by rebellion. Further westward, Eustace Street commemorates the Lord Chancellor, whose lands were sold to the government to form the Phoenix Park. The dark grey mass of the Commercial Buildings, itself a century old, stands on the site of Shaw’s Court, the first regular home of the Royal Dublin Society. Crampton Court, near the Empire Theatre, was the unofficial Change of Dublin, before the regular Ex210
College Green and Dame Street change, which is now the City Hall, was erected. The old Custom House was close at hand, and vessels were moored along the quays, to which these northward turnings off Dame Street lead. The merchants found Crampton Court a convenient place in which to meet and make their bargains. In fact, they were somewhat loath to leave their alley, even when a proper building was provided for them. Almost opposite the present Empire Theatre stood Dame Gate, attacked by John the Mad and his Northmen in 1171. Close by Henry II. set up the wickerwork pavilion, in which he feasted such of the Irish chiefs as came in to make their submission. The two nations looked on each other with critical and unfriendly eyes. The English mocked at the long robes and unkempt beards of the Irishmen. The natives marvelled at the love of feasting shown by the invaders, especially at their eating cranes, which the Irish did not deem fit for human food.
SECTION VIII From the City Hah to Christ Church Place THE older buildings of Dublin have suffered many and strange vicissitudes. At some time or other almost all of them have been used for purposes other than those intended by their founders. Thus at one end of Dame Street a seat of national government has become a bank; at the other, commerce has been driven out to make room for the municipality. The present City Hall on Cork Hill was originally an Exchange, where merchants met daily to make their bargains and sign their contracts. As the centre of the town moved eastwards the Exchange was left, as it were, high and 211
The Story of Dublin dry, forsaken by its former patrons. While in this/ derelict condition, it was used by the Government as a prison for those charged with complicity in the rebellion of 1798. Suspicion was so rife at that period that it was hardly safe to take an interest in a rebel. A gentleman strolling by the Exchange casually glanced up at its windows and fell into a reverie on the possible fate of the present occupants. He was roused by a tap on the shoulder and the harsh tones of Major Sirr, officer of police, hinting in no uncertain language that his manifest curiosity might be gratified with an immediate acquaintance with the inside of the prison if he were not careful. In the nineteenth century the Corporation took over the building, their old Tholsel being ruinous. The interior contains a large circular room, with a domed ceiling and many pillars and statues, including a curious portrayal of the popular leader Lucas, who is shown in a half-crouching attitude with hands upraised over his head. This was the chamber where the traders transacted their dealings with all the din, bustle and confusion characteristic of a commercial centre. It is now a peaceful antechamber. The Corporation officials will readily show the antiquities in their charge, \ of which the most remarkable are the original charter I of 1171, under the terms of which the men of Bristol I founded a colony in Dublin, and the heavy, silver-gilt \ mace and sword presented to the city by bygone kings of England. The street lying between the City Hall and Christ Church Cathedral is a modern improvement called Lord Edward Street. The unhappy Mangan, whose gre^at poetic ^gennls was marred and brought to a miserable end by his intemperate habits, was born near here. His finest work is the passionate hymn of patriotism
addressed to Ireland under the name of 212
The City Hall to Christ Church Place “Dark Rosaleen,” “the little dark rose,” that had suffered so much and so long. Parallel to Lord Edward Street, and running along the front of the Castle, is the narrow and sombre Castle Street, associated, as seems fit, with the gloomier phases of Irish government. The rebellion of 1641 was hatched here under the very nose of the authorities. Next year things had come to such a pass that the citizens were ordered to deliver a moiety of their plate to commissioners sitting in the same street. The treasury was so low that the goblets and tankards of Dublin had to be melted down and coined into money wherewith to pay the troops. Subsequently, when matters grew even worse, copper tokens were poured on the suffering public from the same source. The house to the right of the main gate of the Castle is the oldest bank premises in Dublin. It was erected by David Latouche, one of the many Huguenots, who made their mark in the history of Dublin, and is now a government office. Opposite stands another old bank, Newcomen’s, now the City Treasurer’s Office. Beyond Latouche’s bank an iron gateway on the left gives on to the Castle Steps, a flagged passage consisting of several flights of stairs beneath the west wall of the Castle. It was a short cut to Ship Street, but was closed in order to isolate the seat of authority and render it more defensible in case of a rising. Two well-known names are associated with Castle Street. It was the birth-place of the actor Doggett, who left the coat and badge still raced for by Thames watermen, and also contained the residence of Sir James Ware, an Irish historian, whose son, Robert, was the first pioneer in the unexplored field of the annals of Dublin. At its further end Lord Edward Street debouches into Christ Church Place, a wide, open space sur- 213
[The Story of Dublin] rounding the Cathedral. Here again, as at S. Patrick’s, municipal improvement has opened up a fine view of the ancient church, once closely encompassed by houses, that rendered it impossible to see the edifice as a whole. The old street of the curriers, Skinners’ Row, some seventeen feet in width, used to occupy this site. Four interesting streets run from the corners of Christ Church Place. The first, going to the right past the eastern end of the Cathedral, is Fishamble Street, once, as its name implies, a shambles or market for fish. The narrow way was lined with open stalls, beneath which lay the children of the dealers. The uncleanly habits of the fishmongers were a sore trial to the Corporation, especially their practice of casting the offal of their trade into the gutter, where it lay until rain came and swept it down the hill into the Liffey. There are some typical old Dublin houses on the left or western side, tall and narrow, turning a high-peaked gable towards the road. No less than three events, each of which has filled the world “with sounds that echo still,” have occurred in this side street. In a vanished alley called Molesworth. Court, off Fishamble Street, the Drapier Letters were printed and published. The famous doctrine that “government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery “was then first enunciated. The same principle in much the same words is set forth in the preamble of the American Declaration of Independence. Twenty years later, the great, rolling choruses of the “Messiah “broke on the astonished and enthralled ears of a fashionable gathering in the Music Hall, which then adorned the street. Handel, in a fit of discouragement, had retired from London, and the first production of his masterpiece took place in Dublin. The performance was for the benefit of Mercer’s 214
The City Hall to Christ Church Place Hospital. In order to provide room for a large audience, ladies were requested to lay aside their hoops and gentlemen their swords. By this means
CARVED WOODEN PULPiT, S. WERBURGn’s CHURCH. audience of seven hundred was crowded into the space, and the concert realised four hundred pounds. In 1746, Henry Grattan, whose ideals are those of many Irish politicians even now, was born here and baptised at S. John’s Church. 215
[The Story of Dublin] On the opposite side of Christ Church Place’, Werburgh Street trends away to the left. Its name is derived from a certain Werburgh, a Cheshire saint, to whom the church on the left-hand side is consecrated. The Cheshiremen in the colony used to hold a sort of county reunion at the edifice dedicated to their patroness. This is the third church on the site. It once possessed a steeple, which was, however, taken down in 1810 as unsafe. The severity of the interior is relieved by some pleasant wood carving, notably a splendid old pulpit, the stairs and balustrade of which are richly ornamented. The organ, which was erected in 1 767, is gaily decked out with gilding. Its tone is perfectly pure and sweet, even to this day. Just beneath it in the centre of the gallery is the Lord Lieutenant’s private pew, marked by the Royal Arms. Until a special place of worship was erected in the Castle, S. Werburgh’s, being so close at hand, was used as the private chapel of His Excellency, and, in consequence, was usually thronged by the fashionable crowds, who followed him as their leader. There are three entrance porches. In those to left and right are the monuments taken respectively from the disused churches of S. John’s, in Fishamble Street, and S. Bride’s, in Bride Street, a southerly continuation of Werburgh Street. Near the main entrance are the old city fire engines, the larger no bigger than a hand cart, the smaller somewhere about the size of a garden wheelbarrow. Dublin first obtained such appliances in 1706, and from the rude appearance of these survivals, with their small, solid, wooden wheels, destitute of spokes, it may be conjectured that they are the identical “water engines “then purchased. A series of vaults runs beneath the whole length of the church. Under the chancel is the family buryingplace of the Geraldines, whose town house stood near 216
The City Hall to Christ Church Place here until their head moved to Leinster House, in Kildare Street. Hither, at two in the morning, the body of the unfortunate Lord Edward Fitzgerald was brought from Newgate gaol for interment. As the city was under martial law, the little party of mourners escorting the corpse was more than once held up by the watchful patrols that traversed every street. By a strange chance the man v/hose bullet killed Lord Edward lies close to his former foe. Major Sirr, whose complicated system of espionage and relentless methods of repression proved fatal to many a poor fellow during that period, is buried in the left-hand corner of the churchyard under a plain slab. Artistic sensibility to criticism is curiously exemplified here too. In the centre of the little enclosure lies John Edwin, an actor of Crow Street. Tradition tells that he sank and died under the gibes of an anonymous lampooner. “’Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle, Should let itself be snuffed out by an article.” On the south wall of the church, overlooking the narrow passage that leads to the graveyard, are two old monuments one of a knight in armour and his wife, doubtless some bygone Geraldines; the other, which is in two parts, consisting of a number of small figures of a distinctly ecclesiastical type. The received explanation is that it represents the Twelve Apostles, eight effigies being in one section and four in the other. One bears on his knees a representation of the Crucifixion, another carries a lamb, and several seem to have croziers. It may be part of an ancient reredos or rood-screen. A little beyond the church is Hoey’s Court, where Jonathan Swift was born. It seems once to have been a sort of square, surrounded by houses of some size and architectural pretensions. Now it has degenerated 217
[The Story of Dublin] into a slum. The dip in the ground close by marks the site of the city gate, by which De Cogan and his companions sallied out to fall on the rear of the Norsemen, who were assaulting Dame Gate in 1171. Here, again, as almost everywhere in Dublin, there are associations with the stage. The first theatre in Ireland, and, most probably, inJ the British Isles outside London, was established in I Werburgh Street during the viceroyalty of StrafFord. James Shirley, the last of the giant brood of play1 wrights, who succeeded Shakespeare, came to Dublin \ in the train of the great Lord Deputy. He was 1 probably the chief mover in the enterprise of founding a permanent home for the drama in the city. Several plays of his own composition were produced there, notably “S. Patrick for Ireland,” a remarkable dramatisation of the story of the national saint. This piece, which, considering its subject, might be better known in Ireland than it is, is not without some fine passages, particularly in the last act, when the saint, attacked by the snakes conjured up by the heathen enchanter Archimagus, banishes all such venomous beasts for ever from the country. The author has here caught something of the Shakespearean note : “Hence, you frightful monsters, Go hide, and bury your deformed heads For ever in the sea ! from this time be This island free from beasts of venomous nature. The shepherd shall not be afraid hereafter To trust his eyes with sleep upon the hills, The traveller shall from hence have no suspicion, Or fear to measure with his wearied limbs The silent shades; but walk through every brake Without more guard than his own innocence.” This legend is the popular explanation of Ireland’s singular and complete freedom from snakes, toads, and such loathsome reptiles. Scientists ascribe it rather to 218
[The City Hall to Christ Church Place] the dampness of the climate. Shirley’s daring choice of a subject was justified by a great popular success. Soon afterwards, however, on the fall of Strafford and the accession to power of Puritan Lords Justices, Werburgh Street theatre was summarily closed. The dramatist returned to England to carry a musket for King Charles. The first chapter in the history of the Dublin stage was of short duration. On the same side of Christ Church Place as Werburgh Street, but further west, is Nicholas Street, which also takes its name from a church, now ruined, that of S. Nicholas Within. Old Dublin had a tremendous number of parish churches huddled together in a small space. Within a stonethrow of the two great cathedrals were S. John’s, S. Michael’s, S. Werburgh’s, S. Nicholas’ Within and Without, S. Kevin’s, S. Bride’s, S. Peter’s, and S. Audoen’s. In modern times, for lack of congregations, some of them have been left derelict; others joined together in twos and threes to form a single cure. The massive masonry of S. Nicholas Within (i.e. within the walls) forms part of a wall on the left hand side of Nicholas Street. The depression in the road level again marks the site of a city gate. Beyond this lay S. Nicholas Without, whose parishioners, it will be remembered, worshipped in the north transept of S. Patrick’s Cathedral. The astrologers and miracle-workers of Dublin gravitated to this neighbourhood. One of the earliest was a Father Finachty, who held great popular assemblies, where, by prayers and exorcisms, he effected, or was thought to effect, some marvellous cures. His proceedings and his eventual overthrow are described by his co-religionist, the Franciscan Father Walsh, who was frankly sceptical of the whole business. While Finachty was in the monk’s lodging 219
[The Story of Dublin] off Nicholas Street, Sir William Petty, an eminent physician and a Protestant, came with the design of testing his miraculous powers. If Finachty could cure his short sight he would profess himself a Catholic. The priest accepted the offer, so tempting to one of his cloth. But in the quiet room and before the small, uncongenial audience, he failed completely. Petty then wagered one hundred pounds he would cure as many sick as Finachty out of a given number. A public trial was arranged, but the challenged party evaded the contest by retiring to Connaught, where his practices were forbidden by his own archbishop. The astrologer Whalley also lived in this street, and poured forth volumes of abuse on his fellow-quacks, especially on one Coats, who had rashly predicted the approaching death of his rival. Whalley survived the period assigned to him, and scourged the false prophet with such gentle epithets as “baboon,” “hardened villain,” and “scandal to astrology.” Off Nicholas Street, to the right, is Back Lane, often associated with the struggles of the Catholic Church in Ireland. In the reign of Charles I. the Jesuits maintained a university here, which was soon closed, and its buildings handed over to Trinity College. Half way along Back Lane, behind an iron gateway and an elaborate arch, is the Tailors’ Hall, belonging to one of the old city guilds. In this ancient house met the Catholic Committee, nicknamed the Back Lane Parliament. The short street running under the bridge, which connects the Synod House with Christ Church Cathedral, is called S. Michael’s Hill. Its present name is, probably, an attempt to render in English the Celtic MacGilleMocholmog, after whom the street was originally called. His tribe was
under the protection of both Danes and English, and was allowed 220
[The City Hall to Christ Church Place] to encamp outside the city between the fortifications and the river LifFey. Old Dublin, it must be remembered, was a very small town. It was practically confined to the ridge on which Christ Church and the Castle stand, and for some hundred years did not even spread down the slope towards the river. From the fronts of some of the houses project remarkable wooden structures, sometimes a couple of feet wide. They may have been intended as a protection against wind and rain for the goods exhibited in the open, windowless shops of the past. The intersection of S. Michael’s Hill and Christ Church Place was formerly the High Cross or centre of the city, where proclamations both of civic and viceregal authority were read out, and where notorious offenders did public penance. Here also stood the Tholsel. This name for a town hall is found in some other Irish towns, and is believed to have some connection with the Low Latin “Theolonium,” a tollhouse. The citizens were summoned to the assembly by the ringing of a great bell. Then, as now, Corporation meetings were often stormy, but the jars of the present day, unlike their forerunners, do not end in bloodshed and loss of life. Interested parties sometimes tried to manipulate Parliamentary or municipal elections by packing the Tholsel with their own adherents, and excluding all others from the building. The inevitable result was a tumult, not to be quelled until the Lord Mayor rushed to the Castle to procure military assistance. The present enclosure around Christ Church Cathedral is not a graveyard, as might be imagined. The greater part of it is the site of old houses now cleared away. When suits ceased to be heard in the Castle, some of the church property here was let out to the government to be used for legal purposes. 221
[The Story of Dublin] These premises came to be known as the Four Courts, from the four historic divisions, which held their sittings there, Chancery, King’s Bench, Exchequer and Common Pleas. The name was transferred from the old Four Courts, now demolished, to its present successor on the quays. The cathedral and the courts were long associated by a curious custom, which survived until disestablishment removed its raison d’etre. In gratitude for a royal donation, the vicars and choristers were accustomed to appear robed in the Court of Exchequer four times during the year, there to sing an anthem and offer up a prayer. During this celebration the business of the day was suspended, and, for a brief space, the atmosphere of Christian worship displaced the wranglings and sophistries of the law. Between the old Four Courts and the cathedral ran a dark, narrow passage, half underground, and deeply shadowed by the great structures on either side. Some fantastic wit, struck with its gloominess, had given it the nickname of “Hell,” and others had carried out his idea by erecting at one end a figure of the devil himself, horns, hoofs and all. Lawyers have been known to call themselves, or to be called, “the devil’s own,” so perhaps there was a fitness in the neighbourhood. An old Dublin advertisement runs “Lodgings to let in Hell. N.B. They are suitable to a lawyer.”
SECTION IX Christ Church Place to Kilmainham AT its western end, Christ Church Place contracts suddenly into a narrow and crowded thoroughfare, the ancient High Street of Dublin. Its
beginnings 222
Christ Church Place to Kilmainham are hidden far back in Celtic antiquity. When Kings Conn of Ulster and Mogh of Munster divided Ireland between them in the second century, the High Street was the eastern end of the boundary between their dominions. The cramped tortuousness of the old street attests its age unmistakably, but the same commercial considerations, that have swept away most of the old houses of Dame Street, have produced a similar effect in this busy, if not over wealthy, thoroughfare. Its associations are mostly municipal. Here resided some celebrated mayors, notably Patrick Sarsfield, renowned for his profuse hospitality during his term of office in 1554. He entered on his year of duty with three barns of corn, the produce of any one of which would have kept his household for the full twelve months. “But now,” said he to a friend, “God and good companie be thanked, I stand in doubt whether I shall rub out my Mayoralty with my third barne, which is well nigh with my yeere ended.” During Sarsfield’s time we are told that “neither the Porter nor anie other officer durst for both his eares give the simplest man that resorted to his house, Tom Drum, his entertainment, which is to hale a man in by the head, and thrust him out by the shoulders.” This genial character was an ancestor of the Patrick Sarsfield, afterwards Earl of Lucan, who achieved the finest exploit of the Jacobite wars. While besieged in Limerick by King William, he sallied out with a band of horsemen, eluded the blockading force and succeeded in intercepting and destroying the heavy train of artillery, which was on its way to take part in the siege. The Sarsfields often supplied a mayor to Dublin, and seem to have been a good fighting stock. Another of them, during his term, rescued thewife of the LordDeputy from ShaneO’Neill.
223
[The Story of Dublin] At No. 56 High Street, Wolfe Tone was waked. The body was obtained from the prison authorities, and laid out in a room where it was visited by a great throng of persons. After this lying in state had lasted for two nights, it was ended by an order from the government that the funeral should take place at once, and as privately as possible. On the northern side of the street, half hidden by the slope of the hill, is the ancient and partly ruined church of S. Audoen. Externally it turns a brave face to the road. The entrance is by an arched gateway under a dark and lofty battlemented tower. In the porch are two old sepulchral monuments, one to Lord and Lady Portlester, founders of a chapel in 1455, the other to an unknown bishop. The long, narrow chamber, now used for public worship, has been formed by cutting off an aisle from the main building and filling its Gothic arches with brickwork and plaster. There are remains of antiquity here also, an old Norman font of the twelfth century and a very curious, undated mural monument, believed to commemorate the Cosgraves. It is in much the same style as the celebrated memorial to the Boyles in S. Patrick’s. The figures of the kneeling parents with the rows of children, in this case very tiny, behind them on either side, assign it to the reign of Elizabeth. At the foot is the familiar memento mori of the “death’s head and cross bones,” with the remarkable added feature of a pair of wings affixed on either side of the skull. It probably typifies the resurrection from the dead. Beyond the present church is the ruined part of S. Audoen’s. The parishioners in the early nineteenth century were too few to fill the edifice they had inherited, so the roof of the chancel and a great part of the nave was deliberately removed, allowing the 224
Christ Church Place to Kilmainham weather to play havoc with the stonework of the interior, and to deface the ancient monuments, in which S. Audoen’s was so rich. The main outlines of the architecture can, however, still be traced, the high altar raised by steps above the floor level, the niches in the east wall for statues, the row of arches
S. AUDOEN S CHURCH RUINED AISLE. of the nave, now blackened and storm-beaten, no longer supporting anything save their own time-worn frames ranged in dark silhouette against the sky. William Molyneux, the author of the “Case of Ireland,” is buried in the north-east corner of the chancel. The ruined aisle of the nave, which lies to the west of the chance], contains the Malone monument, dated 1592, in the same style as the Cosgrave memorial already described. Exposure has begun to have its p 225
[The Story of Dublin] effect here. Most of the quaint little figures are now headless. S. Audoen’s was probably the first parish church erected in Dublin by the Norman settlers. Audoen, or Ouen, was a saint much venerated in Normandy, where he still has many churches dedicated to him. The square, undecorated tower and pointed arches of the Dublin S. Audoen’s assign the date of its erection to the twelfth or thirteenth century. It had, for many years, a firm hold on the affections of the city and even of the occasional sojourners within its walls. In 1671, the Royal Regiment of Guards contributed ^150 to a fund for its repair and beautifying. In return, the whole corps was admitted to all the privileges of parishioners for a term of forty-one years. These Irish Guards of the past did not remain to claim their full rights. They adhered to James II. after Limerick and entered the French service, where, as being the soldiers of the legitimate King of England, they long continued to wear the traditional British scarlet. After the French Revolution they were permitted to return to Ireland. But the times were out of joint then in Dublin as well as in Paris. The old regiment found few friends and was soon disbanded. Under the north wall of S. Audoen’s church is a narrow passage leading to an arch of the same name, which is really the only surviving gate of the city, believed to have been hastily erected when Edward Bruce lay at Castleknock, only four miles from Dublin, but probably dating back to a still earlier period. It is likely that the first walls ever constructed round the city ran by here. In course of time the enclosure was extended so as to reach the river bank. Audoen’s Arch remains as a mark of its former extent. It is low,
and built in a massive style (p. 37). In a room 226
Christ Church Place to Kilmainham overhead the Freeman s Journal, over a hundred and sixty years ago, entered on its long and consistent course of opposition to the powers that be. Beyond is Cook Street, noted as a residence of some of those degraded clergymen called couplebeggars, who earned a miserable living by marrying without question any pair who came before them and were willing to pay the small fee of half-a-crown. Their registers have been carefully preserved, for the marriages, though irregular, were quite legal, and the heir to more than one great estate derives his title therefrom. The celebrant had an anxious time with his somewhat disreputable clients. Some tendered bad money in payment, others “behaved so unsuitably that I refused to marry them.” Once a whole party of soldiers and women came in drunk, demanding to be married, but the minister, in view of their condition and the danger of getting confused in the wedding of so many couples, declined to proceed in the matter. In 1629, on S. Stephen’s Day, just after Christmas, a riot took place in Cook Street, caused by an attempt to arrest Carmelite monks while in the act of celebrating mass. After passing S. Audoen’s church, High Street becomes the Cornmarket, named, like Fishamble and Cook Streets, from the chief business carried on there. Here formerly stood the Bull Ring, an iron ring to which the bulls were tied to be baited. There was once a custom in Dublin of electing annually a civic officer called the Mayor of the Bull Ring, whose special duty it was to attend to the morals and warlike efficiency of the youth. When a bachelor married, this mayor and his followers conducted him from church to the Cornmarket, there to pay his last homage to the Ring with a parting kiss. 227
[The Story of Dublin] At the end of the Cornmarket stood Newgate Prison. A part of the old building, lofty and circular in shape, is still visible over the roofs of the houses on the south side of the street opposite Webb’s. It was originally the western gate of the city, getting its name probably from being erected later than the other entrances. By this way the citizens made a sally against Silken Thomas and drove him in confusion from the walls. Newgate, however, like its London namesake, is best known as a prison. The stories of the condition of the gaol and of the scenes that took place there, are almost incredible. Some of the cells were half under water. No provision was made for the maintenance of the prisoners, so that they were delivered over helplessly to the exactions of the turnkeys. Intoxicants could be easily procured by those who had money enough to pay the stiff price demanded. The night before the hanging or 147;stretching,” as it was called, of a criminal was spent in a wild, reckless carouse in the doomed man’s cell. Such an unhallowed revel is graphically depicted in the famous gaol song, “The Night Before Larry Was Stretched,” a verse of which may be quoted. The priest, coming to prepare Larry for his end, has interrupted a lively game at cards and is driven out with scant courtesy. “Then in came the Priest with his book, He spoke him so smooth and so civil; Larry tipped him a Kilmainham look And pitched his big wig to the Devil; Then raising a little his head, To get a sweet drop of the bottle, And pitiful sighing he said, Oh ! the hemp will be soon round my throttle And choke my poor windpipe to death.’“ As a rule, however, no chaplain ventured near the prison for years together. Wesley
preached there, but 228
Christ Church Place to Kllmainham found “no stirring of the dry bones.” Under such circumstances it was not strange that a regular fellowship of professional law-breakers grew up in Dublin with a special slang and a small ballad literature of their own. Most of these productions deal with the last painful event in the thief’s life, his final execution. This was usually referred to as “dancing the last jig “or the “Kilmainham minuet.” Still hope was not lost when the rope was round the victim’s neck. There was a cherished belief that a hanged man might be revived by cutting the jugular vein in his throat. The friends of the deceased struggled for the body with the emissaries of Trinity College, who claimed it for dissection. Anatomists and phlebotomists fought it out under the shadow of the gallows. The Cornmarket widens out into Thomas Street, a wide thoroughfare associated with two unfortunate insurrections. Lord Edward Fitzgerald was captured after a gallant struggle in No. 151, a house on the north side now marked with a tablet. He was in bed at the moment of arrest, but leaped out and commenced a most desperate effort for liberty. The first two officers to enter the room were badly wounded by Lord Edward’s dagger, but clung to his legs so as to prevent his escape. At that moment Major Sirr came up the stairs and, seeing the situation, fired at Lord Edward and wounded him in the shoulder. The young Geraldine was overpowered by numbers and carried away to prison, where he died subsequently of the wound he had received. Close by this house is a narrow passage called Marshalsea Lane, leading formerly to the Marshalsea, or debtors’ prison, the wretched inhabitants of which literally begged their bread from passers-by. In this alley was one of the depots of Robert Emmet, another hapless rebel, whose attempt came five years after 229
The Story of Dublin Lord Edward’s. Unlike his predecessor, he succeeded in lulling the vigilance of the police until the very night fixed for the outbreak. His arrangements for a simultaneous rising in several parts of the city and an attack on the government arsenals completely miscarried. In the end, at about 8 o’clock in the evening, the leader himself and some eighty followers sallied out from Marshalsea Lane and hastened along Thomas Street towards the castle. The mob soon got out of hand and commenced to maltreat the stray loyalists whom it encountered. Emmet lost all control of his adherents. While the confusion was growing, a coach was heard lumbering along the street. It contained Lord Kilwarden, an eminent judge, who, with his nephew and daughter, was returning home from a visit to the country. The two men were pulled from their seats and stabbed through and through with the long pikes of the rebels, though Kilwarden, whose humanity on the bench was well known, called out his name aloud in hope of mercy. The unfortunate girl escaped unmolested and fled, in a distracted condition, to the Castle, where she brought the first tidings of the rising and the murder. Meanwhile a party of soldiers, emerging from Cutpurse Row, now the western end of the Cornmarket, had dispersed the rioters with a few volleys. Emmet was captured subsequently, and was hanged outside S. Catherine’s Church on the south side of Thomas Street, close to the spot where Kilwarden was killed. He is said to have left directions that his epitaph should not be written until Ireland should be free. But it would appear that, even in that event, his wishes could not be fulfilled, for no one knows where he is interred. Almost every old churchyard in Dublin has been, at one time or other, declared to be his burial-place. The zeal of inquirers has gone so far 230
Christ Church Place to Kilmainham that several vaults have been searched, and unnamed coffins found therein opened to see if their contents could be identified by comparison with the descriptions of Emmet. Thomas Street, as might be inferred from its width, so unusual in an old thoroughfare, was originally an open market place outside the city walls for the sale of country produce. The tolls levied by the Corporation on the farmers, who came in to sell their superfluous stock, were considered a grievous burden. They were paid in kind, a measure of corn from each sack, a pound of butter from every firkin and so forth. These dues were let out to the highest bidder, whose direct interest it therefore was to use every means of extortion so as to earn the highest possible profit on his outlay. The most odious of Dublin tax gatherers was a woman, Kate Strong. The people erected an effigy of her, armed with a toll-dish of utterly unfair proportions. James’s Street succeeds to Thomas Street. Here the enormous brewery of Messrs Guinness begins to dominate the district. Ireland is a land of slow growth and gradual progress, even in commercial matters. There have been fortunes made in business in Dublin, but their acquisition has been spread over very many years. Even a manufacturing firm like Guinness’s has a history of close upon a century and a half. At the end of James’s Street the road divides near an ancient stone pillar. The right-hand branch, Bow Lane, goes down hill, while the road to the left remains on the higher level. Off Bow Lane is situated S. Patrick’s Hospital for Lunatics, founded by money bequeathed for the purpose by Dean Swift. It was the first institution of its kind in Ireland, but, unfortunately, it has had many successors. Irishmen are prone to insanity, doubtless for the same reason as applied to the founder himself, namely, that 231
‘[The Story of Dublin]
“ Great wits are, sure, to madness near allied.” This asylum was built when chains and cruel restraints were the only treatment for the insane. Its thick walls and small windows, now being replaced by larger openings, show the influence of this idea. Its fine wards are a remarkable feature. They run the whole length of the building, are 345 feet long by 14 wide, and terminate in old-fashioned, small -paned windows. The bedrooms or cells open off these corridors. Among the curiosities here are a walnut escritoire which once belonged to Swift himself, and also the wooden benches from the old House of Parliament, high and solid, uncushioned, and, one would think, very uncomfortable. Just after the pillar is passed, Basin Lane turns off to the left from the upper of the two branches. Its name is not, as would at first appear, derived from the familiar household utensil. It leads to the old city reservoir, or “basin,” as it was then called. An ornamented doorway, in which is set an iron gate, gives a glimpse of a very considerable stretch of water, bordered by walks and adorned by some trees at the further end. Pleasure was mixed with utility here. The city fathers, in or about the year 1308, constructed a watercourse from the Dodder at Templeogue to Dublin, whither it flowed by gravity, and was dispersed in pipes down the chief streets without the difficulties involved in a system of pumping or well-sinking. However, the supply was so uncertain, when drought reduced the volume of the Dodder, that, two hundred years ago, the Corporation built a reservoir to store the water in time of plenty. This “basin “became the popular resort of the eighteenth century. Fashionable assemblies were held here every evening. Bands, concerts, and fireworks provided amusement for its frequenters. Even now it retains some trace of its former amenities. Its tranquil waters ripple pleasantly 232
Christ Church Place to Ktlmalnham now and then under the breeze, which sweeps down from the distant blue hills visible to the south. Dublin still gets its water from the mountains, but from Vartry, many miles beyond the old source at Templeogue. After leaving Basin Lane, gardens and fields begin to appear among the weather-worn houses of Mount Brown. The tower of the Royal Hospital, “embosomed high in tufted trees^’ shows that the traveller has arrived at the suburb of Kilmainham.
SECTION X Graf ton Street, Daivson Street, and Stephen’s Green GRAFTON STREET, the busiest thoroughfare of modern Dublin, runs southward from College Green, leaving Trinity and the Provost’s House on the left. It owes its present pre-eminence to the building of Carlisle Bridge, to which it forms the natural approach. Before that event it was a quiet semi-rural lane, leading from College Green to Stephen’s Green. About] the end of the seventeenth century it begins to appear in the annals of the city. The incessant alteration and expansion of a commercial centre has changed Grafton Street very much from the appearance it must have presented in the past, when the lamps were hung on iron brackets projecting from the walls, and the shops had small, diamond-paned windows. The alleys and side streets, however, especially on the western side, preserve some relics of the past. The first turning off Grafton Street to the right is Suffolk Street, once the home of Lottery Offices. Before the present development of horse-racing the gambling instinct found vent in great lotteries organised by the State. Chancellors of the Exchequer welcomed 233
[The Story of Dublin] this device for filling their coffers, knowing it was surer of its welcome than any tax, however scientific in its basis and considerate in its mode of collection. Prizes ranging as high as ^20,000 were offered in order to tempt the public cupidity. As the day of the drawing approached, Dublin became one great gambling-den. The poorest of the people bought fractions, eighths, or sixteenths of tickets. The unscrupulous vendors in the Lottery Offices often cleared a great profit by dividing one ticket into more than its legitimate number of fractions, for example, by selling five quarters of a single chance. The offices were open all night, and losers frantically tried to recoup themselves by betting with the proprietors on the fortunes of tickets yet undrawn. Each lottery produced a crop of suicides, disappointed people, who had madly staked their all and lost. Further along, on the same side of Grafton Street, is Johnston’s Court, a narrow, flagged alley of antique appearance. Here was situated the Grammar School, at which both Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Thomas Moore received their education. They had the good fortune to encounter there not the dully learned type of pedagogue, whose outlook is limited to Greek roots or conic sections, but a man of artistic talent, well qualified to discern and encourage genius in his pupils. Moore relates what pride he took in reciting and acting in the private theatricals performed by the boys under the direction of their master, Samuel Whyte, who frequently was author as well as stage manager of the plays represented. There is here, too, a Catholic church with a fine interior and some beautiful stained glass. Just where Grafton Street debouches on Stephen’s Green is South King Street, leading to another ancient Dublin institution, Mercer’s Hospital, founded in 234
POWERSCOURT HOUSE.
Stephen’s Green 1734. It is a good deal modernised, both inside and out. The original “stone house “of Mary Mercer’s donation lies behind the flight of stone steps in the centre. The only relic of antiquity within is the old minute book, which has various references to Handel, and also contains a very early inventory by which it appears that the hospital possessed many sheets and blankets, but hardly any bedsteads. The patients probably lay on straw spread on the floor. Off South King Street, just opposite Mercer’s, is South William Street, on the eastern side of which is Powerscourt House, the most picturesque of all the great Dublin mansions. The interior is almost as fine as the exterior. It has several fine ceilings and a beautiful staircase of gleaming mahogany. The family who built and named the house did not enjoy it for long. It has been used as a stamp office, and is now the warehouse of Messrs Ferrier, Pollock & Co. The origins of Stephen’s Green go far back into antiquity. It received its name from a bygone S. Stephen’s church near the present Stephen Street. From time immemorial the citizens grazed their cattle and shot wild fowl on its marshy pastures. In 1664 they set themselves to beautify their neglected possession. The method adopted was the time-honoured one known as “feeding the dog with a bit of his own tail.” A part of the green was sacrificed in order to preserve the rest. Lots were portioned out around its margin to tenants, who were under obligation to plant the common before their holdings with the fastgrowing sycamore tree. Building regulations were, for the first time, enforced by the Corporation. Any house to be erected on the lots was to be at least two stories high, and to be constructed of brick, stone, or timber, not of the perishable mud or wattle “cagework “prevalent in old Dublin. 237
The Story of Dublin The green thus became a residential square enclosed by three shaded avenues, of which the “Beaux’ Walk “on the northern side was the most fashionable and frequented by the greatest numbers. The central space was still an open, grassy plain, the grazing of which was now let out by the city to the highest bidder. The statue of George II., which still marks the centre of the modern park, was set up in 1758. Like his fellow-monarch in College Green, this sovereign has been a mark for the indignities of the mob, the insult taking the form of a determined attempt to hack his head off. Stephen’s Green, as it exists now, is a beautiful piece of landscape gardening, where the art is so well concealed that the spectator hardly realises that the entire scene, lake, waterfall, lawn and woodland is artificial. The munificence of the Guinnesses, as represented in the person of Lord Ardilaun, has conferred this further benefit on the city. The tall houses all around were mostly the residences of the Irish aristocracy during their period of power. Each was inspired by a desire to excel his fellows in the size and splendour of his mansion. It was a game of “beggar-my-neighbour,” in which many ancient families came to ruin, cursed with the “white elephant” of a great house, which they could neither maintain without extravagance, nor sell without shame. A spirit of reckless audacity, which led to many mad actions, characterised most .of the upper classes. For instance, at No. 86 Stephen’s Green South, a house adorned with a lion over the door, and now forming part of University College, lived the celebrated Buck Whaley, the hero of several foolish freaks. He injured himself badly by leaping for a wager from the second floor of a house over a passing carriage. Once, on his return from a trip to the Continent, he was 238
WE
Stephens Green asked where he would go next. On the spur of the moment he answered “Jerusalem.” A discussion arose as to whether such a place existed, and if it did, whether he could get there. Whaley intervened with an undertaking to find his way thither within a year, and, according to one account, to celebrate his arrival by playing ball against the city walls. Bets were registered on either side until he stood to win a small fortune, if he could redeem his promise. In the end he won his wager with some months to spare, after a series of extraordinary adventures en route. During a reformed old age Whaley wrote memoirs of his life, giving an interesting, but not edifying, picture of the life of his times. A reception room of his house has now been metamorphosed into a college chapel, in which capacity it is very successful, despite the obviously secular tone of its decorations. On the eastern side is S. Vincent’s Hospital, housed in the former residence of the Earls of Meath. On the northern, at No. 36, lived Mrs Hemans, considered a great poetess in her day. Her “Graves of a Household “and one or two other pieces are still remembered. Dawson Street, the nearest parallel to Grafton Street, running from Nassau Street to Stephen’s Green, was also a fashionable neighbourhood, and still contains several picturesque old houses. It is really a link between old and new Dublin. Its width and straightness show the influence of modern ideas, while the curiously-shaped gables, with their single window in the centre of the top story, like a Cyclops’ eye in the middle of his forehead, are survivals of the ancient methods of building. Dawson Street is associated with a strange duelling story. Here lived a noted swordsman named Mathew, whose fame extended even to London, and provoked 239
[The Story of Dublin] two English officers, named Pack and Creed, to come to Dublin to try conclusions with him. A meeting was arranged between Mathew and Pack, seconded respectively by their friends Macnamara and Creed. Macnamara, however, could not endure to be a mere spectator, and, with the consent of all parties, it was settled that the seconds should fight simultaneously with their principals. The encounter took place in the private room of a tavern. Creed was the first to fall. “Ah, poor Creed,” said Pack, “are you gone ! “*’ Yes,” answered Mathew, making the first and only joke of his life, “and you shall instantly pack after him,” driving his words home with a deadly thrust right through the body. The two Englishmen lay at death’s door for some days, but recovered, to become the close friends of their late opponents. “A mad world, my masters ! “Molesworth Street, a turning off Dawson Street almost opposite an old high-gabled house, which bears the date 1684, is also associated with reckless high spirits. Here lived Richard Parsons, first Earl of Rosse, and reputed founder of the Hellfire Club. Down to the very end of his days his life was one long round of revel and frolic. He paid court to the wealthy, but half-crazed, Duchess of Albemarle, but in vain. The lady wished to marry a sovereign prince. Lord Montagu won her affections in the character of the Emperor of China, and carried her off from Parsons. Montagu, too, was a humorist. His poor imbecile wife was always treated as an empress, and served on bended knee. The loser laughed away his defeat in an epigram : “Insulting rival, never boast Thy conquest lately won; No wonder if her heart were lost;
Her senses first were gone. 240
Da’wson Street From one that’s under Bedlam’s laws What glory can be had? For love of thee was not the cause; It proves that she was mad.” The shadow of death, which sobers most men, could not damp the spirits of this mocker. The good vicar of the neighbouring church of S. Ann’s, hoping for even a deathbed repentarice, wrote to Lord Rosse, detailing the manifold offences with which he was charged by popular report, and exhorting him to contrition and confession. Rosse read the letter, and at once ordered it to be sealed and placed in another envelope, addressed to the blameless Earl of Kildare. The vicar’s messenger was then bribed to leave the missive at the earl’s house, saying it had come from his master. Kildare was scandalised at being charged with such enormities. He complained to the archbishop, who sent for the vicar and asked him how he dared accuse an upright nobleman of such crimes. The vicar, still ignorant of the trick, maintained the truth of all that he had written. Kildare served a citation for libel on the clergyman before the real state of things was discovered. In the meantime, Rosse had died, enjoying to his last breath the confusion he had created. The architecture of Molesworth Street is characteristic of old Dublin. There are some gable-ended houses, others with heavy and elaborate doorways and windows. The general effect is rather sombre, but not without a certain charm. It is strange to think that these stately and severe mansions were the homes of men whose lives were cast in quite a different mould. In Dawson Street, a little above Molesworth Street, is the parish church of S. Ann, already mentioned. It is cramped by the houses on either side, so that its front is no more than a single grandiose doorway. A 241
[The Story of Dublin] steeple was included in the architect’s designs, but, unfortunately, it was never erected. The interior of the church is not very remarkable, except for an extraordinary number of memorial tablets affixed to its walls. Mrs Hemans, the poetess, is buried under the right hand aisle of the nave. Her graceful and delicate verse, now almost completely forgotten, is recalled by the epitaph taken from one of her own dirges. It begins thus : “Calm on the bosom of thy God, Fair spirit, rest thee now I Even while with us thy footsteps trode, His seal was on thy brow.” Beyond S. Ann’s is Northland House, once the residence of Lord Northland, now the home of the Royal Irish Academy. Its interior preserves much of its ancient splendour. The staircase, in particular, is most elaborate. The ceiling is in two colours, red and white, and its decorations are continued in sprays down the walls towards the ground. The Academy is one of the oldest of Irish learned societies. It was originally founded for the study of “Science, Polite Literature and Antiquities.” It is not quite obvious what is meant by the term “Polite Literature,” so the members have devoted themselves mainly to the first and last of the objects enumerated. They have achieved remarkable results in the domain of early Irish antiquity. The Academy possesses an extraordinary number of ancient manuscripts in the old Gaelic tongue. Some of these were found under peculiar circumstances. One was rolled into a ball like a scrap of waste paper. Even now, when it has been carefully unfolded, it is so stained and creased as to be almost undecipherable. Others are mere unintelligible fragments. Many of them, however, despite their great age, are beautifully clear and legible. 242
Dawson Street Further southwards and standing well back from the road is the picturesque old Mansion House, the residence of the Lord Mayor during his term of office. It was bought by the city for ^”3500 from Joshua Dawson, after whom the street is named. Here were held the great municipal festivities of the past. The Lord Mayor and the Lord Lieutenant met on an almost equal footing and entertained each other in turn, and it was a point of honour that the Mansion House should never be outdone by the Castle in the magnificence of its hospitality. The viceregal suite was often fain to confess that the bluff heartiness and good fellowship of a civic ball were more enjoyable than the ceremonious etiquette of their own mimic court. Peeping out of the gardens to the left is the equestrian statue of King George I., which for long looked down on the Liffey from a recess on Essex, now Grattan, Bridge. It had been removed from that position during a time of rebuilding and had lain in obscurity until 1798, when the Corporation suddenly took it into their heads to set it up again on this site as an outward and visible sign of their loyalty during that troubled period. The interior shows some trace of bygone festivities. The two most noted rooms are associated with civic entertainments. The large Round Room, a circular chamber adorned with statuary, was specially built for the reception of George IV. The Oak Room has more of the atmosphere of antiquity. Its walls are sheathed from floor to ceiling with oak, which time has mellowed to a rich reddish brown. The whole is surmounted by a delicately carved cornice. With its subdued tones, due to the softening of daylight by the dark hues all around, this room reproduces the effect of some quiet Dutch
domestic picture. Here the old lord mayors used to entertain 243
[The Story of Dublin] their fellows of the council. Over the fireplace is a wooden rack for the reception of the official mace and sword. A fine Sir Joshua Reynolds of the Earl of Northumberland, Lord Lieutenant, hangs here. In the other rooms there are also some good portraits of kings, viceroys and lord mayors, notably a Charles II. by Sir Peter Lely, an Earl of Westmoreland by Romney, and a tall and handsome George IV. by Sir Thomas Lawrence. An old diamond-paned bookcase from the Irish House of Lords and some tapestry screens depicting a bull fight are worthy of note. In the entrance hall are preserved the mace and sword carried by the lord mayor who fought for James II. at the Boyne. In the heat of the pursuit the insignia fell into the hands of the Williamites and were, by them, restored to the Corporation after peace had been established. Neither seems to have been like the present ornamental weapons in the City Hall, mere symbols of an office. The mace would have been well capable of cracking a crown, and the sword, long and grey, is equally well fitted for its duties. SECTION XI Nassau Street, Kildare Street, The Museum, National Gallery, and Merrion Square COMING from the direction of College Green, Nassau Street is the first turn off Grafton Street to the left. Its present name is derived from one of the sub-titles of William III. Before his coming it was known as S. Patrick’s Well Lane, because it led to a holy well of that name, now enclosed in the park of Trinity College. An extraordinary sanctity attached to the water of this spring, since it was believed to be due 244
Nassau Street to the benevolence of the saint himself. The legend has already been narrated. The supposed sacred well, traces of which have been found near S. Patrick’s Cathedral, may have, perhaps, a better claim to the protection of the apostle of Ireland, seeing that it is so close to the place where his church has stood for so many years. In historical times, however, the well by the college was regarded as the only claimant to the patronage of S. Patrick. On his festival day, the iyth March, great numbers of people resorted thither to drink the water, which was popularly believed to cure all sorts of diseases. With its new name Nassau Street acquired other associations. The somewhat vulgar triumph of the Williamites displayed itself here in an odious form. One of the houses is said to have contained in its walls a tablet with a bust of King William bearing the inscription “May we never want a Williamite To kick the breech of a Jacobite.” The Corporation regularly sent men to paint and embellish this monument. Apparently it escaped the hacking and defacement which the larger figure in College Green suffered. The roadway of Nassau Street is now several feet higher than the College park, with which it was once on a level. The material used to effect this change was obtained by the destruction of one of the “hogges “of Hoggen or College Green. The loss is regrettable, for a hill near College Green would have given opportunity for an architectural display, which might have enhanced the effect of that fine open space. The next turn to the right, after passing Dawson Street, is Kildare Street, marked by the massive premises of the club of the same name at its corner. When Daly’s in College Green grew too exclusive, 245
Tbe Story of Dublin the victims of the black ball are said to have united to found this establishment as a rival to the one by which they had been rejected. The club is now over a hundred years old, having seen the fall of Daly’s and its own accession to the place held by its predecessor. Indeed this street is intimately connected with the very highest circles of the old aristocracy. No less than ten peers of the realm resided at one time in its tall, gloomy mansions. It receives its name from the great Geraldine Earls of Kildare, who chose this spot for the erection of the largest and most magnificent town residence in Ireland. Kildare House, subsequently styled Leinster House, when the earldom of Kildare was merged in the duchy of Leinster, stands in a large courtyard reaching back from the eastern side of the road opposite the end of Molesworth Street. At the time of its foundation the site was censured, as lying quite away from the fashionable centre of the city. Kildare replied that society would follow him wherever he might go. His boast was justified, for in a few years his new home was surrounded by similar constructions. Leinster House has an imposing appearance, its wide approach setting it off to the very best advantage. It is said that the White House at Washington is largely a reproduction of its main features, though the American building has a semicircular colonnaded porch, which rather conceals the likeness. In the matter of colour there is certainly no resemblance, for the Dublin mansion is so dark with age that it might well be called the “Black House.” The inscription composed for the foundation stone is a striking exhibition of lordly pride. In stilted Latin it addresses itself to the casual explorer, who may find it among the stately ruins of a fallen house, and bids him mark the greatness of the noble builder and the evanescence of all things terrestrial, 246
The Museum when even such mighty monuments of such splendid men cannot rise superior to misfortune. About a hundred years ago the Leinster family disposed of their town house to its present occupants, the Royal Dublin Society. The interior is very much the same as in former times. The hall is very wide, and has a beautiful decorated ceiling and a white stone staircase, now somewhat chipped with wear. The whole of the northern wing is taken up by two huge rooms, one over the other, seventy feet long by twenty-four wide. The lower of these was the ducal supper room, the upper the picture gallery. They are now used as the Conversation and Magazine Rooms of the Society. The Royal Dublin Society in its venerable dwelling, surrounded by modern government institutions, is a proud mother sitting amongst her children. The Library to her right, the Museum to her left, the Art Gallery off Leinster Lawn owe their first foundation to the unrewarded public spirit of the Society. The State took up the work, provided a more generous endowment and built new habitations for the collections, which had already grown to a considerable size. The walls of Leinster House are still adorned with pictures painted by the young artists whom the Society trained and encouraged. The most remarkable of these is “The Beggars,” at the foot of the stairs. It represents an old Irishwoman and her little girl, and is a work of great strength and fidelity to life, but perhaps a little hard in execution. The Museum is in two sections, one in Merrion Square devoted to Science, the other in Kildare Street to Art and Industry. The latter contains many objects of Irish historical interest. To the right of the rectangular central court is shown the Speaker’s Chair of the old House of Parliament, a simple piece of furniture, quite outshone by the gorgeous seat of the 247
[The Story of Dublin] lord mayor to its right. The regalia of the Aldermen of Skinner’s Alley, a political and convivial
CROSS OF MUREDACH, MONASTERBOICE. society which travestied the Corporation, is, perhaps, more magnificent still. The great Celtic crosses of Monasterboice and elsewhere, reproduced in their actual dimensions, form a
The Museum striking feature to the left. They are twelve or sixteen feet high, and are remarkable for their beauty of form and intricacy of design. Each face is divided into panels, representing scenes from Scripture. The space within the circle or halo at the joint of the arms of the cross is usually occupied by a representation of the Crucifixion, whicli shows the soldiers thrusting the spear and offering the sponge, and overhead, two angels supporting the head of Our Lord. Sometimes there is a Gaelic inscription at the foot, entreating the prayers of the faithful for the person buried below. The originals of these crosses are to be seen at Monasterboice, near Drogheda, where they have been standing for over a thousand years. Owing to their great antiquity and their close association with Catholic piety, they are deeply venerated by the peasants of the neighbourhood. Once they were thought to possess semi-miraculous powers. The regular collection of Irish antiquities, however, is upstairs. It is in two sections, the prehistoric in Room III., and the Christian and mediaeval in Room IV. The former contains some jewellery, showing creditable workmanship and a fairly advanced state of civilisation. There are many tores or gold collars of the type celebrated in Moore’s ballad. In a case on the left is a remarkable little model of a boat, with thwarts and oars complete, all in fine yellow gold. This was turned up by the plough near Londonderry, and occasioned a tremendous lawsuit between the museums of Dublin and London, in which the Irish institution, after a huge expenditure of money, succeeded in asserting its prior claim to such finds. At the end of Room III. a large lump of “bog butter “is preserved in a glass case. The bogs of Ireland are really unofficial museums. Objects of almost every conceivable kind, some going back to the remote past, 249
[The Story of Dublin] have been found in their dark depths. In this case the butter was probably deposited either for safe keeping or as a means of artificial preservation. It is quite dry and hard, and is said to taste rather like old Stilton cheese, but still more like spermaceti. The most remarkable feature of Room IV. is furnished by the shrines used to carry the treasured remains of the saints, or the illuminated manuscripts then held in almost equal reverence. These caskets are often of fine workmanship. The material is usually bronze, set with gold, silver, and crystal. In one or two cases the shrine is shaped like a hand or arm, being probably used to contain that particular form of relic. Their dates range from the ninth to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The Cross of Cong, a small cruciform reliquary studded with round knobs of crystal, and the Ardagh Chalice represent the highest level reached by ancient Irish ecclesiastical metal work (p. 5). Like the sculptured crosses of Monasterboice, they are probably superior to any contemporary work of the same kind executed north of the Mediterranean. There are also specimens of ancient Irish clothing, close-fitting trousers, wide cloaks, brogues or boots of brown, untanned leather. Objects of Irish interest in the general collections of the museum will usually be found with the British section. On the ground floor in Room VII., among the musical instruments, will be found the Irish bagpipes and harp. The ancient bagpipe of Ireland is smaller than the Scotch type, is played on the knee instead of being slung over the shoulder, and lacks the formidable drone of the Highland instrument. The furniture in Rooms VIII. and IX. contains a beautiful piece of wooden panelling and a cupboard from an old house in Francis Street, Dublin. On the upper floor the gallery of the Rotunda shows 250
The National Gallery some very fine silver plate of Dublin make; and in Room VIII., among the pottery, there is a case of Waterford cut glass. Passing from the museum across the front of Leinster House, a small wicket gate gives access to Leinster Lawn and the National Gallery. The back of the old mansion has a wide and spacious outlook. In the immediate foreground is the old private garden and shrubbery, now treated as a city park under the name of Leinster Lawn. Beyond is Merrion Square, a grassy hollow encircled with trees. Athough the landscape is only produced by the juxtaposition of two open spaces, neither very large, it has, especially when viewed from the upper windows of Leinster House, a curious appearance, as of lawn and woodland rolling away to a remote distance, where houses begin to reappear among the trees. On Leinster Lawn the volunteers were reviewed under the eye of their commander, the then duke. Also the first balloon ascent in Ireland was made from here. The aeronaut sailed away in the direction of Holyhead, but encountering a thunderstorm, found himself, balloon and all, plunged in the sea in mid-channel, wherce he was rescued and brought into Dunleary, the modern Kingstown. The National Gallery runs along the northern side of Leinster Lawn. Its ground floor is devoted to a historical and portrait collection. The first gallery beyond the sculpture room contains a very complete set of engravings of celebrated figures in Irish annals. At the further end is a great oil painting by Maclise, representing the marriage of Strongbow and Eva in the breach at Waterford. This painter loved a wide canvas and multitudes of figures. He has here succeeded in producing an impressive picture, which has for its keynote the contrast between the marriage ceremony, with its peaceful and happy associations, and the scenes 251
[The Story of Dublin] of death and desolation around (opposite p. 16). The maidens who hold the bride’s train glance horror-stricken at the mutilated corpses and the mourners bent over them. The acolytes have scarce room to swing their censers, so narrow is the space that has been cleared for the nuptial rite. In the background are the battered walls, where men pass and repass, carrying away the wounded and burying the slain. On the furthest wall of this gallery is the picture of the Volunteers being reviewed at College Green. It will be noted that their uniforms are more French in style than English, also that Trinity College was then adorned with a dome (opposite p. 108). There is also a spirited picture of the rescue of the first Irish aeronaut from a watery grave in the Irish Sea. In a room to the right is a series of prints of old Dublin as it appeared a century or two ago. These are both pleasing in themselves and interesting as showing in some cases historical buildings, such as the Tholsel and the old Custom House, which have now passed away. The best work, perhaps, is by Malton, two of whose drawings are reproduced opposite pp. 238 and 264. Beyond is a series of galleries containing historical portraits, ranged in chronological order, so that each room represents a period. The flowing curls of one century give place to the round faces and wigs of another, merging finally in the familiar lineaments of the last century. There is a picture of the Hellfire Club by one of its members. It is a group of men sitting solemnly together, looking as unlike a blasphemous crew as can be conceived. This famous club was probably not nearly so bad as its reputation. Men about town have always liked to pose as desperately wicked characters. The only charges ever proved against the Hellfirers were that they toasted the devil and drank to the damnation, not the health, of each other. Amid the bright colour and life of the oil paintings, 252
The National Gallery one sometimes encounters suddenly a white and rigid face, that tells mutely, yet eloquently, of death and the mystery that lies beyond. It is the death-mask of some noted leader of revolt, who died on the scaffold or in gaol. During the brief interval between execution and burial, the features of the departed were sometimes preserved for posterity in this gruesome manner. The subject pictures are in the upper rooms. They include a number of fine Italian and Dutch paintings, the former being unusually clear and vivid. The “Supper at Emmaus,” by Titian, is a beautiful poetic rendering of one of the moments, when the disciples’ hearts burned within them at the eloquence of their wayside acquaintance. The Dutch school here shows its wonderful feeling for landscape, especially in the neighbourhood of water, and its subtle treatment of domestic scenes. The masterly handling of the light alone in some of these is a source of perpetual amazement and admiration. The cleverest piece of work is perhaps the portrait, by Van Der Heist, of a buxom housewife, whose round and ruddy cheeks stand out in pleasant contrast to her snow-white ruff. The pictures by Irish painters, or on Irish subjects, are mostly hung in the section reserved for the British school. In Gallery XL, just beyond the Turners, there is a portrait, by Nathaniel Hone, of an unknown gentleman, an excellent and lifelike piece of work, smoothly and harmoniously carried out. Close by the same artist has a delightful “Piping Boy,” in which he has caught all the flower-like freshness and innocence of early youth. The troubled story of Ireland is shown in Wilkie’s Peep o’ Day Boy’s Cabin, West of Ireland.” The Peep o’ Day Boys, like the Whiteboys, were associations of the peasantry, which met at midnight, and set out in disguise to take revenge on their local perse253
[The Story of Dublin] cutors by incendiarism, mob violence and even murder. The scene illustrated is the morrow after some such wild night. The man lies stretched out in the prostration of utter weariness across the floor, his right hand still half clutching a gun. The wife, with half naked children beside her, sits, a prey to anxiety, her eyes showing a haunting dread of some future day when soldiers shall burst in through the door to arrest her guilty husband. The picture is somehow typical of Irish history, with its lawlessness redeemed by devotion and heroism among the very poorest, its continual rending of the domestic affections by the horrors of the gibbet and the gaol. In Room XIII. are a number of fine pictures by Irish artists of the past. Rothwell’s “Calisto “is a nude, whose flesh tints are wonderfully pure and delicate. Mulready is represented by a *’ Negro Toyseller.” The “Fisherman’s Mother “by Miss Trevor must interest almost every visitor, for the type depicted, an aged, but not broken woman of the poorer class, her face corrugated with wrinkles, but her eyes showing an undimmed interest in life, is to be found in every village and street in Ireland. Brennan’s “Capri” and Barrett’s “Powerscourt Waterfall “are both good landscapes. “The Blind Piper,” by Haverty, is a faithful representation of an almost extinct figure in Irish life. Many of the painters, whose work hangs on these walls, owed their first recognition to the Royal Dublin Society. The National Gallery faces towards Merrion Square, the most aristocratic of Dublin residential quarters. Numbers of distinguished people have lived here, the most notable, perhaps, being Daniel O’Connell, the Liberator, and Sheridan Le Fanu, a meritorious, but half-forgotten Irish poet and novelist. The site of this square has a
remarkable history. It 254
Merrion Square is very close to the Liffey, and, in ancient times, before the river was curbed to its present channel, was practically on the shore. In fact, during a time of flood, a Duke of Leinster, running his yacht through a breach in the harbour wall, sailed across the fields here to land at Leinster House. When the defences of the Castle fell to ruin in th/ 1 seventeenth century and an attempt at surprise had nearly succeeded, Sir Bernard Gomme proposed to replace the old citadel by a more modern one, to be erected where Merrion Square now stands. He argued that the projected fort would command both the land and sea more effectively than the Castle could, and would have the additional advantage that it could be easily victualled and relieved by the English fleet. The ornamental structure on the western side of Merrion Square was set up by the Duke of Rutland, a viceroy of the century before last. It is nominally a fountain, but the water has apparently been long since shut off, giving the whole a somewhat inconsequent appearance. In Merrion Street, a southerly continuation of Merrion Square West, at No. 24, now occupied by the Land Commission, the great Duke of Wellington was in all probability born. The birthplace is sometimes disputed, but the facts point to this house, both because it was the town residence of his family, and because there is circumstantial evidence to prove the presence of the Countess of Mornington and her newborn infant in Dublin at the time. In the shop of Mr Evans, an old established chemist in Dawson Street, is preserved a prescription for medicine for “Lady Mornington and the child.” The draught ordered is just the sort of soothing syrup which it is usual to give in the first internal troubles of infancy. 2 55
[The Story of Dublin]
SECTION XII The Liberties South Great George’s, Aungier, Kevin Streets and the Coombc HALF way along the southern side of Dame Street is a sharp turning to the left which is barely wide enough to permit the entrance of the trams, which here branch off from the main line. This is South Great George’s Street, a modern amplification of the old S. George’s Lane. There was formerly in the neighbourhood a church dedicated to the patron saint of England, founded while the colonists were still a mere garrison in a foreign country, tenacious of their own nationality amid the overwhelming Celtic masses around. S. George was almost considered the patron saint of Dublin, too. In 1457 the parliament enacted that, whenever a seizure of cattle was made from the Irish, one cow in forty should be reserved for the church. The brotherhood for the defence of the Pale was called the Fraternity of S. George. The city celebrated annually the pageant of S. George and the Dragon, in which the mayor and mayoress took the parts of an emperor and his consort. The first side street to the left is Exchequer Street, so called because the court of that name used to meet there. The position was somewhat exposed, as it lay outside the Castle and the town walls. In 1586, while the judges were in full session, the O’Byrnes swooped down from the mountains and obtained a great booty at the expense of the royal treasury. The suburb was seen to be dangerous. The Exchequer moved within the precincts of the Castle. During the wars that followed, S. George’s Lane disappeared for a time. Subsequently it was the home
of Sir William 256
Petty, the “admirable Crichton “of one period of Irish history. He was a great scientist, one of the first members of the Royal Society and the College of Physicians. He conducted mining and fishing operations, designed ships and carriages on new and original lines, and exposed the pretensions of quacks and faithhealers. At Oxford he had restored to life a woman hanged for infanticide. His greatest feat was performed when the government of Oliver Cromwell required a survey of all the lands of Ireland, with a view to providing for their supporters out of the forfeited estates of the defeated party. The Book of Survey, which he drew up, is preserved in the Public Record Office and is still in frequent, almost daily, use. During this confiscation and those which followed three-fourths of the land of Ireland passed into the hands of successful soldiers and courtiers from England. No. 59 South Great George’s Street has interesting theatrical associations. Here Madame Violante used to give a mixed performance of dancing, rope walking and pantomime not unlike a present day music hall. Just as in modern times, too, there were bitter complaints from the admirers of the legitimate drama, when its patrons deserted it in search of novelty. Violante organised a company of children to play the “Beggars’ Opera,” which they did with great spirit and effect. “Polly,” the heroine, was played by a little girl of ten, who was afterwards known as the famous Peg Woffington. This early Dublin music hall was closed by the lord mayor on the grounds of morality. A little further on the street changes its name, becoming Aungier Street. On the left hand side, marked by a bust in the wall and a prominent legend overhead, is the house which was the birthplace of Thomas Moore, best loved and best known of Irish 257
[The Story of Dublin] poets. There is hardly a homestead in Ireland where his songs are not sung to this day. In Peter Street, behind S. Peter’s Church, is the old house of the Molyneux family, associated with the beginnings of the parliamentary struggle for Irish independence. It has now become the “Albert Hall,” but a tablet records its history. Just where Aungier Street narrows into Redmond’s Hill, there is a turning to the right called Bishop Street. This is the most convenient way to the interesting, but terribly poor, quarter once known as “The Liberties.” They were so called not because they were free, but because they were not under the city jurisdiction. In fact they had half a dozen masters. The Archbishop of Dublin executed justice and levied dues in one part, the Earl of Meath in another, not to mention some lesser overlords. Bishop Street becomes Kevin Street, called from a bygone church dedicated to the Celtic saint of that name, whose sanctuary is at Glendalough. The parishes here were manifestly of Irish origin, since they were placed under the protection of Saints Kevin, Bride (or Bridget) and Patrick. The cathedral of the latter begins to show its spire prominently on the right. The horse police barracks in Kevin Street contains the remains of S. Sepulchre’s, the palace of the archbishops, which was built soon after the foundation of S. Patrick’s. The ancient and finely carved stone pillars of the main gate serve the same purpose for the policeman that they once did for the prelate. Through the wicket may be seen the battlemented walls of the old palace, which, like the cathedral, was intended as well for warlike as for ecclesiastical purposes. Internally, of course, there haye been considerable alterations. Still an old wooden staircase, some doorways of antique form, and a fine wood carving of fruit, apparently pears and grapes, are yet to be seen. 258
CHAPTER PLACE SHOWING A CORNER OF S. PATRICK 3,
‘The Coombe Kevin Street soon becomes Deane Street, which again merges in the Coombe. This name is the same “combe” or “coombe,” which is so frequent in Devonshire and the south of England. It is the hollow, or river valley, of the Poddle, which here again has been driven to hide its dishonoured head underground. Thousands of weavers toiled at their looms in the Coombe and its side streets. Their old hall or meeting-place is half way along the street on the right hand side. Over the door stands a statue of one of the kings of England. The commercial order in those days was master, journeyman and apprentice. Here and there on both sides of the present thoroughfare are still to be seen the peculiar high-gabled houses with their small-paned windows, in which the master watched over his hired journeymen and taught the trade to his apprentices. In the district beyond the Coombe the curious visitor may see whole streets composed solely of this type of dwelling, so prevalent two or three centuries ago. Such are Chamber Street, Pool Street and Weaver Square, all near the western end of the Coombe. They are often called “Huguenot streets “from a tradition that the weaving industry was established in Dublin by French Protestant refugees. However, it is probable that it was already in existence before their arrival. The continuous rows of pointed gable-ends facing the spectator produce a quaint effect, bringing old Dublin vividly before the eye. Just such houses as these once lined Dame Street and College Green, though not many now survive. The weavers were a turbulent class. They crossed the Liffey to wage war with the butchers of Ormond Quay. The brawny butchers usually had the upper hand, however, and are said sometimes, in cruel sport, to have attached their meat hooks to fallen weavers, 261
‘[The Story of Dublin] whom they dragged about in triumph There was usually internecine war within the limits of the trade> the men, just as now, demanding higher wages and shorter hours, the masters refusing to comply and calling for troops and proclamations to suppress the incendiarism and violence by which the journeymen
WEAVER SQUARE. showed* their resentment. Sometimes master and man joined in fierce campaigns against imported goods and all who wore them in preference to Irish. Any sucli persons who ventured into the Liberties ran a risk of being mobbed and maltreated. One man in Irish history obtained a wonderful hold over these somewhat riotous artisans. Dean Swift, by his Drapier Letters, written in the character of a plain shopkeeper, at once
became the leader and spokesman of the population around, whose minds he 262
The Coomb e dominated just as his cathedral spire dominated their houses clustering round its foot. His authority was not confined to politics. There is a story that a crowd, which had assembled near S. Patrick’s to watch for an eclipse of the moon, dispersed at once on hearing a message from the Dean that the eclipse had been postponed by his orders. Off the Coombe to the left ran Skinner’s Alley, famous for its society of Aldermen. When James II. displaced the Protestant Corporation of Dublin to make room for Catholics, a few members of the original body sought refuge for themselves and the regalia of the city in this obscure nook. After the Boyne they emerged from their concealment, presented themselves to King William and were by him accepted as the lawful representatives of Dublin. As the anniversary of their reinstatement came round, the lately dispossessed corporators celebrated their deliverance by a banquet. In course of time a convivial society was formed, calling itself the Aldermen of Skinner’s Alley. Its organisation was modelled on the city government. Every civic officer had his counterpart in the Alley, except that its head was called the governor, not the lord mayor. It was ferociously Williamite, as might naturally be expected. The Charter Song is a delightful piece of humour, apparently quite unintentional. “When Tyranny’s detested power Had leagued with superstition, And bigot James, in evil hour Began his luckless mission, Still here survived the sacred flame, Here Freedom’s sons did rally And consecrate to deathless Fame The Men of Skinner’s Alley.” So it goes on for several verses, ascribing all the 263
[The Story of Dublin] possible virtues to the men of this obscure by-street, until, at last, the reader’s smile is provoked by a strain so reminiscent of Ancient Pistol. Here, too, is said to have originated the famous Orange toast, “To the glorious, pious and immortal memory of the Great and Good King William III., who saved us from popery, slavery, arbitrary power, brass money and wooden shoes.” The wooden shoes were specially singled out, because they were a mark of French nationality, and, therefore, of timid subservience to a despotic king.
SECTION XIII The Southern Quays O’Connetl Bridge to Kingsbrtdge THE inland quays of Dublin, like those of Paris, are a characteristic feature of the city. They extend quite a mile and a half on either bank of the river. Some part of them was once used by shipping, but, as trade progressed, the upper reaches of the LirFey were found too shallow and dangerous for the larger class of vessel that began to frequent the port. The quays form a pleasant promenade now, more so than if cranes were turning and bales dangling in the air along the water-front. The tall, narrow houses, often brightly painted, the numerous bridges, the sombre and silent river, all dominated by the great dome of the Four Courts, combine to make up a picture of great charm, especially in the evening, when the setting sun gilds the frontage on either side and the crimson of the western sky is reflected, “as in a glass darkly,” by the level surface of the LirFey. As the river runs due east and west, it is so placed as to catch every gleam of the sunset. Occasionally, 264
The Southern Quays during a spell of fine, settled weather, a scene worthy of Turner’s brush may be viewed every nightfall from O’Connell Bridge; the whole horizon over the park and along the quays becomes one blaze of glory and the stream below is so flooded with ruddy light that it seems a great highway to the declining orb of day. The shops on the quays are interesting. Those on the south are mostly devoted to second-hand books, old prints, curios and jewellery. Passing the Metal Bridge with its crude advertisements, the first turning of any size to the left is Parliament Street, opposite a wide bridge, once called after Essex, a viceroy, but now after Grattan, a popular leader. This street was so named because of its construction by order of the Irish parliament with a view to opening up a communication between the Castle and Essex Bridge. The tenants of the houses, which were marked for demolition, refused to vacate their premises despite the offer of ample compensation. The authorities adopted a simple, yet clever, means of eviction. Men were sent by night to tear the slates from off the roofs of the recalcitrants, who, exposed to the fury of wind aud weather, were at last glad to come to terms. Off Parliament Street to the right, at a corner marked by a large, old, grey house, is West Essex Street, the modern euphemistic form of Smock Alley, famous for its theatre. Immediately after the Restoration a playhouse sprang up here. It had its triumphs, especially during the visit of Garrick, when such multitudes thronged to the theatre that the heat and the crowding produced a fatal epidemic, nicknamed the “Garrick fever.” The history of Smock Alley is much the same as that of its rival and eventual conqueror, Crow Street. The excitable populace carried its politics into the theatre. On his own 265
[The Story of Dublin] command night,” the Duke of Rutland, viceroy, was the object of a hostile demonstration, which continued throughout the whole programme. Another disturbance arose when Thomas Sheridan, the father of the famous dramatist and orator, was manager. The stage was in a dreadful state at the time. Young men of fashion claimed admittance behind the scenes as a right, not as a favour. The auditorium was a bear-garden and the greenroom a hotbed of every kind of vice. Sheridan set himself nobly to the task of reform and succeeded in raising the dignity of his profession after an arduous struggle, during which he was at one time sought for by an angry mob of “Trinity Boys,” armed with swords. Subsequently, however, he too was ruined by a political demonstration, in which the theatre was wrecked. His successors found it impossible to compete with Crow Street. The nadir was reached when a gentleman, who had sent his servant to secure places, found, on arrival, the theatre not yet opened and his man playing ball against the street wall. At last he and his party were admitted to find themselves the only occupants of the pit. The boxes had but a single tenant. The orchestra consisted of a solitary fiddler. In the course of the evening the lady in the box, oppressed by loneliness, came down to the pit for company. It was a sad sight for a profession to which popular applause is as the very breath in its nostrils. By one of those bizarre coincidences so frequent in Dublin history, the site of the old theatre is now occupied by a sacred edifice, the Catholic Church of S. Michael and John. Essex Bridge has been rebuilt two or three times. None of the structures which now span the Liffey date back more than a century or so,
although, in many cases, they have been superposed on the ruins 266
The Southern Quays of ancient predecessors. The citizens were prone to postpone the repair of their bridges from day to day, until at last a great storm came, and the river, suddenly swollen with rain at its source in the mountains, came raging down through Dublin and carried away the rickety fabric bodily. The first Essex Bridge was built of stones taken from S. Mary’s Abbey, near its northern end. Its subsequent collapse was probably regarded as a fit punishment for the sacrilege of the builders. The second structure was adorned with a recess, in which stood an equestrian statue of George I., looking upstream. The figure is now in the garden of the Mansion House. To the westward is Wood Quay, the landing-place of timber in early times. A little further on is Richmond Bridge, whose true name is quite obscured by the prevalent Dublin habit of calling each bridge after the nearest street. In this particular case the eponymous thoroughfare is Winetavern Street, which runs uphill to the left, opening up incidentally a fine and little-known view of Christ Church with its tower and buttresses looming very large as seen from the lower ground. This short street gets its cheerful-sounding name from the number of little inns, or rather drinking-places, that it once possessed. Until fairly recent times there was a great liberty of unlicensed brewing in Ireland. Every third or fourth householder tried to eke out his scanty living by selling liquor, just as they still do in some country towns. This state of things gave great offence to visitors from England, who declared it a scandal worthy of the immediate attention of the Mayor of the Bull Ring. The first Town Hall of which we have any record, stood in Winetavern Street. In the seventeenth century a tailor named Daniel Byrne lived here. He
was a man of ready wit, who 267
[The Story of Dublin] had made a large fortune by clothing the Cromwellian soldiers. At a time when any man who had laboured with his hands was regarded with utter contempt by the gentry, Byrne worked his way into the fashionable world, repaying in kind every slight he encountered. He had bought the estate of Shean from a young Squire Whitney, who was deeply in his debt. The former owner, now landless and living in the castle, which had once been surrounded by his property, attempted to have, at least, the satisfaction of a verbal score over his supplanter. He invited Byrne to dinner and, while pressing him to eat, took care that he should have neither knife nor fork. The guest, at last, declared he had plenty of meat, but nothing to cut it with. “Why don’t you draw your scissors and clip it, sir,” said the polite host. “I drew them time enough to clip the lordship of Shean from off your back “was the retort. Another squire, who had forgotten his own descent from millers, once pressed him to drink, saying the draught was but a “thimbleful.” “Yes, Willy,” was the ready answer, “I would drink it, if it were a hopperful.” Byrne bought a baronetcy for his son and became the ancestor of a noble family, who were probably in later days quite as scornful of tailors as any Whitney could be. The street now is quite unlike its old reputation, being handed over to coffin-makers and dealers in secondhand clothes, both lugubrious occupations. Between Winetavern Street and the next bridge is Merchants’ Quay, the oldest of them all. The river crossing at its western extremity has historical associations going back to the time of the Danes and even earlier. This is the site of the hurdle ford called by the Irish “Ath Cliath “and of the primitive bridge, where the Norsemen, fleeing into the city from Clontarf, were overtaken by their enemies and 268
The Southern Quays slaughtered as they crowded into the narrow entrance. For many centuries this was the only bridge in Dublin. It was lined with houses and shops, had towers at each end and even provided room for a small chapel. Overloaded as it must have been, it is not surprising to hear that it fell in the fourteenth century. There is a legend that Little John, one of Robin Hood’s band, was nearly detected here by his proficiency in shooting. He was in disguise in Dublin at the time, but was tempted to join in a trial of skill with the bow. His arrow fell in Oxmantown Green, nearly a mile away. When the fame of the exploit was noised abroad, men said the unknown archer must surely be Little John, so that, in order to avoid suspicion, the outlaw had to leave the town. This bridge marks the highest point ever reached by ships entering the port. They were moored to Merchants’ Quay, the name of which sufficiently explains itself. A terrible disaster occurred on the wharf during the reign of Elizabeth. A whole cargo of gunpowder had been landed and placed ready for transport in carts to the Castle, when, from some unexplained cause, it blew up, causing great loss of life and property. The mayor reported that the deaths reached the number of” vi (six) skoare, beside sondrie headles bodies and heades without bodies, that were found and not knowne.” The Liffey was very shallow so far up the river, no more than four or five feet deep at low water. A rock called “Standfast Dick “cropped up awkwardly across the muddy bottom. Strangely enough this reef, so annoying to the sailor, was a welcome object to the builder. Its continuation ran under some parts of the city itself and provided surer foundation for houses than the peaty soil of Dublin usually furnishes. While Christ Church has subsided, the City Hall and the 269
[The Story of Dublin] Castle owe their stability to Standfast Dick lying far beneath. As might be guessed, it was the builders, not the sailors, who gave the rock its affectionate and half-admiring name. From Merchants’ Quay the finest but one of Dublin river pictures is to be seen. The great dome of the Four Courts, its grey massiveness sometimes relieved by brilliant morning sunlight, rises from a long regular line of buildings alternating with screens of a graceful design. The balustrade of the quay walls and the adjacent bridges is arranged to harmonize with the architecture of the Courts. The spectator on the opposite bank is just at the right distance to see and appreciate the whole. The Roman Catholic church on Merchants’ Quay is best known, even now, by its old name of “Adam and Eve Chapel,” derived, it is said, from a lane that ran near by and was called after our first parents. It is a good example of the inconspicuous style adopted for the buildings erected by the newly tolerated Catholics of the eighteenth century, and is, probably, the oldest existing church of that religion in Dublin. Bridge Street continues the line of the “Old Bridge.” It is tortuous and narrow like all old streets. At No. 9 was the residence of Oliver Bond, a prominent United Irishman. The house was surprised by the police on the night of a meeting. Bond and several others were captured. A list of printed toasts was discovered, some pointing to hopes of a French invasion. One of them was “Mother Erin dressed in green ribbons by a French milliner, if she can’t be dressed without her.” Bond was sentenced to be “hanged, drawn and quartered,” but escaped the sentence by dying of apoplexy in
Newgate. The next quay receives its name from the Ussher 270
The Southern Quays family, honourably distinguished for the learning of its members. In 1571 one John Ussher issued from here the first book printed in the Irish language. It was intended for the education and conversion to Protestantism of the natives, and consisted of the Catechism of the Church of England together with an Irish alphabet and rules of pronunciation. A translation of the New Testament into the Celtic Vernacular from the original Greek was published at the same place by Sir William Ussher in 1600. James Ussher, afterwards primate of Ireland, was the first great scholar to adorn Trinity College. His great collection of Celtic manuscripts is the glory of that institution to this day. At the end of Ussher’s Quay is Bridgefoot Street, which received its name originally from being at the foot or end of the Old Bridge, although it is quite a distance from the present structure on that ancient site. It must be remembered, however, that the Old Bridge must have been extremely wide to carry the enormous superstructure already mentioned. The greater part of the space between Bridge and Bridgefoot Street must have been occupied with its chapel, towers and double row of houses. After passing Bridgefoot Street, which is also known by the not unmerited nickname of Dirty Lane, Ussher’s Quay becomes Ussher’s Island. There is nothing insular in the situation at present. The river has probably changed its course, or some side channel has been filled in. Standing back a little from the road is the Mendicity Institution, once Moira House. Nowhere does the reflection “Ichabod “rise so readily to the mind as here. This was once the most splendidly furnished house in Ireland. Its very windows were inlaid with mother-of-pearl. John Wesley, staid as he was, was manifestly impressed by such magnificence, though he closed the entry in his 271
[The Story of Dublin] journal with the usual commonplace on the evanescence of earthly pomps and vanitie?. The glory has indeed departed now The internal fittings have been removed, the garden is a barren courtyard, and even the architectural effect of the exterior has been completely destroyed by the removal of the upper story. It is now the daily haunt of the very poorest of the poor. Moira House was much frequented by Lord Edward Fitzgerald and his wife, the charming Pamela, reputed daughter of Philippe Egalite and Madame de Genlis. On one occasion Major Sirr laid an ambush close by in order to intercept Lord Edward on his return homeward. However his intended victim came with a strong escort and, as soon as arrest was attempted, a struggle took place in the dimly-lighted street. The forces of government were routed and Major Sirr narrowly escaped death. At the western extremity of Ussher’s Island is Watling Street, which, with Bridgefoot Street, was the scene of the nocturnal conflict between the insurgent party and the police, who, to make sure of their prey, had occupied both Lord Edward’s possible lines of retreat. Opposite Watling Street was the Bloody Bridge, so called because of a fierce riot soon after its opening, which had to be suppressed by force of arms. The vested interest of ferry proprietors and others was always disturbed by the erection of a new bridge. When constitutional means failed to procure any compensation, such men were prone to take the law into their own hands. The river front of Guinness’s and the towers of Kingsbridge Railway Station mark the termination of the long line of quays. Steevens’ Lane turns off to the left here, passing the front of the terminus. It received its name from the hospital on its right hand side about half way up. This is the oldest of the 272
‘The Southern Quays
many institutions of its class in Dublin, having been founded at the beginning of the eighteenth century by Madame Grissel Steevens, who both built and endowed
STEEVENS* HOSPITAL it. The seal of the hospital is a design of the Good Samaritan healing the wounds of the fallen traveller with the motto beneath “Do Thou Likewise.” There is a strange story about Madame Steevens, due to her habit of going about closely veiled. The 273
[The Story of Dublin] people believed that she had a face so like the snout of a pig that for shame she durst not let it be seen. Popular report went on to ascribe this unpleasant characteristic to a curse consequent on a petulant and unfeeling remark made by her mother when pestered by the importunities of a beggar woman with a baby at her breast and a tribe of children at her heels. “Get away,” cried the lady, “you are like an old sow with a litter of bonhams.” The beggar retorted with the wish that the lady’s next child might be like the animal to which she had been compared. The tale is probably fiction, for Grissel, whose portrait is still to be seen in the hospital boardroom, had a face, heavy and masculine, it is true, but in no wise piggish. By dint of sitting at an open window repeatedly she managed to refute the calumny, so far as Dublin was concerned. Yet the story is still told all over Ireland. Madame Steevens, by the way, would now be called Miss, for she was unmarried. The hospital is built around a quaint old courtyard with its arches forming a sort of cloister or piazza all around, and with peculiar attic windows that cut across the intersection of the roofs at each corner. The interior is still very old-fashioned in many respects. The corridors are crossed here and there by huge spans of iron, which reach from wall to wall and carry midway a large lantern of primitive design. It is the type of illumination that one associates with the portecochre of an ancient mansion. In the chapel is what is probably the smallest and oldest organ in Dublin. It is about six feet high by four feet wide, rather smaller than the ordinary cupboard, and is now silent for ever, for its works have got out of order and it would cost more to repair them than to buy a new instrument. The hospital records are preserved and contain many curious entries, among others one as to 274
The Northern Quays the daily diet of a patient. He was to get something like two quarts of small beer with his meals ! But, of course, before tea and coffee came into general use, beer was almost the only alternative to water.
SECTION XIV The Northern Quays O’Connell Bridge to Parkgate Street THE northern line of quays, while not really so old as the southern, enjoys the advantage of having preserved its historical memorials in much better condition. For several centuries there were very few buildings on this side of the river. It had only one parish church, S. Michan’s, and one large abbey, the Cistercian foundation dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. Considerable remains of both these structures are standing. It was not until the time of the great Ormond that the Liffey was spanned by other bridges than the original one, and the north bank began to assume its present appearance. The first quay from O’Connell Bridge is Bachelors’ Walk once the favourite promenade of the “Bachelors” or young men of the neighbourhood. It received its name, doubtless, at a period when it was a pleasant seaward-running road below the city proper. It is now the home of the Dublin furniture trade, antique and modern. At the shop doors may often be seen peculiar low cars, consisting of a flat platform with a slight depression in its centre, and mounted on two wheels. This type of vehicle, now used for bulky loads such as furniture, is believed to be the original form of the Irish sidecar. The workmen of the city, as fond in the past as they are now of a Sunday trip to 275
[The Story of Dublin] the country, used to borrow these cars from their owners and drive out sitting back to back on the boards of the platform with their legs dangling over the wheels. An old local poet thus describes the scene as it appeared in his day. “A downy mattress on the car is laid, The father sits beside the tender maid, Some back to back, some side to side are placed, The children in the centre interlaced. By dozens thus, full many a Sunday morn, With dangling legs the jovial crowd is borne; Clontarf they seek, or Howth’s aspiring brow, Or Leixlip smiling on the stream below.” Being roomy, cheap to construct and yet substantial enough to stand the rough usage of the “rocky road to Dublin,” this flat car was soon adopted as a public conveyance. Of course it has been improved almost out of all likeness to the “jaunting-car,” on which the workmen took their weekly jaunts. The platform has been raised and provided with rails, cushions and a footboard. But a study of the sidecar in its intermediate stages, as it appears in the prints at the National Gallery, shows its course of development. The first considerable turning to the right of the quay is Capel Street, opposite Essex or Grattan Bridge. It is called after the family name of the Essex who built the bridge. It is instructive, as showing ancient ideals in street construction, to learn that this narrow thoroughfare was, at its formation, thought to be a “large, noble street.” A turning to the left off Capel Street some hundred yards from the river perpetuates the name of S. Mary’s Abbey, some remains of which are preserved in the premises of Messrs Alexander & Co. The Chapter House, which must have been a lofty and
splendid room, has been divided into two stories by the building 276
The Northern Quays of a floor about half way up its walls. In the upper chamber, a loft used for storing sacks, the beautifully groined stone roof remains intact, looking very incongruous amidst its surroundings. The upper part of an old window is still visible. In the lower story the ancient architecture is concealed by the brickwork of wine vaults. This Chapter H use ls believed to be the identical place where young Silken Thomas, maddened at the news of his father’s death, “Flung King Henry’s sword in council board King Henry’s thanes among,” then burst wildly forth at the head of his retainers, an avowed rebel. The prison of the monastery is also shown. Its masonry, though strong, is very rough to the modern eye. The stones are of every size and shape. They form an arch so pointed that, from below, it appears almost like the intersection of two flat, rather than two curved, surfaces. The Bank of Ireland commenced its existence in S. Mary’s Abbey, whence it removed to the old Parliament House in College Green. The next turning to the left off Capel Street is Little Mary Street, which is the Petticoat Lane of Dublin. It is narrow, and the shops are, in the oldfashioned style, open to the street and destitute of windows. Every inch of space is utilised by the dealers for the display of their wares, so that the pedestrian passes beneath an overhanging grove composed of every kind of garment. The effect produced is midway between the picturesque and the merely bizarre. In the neighbourhood of Capel Street the quays are called after Ormond, the great
seventeenth century viceroy, to whose example and influence the north277
[The Story of Dublin] ward extension of the city was due. His idea in planning the north quays was for a series of wide and pleasant riverside streets, leading to his great new park and the palace, which he purposed to build there. Sixty feet was reserved for the future highway all along the Liffey. Before Ormond’s death the greater part of the present embankment was completed. Ormond Quay was the home of the butchers of old Dublin. On account of the uncleanliness of their trade, they had been compelled to remove thither from the city proper. Their stalls were set up in Ormond Market behind the quays, and some of the side streets here still retain the appearance of an ancient commercial centre. The bridges were often the scenes of fierce faction fights between north and south Dublin. The butchers quarrelled with almost everybody, the weavers, the collegians and the soldiers. Their dexterity with the knife earned them a bad reputation. They were said to hamstring their opponents and to perpetrate other forms of barbarous revenge. The origin of these sanguinary broils may be traced back to 1607, when Oxmantown and Thomas Street disputed about the right to a certain honourable position in the city array, whenever there was a general muster. Beyond Ormond Quay is the Four Courts, more remarkable externally than internally, although it has a good central hall, circular in shape. In an obscure corner at the western end of the Courts is the Public Record Office, the little-known government department, where the official papers of seven centuries of Irish history are preserved. A few of the more remarkable documents from its huge collection have been arranged in glass cases in the centre of the treasury, or record storehouse, behind the main building. This room is a curiosity in itself, 278
with its six tiers of galleries rising one above the other, and its one hundred and twenty separate bays or compartments, each of which contains two hundred shelves. Here is historical matter by the ton, much of it absolutely unknown to the public. The salient feature is the series of autographs of the kings of England from Henry VIII. In some cases the parchment is embellished with a coloured portrait of the monarch. There are some gaudily illuminated accounts of the ReceiversGeneral, officials who bore some resemblance to the present Chancellors of the Exchequer. It is to be feared that illumination is now a lost art in His Majesty’s Treasury. The poet Spenser and the essayist Addison, both of whom once held high positions in Ireland, are represented by papers bearing their signatures. Among other curiosities are the marriage licence of the Duke of Wellington and parts of the wills of Swift, Esther Johnson (Stella) and Daniel O’Connell. Owen Roe O’Neill’s signature is appended to an agreement relating to his ally, Owen Roe O’Donnell. As Earl of Tyrone, he subscribes himself “Hugh Tirone.” The oldest record shown is a grant made by Strongbow to Hamund MacThorkil, one of the dispossessed Danish royal family of Dublin. Among the lesser objects of interest is the state musician’s bill for the performance of an ode on Queen Anne’s birthday. The total was some ^16, of which the poet, whose name is not given, received 2. 6s., and the composer and singer 2. 133. lod. each. There is, besides, the exceeding bitter complaint of “Margrett Fender,” who was attacked in Thomas Street by a band of woollen weavers, armed with “simetars,” wherewith they “cutt the gown off her back for being made of a printed cotton and linen, being the only one she had in the world to cover her 279
[The Story of Dublin] nakedness.” It reads very funnily, but was, no doubt, a very serious matter for poor Margaret, the unhappy victim of trade jealousies. The most remarkable find in the history of the Public Record Office was the discovery of a fourteenth century morality play written into the blank spaces of a set of housekeeping accounts of Christ Church Cathedral. It represents the King of Life (Rex Vivus), a man in the glow of a full-blooded existence, flattered and served by two attendant knights, Health and Strength, and a jester, Mirth. He recks not of religion, and scoffs at the power of God and Death. The Queen and the Bishop come to warn him of his errors, but are unheeded. The play is evidently working up to a tremendous catastrophe, but unfortunately the latter portion is wanting, so that it is only possible to guess at the denouement. This piece was performed in Dublin, most probably at College Green, near six hundred years ago. Before leaving it will be well to note the beautiful bindings shown in the side cases. They are really brilliant specimens of a bygone Dublin handicraft. The ground work is usually red, covered with a complicated, yet seldom gaudy, design in gilding. Most of these were made to contain the journals of the Irish House of Lords. The next turn after passing the Four Courts is Church Street, named from, and leading to the ancient church of S. Michan. The tower is much older than the rest of this building. It is lofty and almost black with age. The battlements at the top and the small windows at the sides show, that like most Irish churches, it was intended to be defensible in case of need. The interior contains some good carved woodwork, notably the collection of musical instruments on the front of the gallery, which is executed in such 380
The Northern Quays high relief, that sceptical visitors have suggested that it is composed of actual fiddles and so forth, artfully arranged and fastened in from behind. The organ, adorned with gilded cherubs’ heads, bears the date 1747. To the right of the communion table, buried in whitewash and plaster, is an effigy bearing the
S. MICHAN S CHURCH.
crozier and ring of a bishop. It is believed to be a prelate of Danish times, interred here because the church, being consecrated to a Danish saint, had a special sanctity for the Norsemen. Close by is a penitential stool, circular in shape, with two steps leading up to it. Before the whole congregation the “open and notorious naughty livers “of the past stood on this bad eminence to make their confessions of
[The Story of Dublin] guilt and promises of repentance. It must have been a dreadful ordeal for the luckless penitent. First he had to watt in the porch, barefooted, barelegged, draped in a long, white sheet, which was not allowed to conceal the face. In this guise he entreated the prayers of the assembling worshippers from half an hour before service time until the Second Lesson. Then the officiating minister, reciting the 5 1 st Psalm, led the sinner into church and brought him to the stool of repentance, which was placed for the occasion in a prominent position beside the pulpit, or in the middle aisle. Standing here, the penitent listened to a sermon specially aimed at his particular fault, and, at the Nicene Creed, publicly declared his transgression and offered a prayer for forgiveness. Alas for the morals of our ancestors ! The sin was nearly always the same, that specially stigmatized as “deadly “by both Bible and Prayer Book. The tower of S. Michan’s has been ascribed to the Danish period, but, from its remarkable similarity to S. Audoen’s, it is more probably twelfth century work. The Danes erected very few, if any, permanent stone buildings. Like the early settlers of North America, they preferred wooden huts or log cabins, which could be easily and quickly constructed and gave immediate protection against the inclemency of the weather and the attacks of the surrounding tribes. The ascent of the tower, though long and rendered somewhat unpleasant by pigeons, is rewarded by a very fine view of Dublin. The spectator is a hundred feet above the street level. He looks down on the dome of the Four Courts. The topography of Dublin is at once discernible, the Liffey dividing it into two even halves, the bay and the Irish Sea to the east, the mountains to the south, the dark, green woods of Phoenix
Park in the immediate west, and further to 282
The Northern Quays
west and north the wide level champaign country of Kildare, Louth and Meath. No better site for a watch tower could have been chosen. However, the most remarkable feature of S. Michan’s lies underground. The earth here has the strange property of arresting decay in the bodies committed to its charge. The vaults are full of remains, that have lain there unchanged for centuries. The very faces are distinguishable. A female figure called “The Nun “and believed to be anterior to the Reformation, has just the round, well-shaped head and delicate features that one associates with Chaucer’s Prioress. In another vault is a supposed King of Leinster, a gaunt, emaciated figure, whose sightless eyeballs seem to be concentrated in a fierce upward glare at the roof. There is a pathetic baby corpse, too, from whose plump wrists still hang the faded white ribbons of its funeral. This coffin, we are told, is over two hundred years old, and bears the date 1679, yet the very finger and toe nails of the child are still distinct. But the illusion is marred in every case by the outer appearance of the skin. It retains the softness of life, but is uniformly of a dusty brown leathery hue, like an old fawn kid glove. Where flesh lay thinly over bone, as in the case of face or hands, the preservation is wonderfully good, but the abdominal regions have usually collapsed, leaving the ribs exposed. It is a strange, but not really a very gruesome sight. The mummies of Egypt look very much the same. There are many rival theories as to the cause of this suspension of Nature’s law of decay. One ascribes it to the peaty soil around, another to the presence of limestone, another to the effect on the soil of a primeval oak forest on the site of the church. However, it may be noticed that the vaults are absolutely dry. No vestige of moisture is ever present. This would go a 283
[The Story of Dublin] long way towards accounting for the stay in the process of decomposition. Another noteworthy point is that inorganic, as well as organic, matter seems exempt. The baby’s ribbons and the velvet on the coffins, though faded, are not falling to pieces, as they would be elsewhere. S. Michan’s is one of the many city churchyards believed to contain the unnamed grave of Robert Emmet. It would be a singular chance, if his body were found, like the others, with the chief features preserved and the expression of the face the same as in life. The brothers Sheares, insurgent leaders from Cork, are known to be buried in the vaults. The next quay, after passing the Four Courts and the end of Church Street, is named after the Earl of Arran, son of the first Duke of Ormond. At No. 1 2 the great Edmund Burke was born. His oratory, splendid as it was, differed in many respects from that of his contemporaries in Ireland. Burke was rich, varied, and, perhaps, rather rhetorical. Grattan and his school were sharp and incisive, endeavouring always to concentrate their meaning in one vigorous sentence. The present generation seems to have taken Burke for its model rather than Grattan, so that Irish eloquence has become florid and exaggerated both in diction and sentiment. At Queen Street bridge Arran Quay becomes Ellis’s Quay, off which, a little further up, is Blackball Place. Here on the left hand side of the street is the oldest public school in Ireland, the King’s Hospital founded by Charles II. and known to many generations of Dubliners as the Bluecoat School. The present building, though ancient and impressive, is not the original schoolhouse. The old foundation saw some strange vicissitudes. Tyrconnell expelled the boys to make room for wounded and invalid French soldiers 284
The Northern Quays from the Jacobite army. In 1729, a parliament met on the ground floor, while the scholars, keenly interested no doubt in the stir going on below, were relegated to the upper story. The interior of the present house is pretty in an oldworld style. There are some fine corridors, with vaulted roofs, “coved “or scalloped out into a number of small cup-shaped hollows. The walls are very thick, with small-paned windows set very high. The chapel has a somewhat cold interior, relieved slightly by an old picture of the Resurrection over the communion table. The presence of any such decoration in a Protestant church in Ireland is very unusual. A huge wooden royal coat of arms marked “C.R.” (Carolus Rex) in the dining room and a fine stucco ceiling in the board-room, together with some old pictures, are worthy of notice. The existing uniform of the boys is quite military in cut, spoilt however by an ugly glengarry with streaming yellow ribbons. At first they wore cassocks, then in later times blue swallow-tail coats and orange waistcoats, which must have had? decidedly striking appearance. The “Blew Boys “were highly popular with the citizens, who called them in to perform important duties, such as the drawing of the winning numbers iu the great lotteries. Their sports field is a part of old Oxmantown Green, the last fragment, in fact, which survives in its original grassy condition. Returning to the quays, the last object of interest before the park is reached is the Royal Barracks, originally built two hundred years ago and still retaining portion of the old fabric, namely the small eastern square, which faces the river and contains a large clock. Before the construction of the barracks the troops were billeted out on the people, a practice both subversive of the military discipline of the soldier and 285
[The Story of Dublin] burdensome to the householder. The Corporation was loud in its complaints at having to lodge and maintain the largest garrison in Ireland, a force of several thousands of men.
SECTION XV The North City Sackville, Henry, Marlborough, Dominick and Henrietta Streets FROM College Green northwards for nearly half a mile runs the great thoroughfare, which is the backbone of modern Dublin, just as the westward-running line of Dame Street, High Street and Thomas Street was of the old city a century ago. It starts magnificently with the open space of College Green and the classic fronts of the Bank of Ireland and Trinity College, then there is a comparative pause in Westmoreland Street, which is really only a prelude to finer effects. The road crosses the river by a wide and stately bridge, expands still further into the great breadth of Sackville Street, splendidly set off with the striking sculpture of the O’Connell monument facing the river and, further up, the tall pillar from which Nelson looks seaward over the tops of the houses (p. 1 19). Here again there is a classic portico, that of the General Post Office. At its further end Sackville Street subsides into the gardens of Rutland Square and the quieter, but still not unpleasing, architecture of the Rotunda Hospital and Concert Rooms, beyond which the ground gradually rises and a spire or two begins to raise its upward-pointing finger. It is a singular fact that Dublin has completely altered its direction within the last century. To use a somewhat technical phrase, a
change has taken place 286
The North City in its orientation. Its main trend is north and south, where once it was east and west. This phenomenon is due to the operations of the Wide Streets Commissioners and the building of Carlisle, now O’Connell, Bridge in the eighteenth century. The latter had been necessitated by the removal of the Custom House to its present site, where it was nearly a mile below the lowest bridge then spanning the river. The Wide Streets Commissioners were a body appointed by the Irish parliament to improve the streets of Dublin. They acted in a way worthy of their name. They widened and improved Dame Street and College Green, built Westmoreland and D’Olier Streets as avenues to the new bridge, and amplified Sackville Street on its further side. The great street line, which has just been described, was largely their conception. Off Westmoreland Street to the left is Fleet Street, running later into Temple Bar. These names sound like an echo of London, though Gilbert maintains that the latter received its title from the Temple family, which took its rise in the reign of Elizabeth. Fleet Street, Dublin, is no exception to the rule that such streets must inevitably be judged by the standard of their originals and fail accordingly. Carlisle Bridge was widened by the Corporation and re-christened, the substitution being the usual one, that of a popular leader for a viceroy. Beyond the north end of the bridge which now bears the name of the Liberator, is the O’Connell Monument, planned on a heroic scale and generally admitted to be Foley’s masterpiece. It is, indeed, a work fit to adorn any capital in Europe. The figure of O’Connell is good, but the seated emblematic female figures at the base, especially the calm-eyed Courage with sword unsheathed, at
the south-west angle, are finer still, 287
[The Story of Dublin] being characterised by that compound of beauty, dignity and strength, which is the highest triumph of the sculptor’s art. Sackville Street is called after a Chief Secretary of two centuries ago. This thoroughfare, too, has been renamed to match the monument and the bridge, but the change has not been well received. The older name still holds the field so strongly that it is possible to live in Dublin for months without knowing that its chief street has any other appellation. Before the erection of Carlisle Bridge, Sackville Street was, of course, quite off the line of traffic. At that time it possessed a mall, or tree-shaded walk, running down its centre from the Rotunda to the site of Nelson’s Pillar. It was a fashionable suburban district. Even now some of its houses, especially in the quieter northern section, are typical old-fashioned aristocratic mansions. Here took place one of the abductions for which Ireland was notorious. Eight or nine armed men broke into the house of Lady Netterville between the hours of eleven and twelve at night and forcibly carried away her granddaughter, Catherine Blake. One of the party was recognised, and a reward offered by the government for his arrest. The occurrence throws a light on the inefficiency of the old Dublin watch maintained by the city parishes. The abominable practice of abduction was not stamped out until the authorities sentenced a titled culprit to death, and, while remitting the extreme penalty, actually went so far as to send him to serve his term in a convict settlement with thieves and murderers. The southern part of Sackville Street was long known as Drogheda Street, since it lay in the centre of the estates of the Earls of Drogheda. Henry, Moore, Earl and Drogheda (Sackville) Streets, all in this vicinity, taken together, make up the name of 288
The North City the original ground landlord, “Henry Moore, Earl of Drogheda.” Henry Street is a turning opposite the Pillar, and becomes, a little later, Mary Street. Here is the seventeenth century S. Mary’s Church, built when the citizens first began to settle in numbers on the north bank of the Liffey. Externally it is heavy and ugly, but its interior is very pleasant to the eye, set off, as it is, with some fine and characteristic Dublin oak carving. The Ormond family have a vault here, and there is a tablet to the memory of some of that great house near the main doorway. This seems only fitting, for undoubtedly the celebrated duke is the founder of North Dublin, and deserves to be commemorated in the first church built in the quarter which he laid out. In Marlborough Street, a parallel to Sackville Street, lying more to the east, is Tyrone House, once the home of the great Beresford family, now the office of the National Education Board. The builders of this mansion bore the title of Earls of Tyrone and, subsequently, of Marquises of Waterford. They have always been both able and successful. At one time they were strongly entrenched in almost every government department in Ireland, especially in the Revenue and the Customs. Naturally they had deadly and bitter enemies. John Beresford is said to have perpetrated great cruelties on prisoners during periods of rebellion. According to the story, suspected persons were mercilessly flogged in a riding-school behind Tyrone House until they either fainted under the pain or consented to give information. The charge may or may not be true. Proof, as well as disproof, would probably be very difficult. Certainly neither side used very humane methods in those days. In later times the Beresford energy took the form of a reckless, daredevil courage, which delighted in breakneck feats, T 289
[The Story of Dublin] such as riding a horse up the steps of a grandstand or even the staircase of a mansion. Tyrone House stands amidst the remains of its old gardens. The ancient building is that lying to the right. On the left a modern structure, the Training College, presents an exact replica of its older neighbour. The architect was Castles, who also designed Leinster House. The exterior is somewhat cold and heavy. Internally it must once have been magnificent in a solid and substantial style. The walls are lined throughout with oak wainscoting, which the Board of Works has obscured with paint or wall-paper. The doors are of mahogany, polished to a rich brown. The staircase is perhaps the finest feature. It is of wood, carved with great skill. Standing as it does, not in the entrance hall, but in a special chamber of its own with a three-light Italian window and under a decorated ceiling, it produces a marked effect. The corridors are rendered quaint by the old “coved “roofs, which also appear in the bedrooms. Tyrone House has its ghost story. In the Red Room, once so called from the colour of its hangings, a lady of the Beresford family is said to have seen the apparition of her brother. They had exchanged a promise to the effect that whichever of them should die first would use every endeavour to appear to the survivor. At the dead of night a form appeared at the lady’s bed-foot and, in solemn tones, declared itself to be the spirit of her brother, who had just then died far away from home. Strong-nerved, like all her family, she did not cower under the clothes, but demanded some visible sign of her visitor’s supernatural nature. At once the hangings round the room flew up in all directions. Still she was
sceptical, until the spectre clasped her by the hand, leaving on her skin 290
The North City
five indelible marks, which remained there until the day of her death. In Marlborough Street are also the severely classic Roman Catholic Cathedral and the old Protestant church dedicated to S. Thomas. The latter has a not ungraceful, if somewhat over-elaborated, exterior. At the head of Sackville Street on the left hand side is the Rotunda, a fine concert hall of circular shape, whose history is curiously connected with that of the adjacent hospital. The first Maternity Institution in Dublin had installed itself in 59 South Great George’s Street, formerly the theatre of Madame Violante. The accommodation was so cramped that it was decided to construct a special building, the present Rotunda Hospital. Dr Mosse, the public benefactor, who had charged himself with the work, soon found the collection of funds increasingly difficult. At last he hit on a happier method of raising money than that continual importunity, which degrades the applicant and wearies the public. He utilized part of his site for gardens, where he gave fetes and musical entertainments, which eventually brought in sufficient profits to pay for the building. The Rotunda Hospital is designed in an unusually ornate style, considering its purpose. The entrance hall is between twenty and thirty feet square, and is adorned with massive pillars and a stone pavement set here and there with tiles. The stairs are as elaborate as in any Dublin mansion. There is a private chapel, the most beautiful of its kind in the city. The Italian artist who constructed the ceiling, ventured on effects which challenged comparison with the sculptor. Cherubic heads, alternating here and there with emblematic figures at full length, are a marked feature of the design. The
centre and some of the side panels are vacant for a somewhat pathetic 291
[The Story of Dublin] reason. The gifted foreign artist was on his way to Ireland to complete his work, when he was drowned at sea, leaving his ceiling thus incomplete. The light comes only from the front, where it filters through a triple stained glass window and falls pleasantly on the old woodwork. Here, too, are the “coved” corridors. The exterior is simple, yet satisfying. A tower rising in the centre prevents the building from having that rectangular, box-like appearance which mars many experiments in the classical taste. The institution, however, is not all for show. It has relieved multitudes of the poor at their time of sorest stress. Within its walls have been born close on a quarter of a million infants, an enormous total, equal to the whole present population of the city. In the Round Room of the Rotunda proper, as distinct from the hospital, the Volunteers met in armed convention in 1783. The formalities of a parliament were adoped. The chairs of the delegates were set in a semicircle around the president, while the gallery was crowded with spectators. The assembly in College Green was almost overawed, when Flood, as spokesman of the Volunteers, came thither to present a bill which embodied the demands of the Convention. However the legitimate parliament summoned up courage to defy its rival. Many of the citizen soldiers were ripe for an armed revolution, which would probably have meant barricades and street fighting in Dublin, but their leaders took the more prudent course of quietly dismissing the Convention. Irish political movements often break up, when called on to make the momentous choice between constitutionalism and physical force. Behind the Rotunda are the still pleasant gardens, that earned the money to build the hospital long ago. They form the centre of Rutland Square, on the 292
The North City north side of which, standing back some feet, is Charlemont House, the residence of the Volunteer Earl. It is now the General Register Office. The interior shows signs of a cultured and classical taste
THE VENUS LIBRARY, CHARLEMONT HOUSE, CEILING AND PART Ol DOME. The Greek columns of the hall, the white stone staircase to the left under a dome-shaped roof pierced with round bull’s-eye windows, the white marble chimneypieces, the ceilings and doorways beautiful with that really elaborate, but outwardly simple effect, which is the highest triumph of design, all help to convey the impression of its builder as a man of fine and delicate 2
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[The Story of Dublin] feeling in matters of art. He was also a lover of literature, for his house contains three distinct libraries. Of these the finest is the Venus Library, so called from a statue, which formerly stood in a niche there. It is a square room, crowned with a dome and enriched with a well-modelled stucco ceiling, in which are set here and there medallions bearing the heads of the Greek philosophers in high relief. Socrates is remarkable for his goat-like ugliness. At the north-western corner of Rutland Square is Granby Row, leading northwards until it is crossed by the tramrails of Lower Dorset Street. It is continued as S. Mary’s Place, in which stands S. Mary’s Chapel of Ease, often called the Black Church. It is built of a singularly dark stone, which produces a sombre and funereal effect. After emerging from Granby Row it is well to turn to the left down Lower Dorset Street and its continuation Bolton Street. No. 12 in the former was the birthplace of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, a great dramatist, who inherited all the wit of Congreve without that coldblooded and cold-hearted licentiousness, which is so odious in the Restoration playwrights. The house is marked by a tablet. This quarter was the first settlement of fashionable Dublin after it began to leave the city proper. Dominick Street, a wide thoroughfare crossing Bolton Street, was the residence of many of the aristocracy. The arms of the former residents are still emblazoned over some of the doorways. The cornices around the tops of the houses are sometimes adorned with mouldering statues. The iron brackets, from which the great lamps hung to illuminate the steps of the entrance, may even yet be seen. But the present population is so poor that the street is becoming daily more and more dilapidated. At No. 36 was born Sir William 294
The North City Hamilton, a great Irish mathematical genius, who discovered the system of quaternions. This house, too, is marked by a tablet. Henrietta Street, a turn to the right of Bolton Street, presents much the same appearance as Dominick Street. It was once called Primate’s Hill from containing the favourite residence of the archbishop. The fair and frail Lady Blessington also lived here. Her death was marked by an extravagant display of mourning that would have been considered ostentatious in the case of a royal princess. For eight days her body lay in state in a chapelle ardente hung with black and gold. The street, which is a short culde-sac, was blocked with the carriages of visitors. The King’s Inns, the large building where students are trained for the Bar, contemptuously turns its back on the departed grandeur of Henrietta Street. To view the front, which is a good example of Dublin architecture, it is necessary to pass through the arch to the wide lawn beyond. This quarter of Dublin has traces of decayed industry, as well as of bygone gentility. In Lurgan Street, near the western end of Bolton Street, is the Linen Hall, founded when Dublin was the centre of that trade and Belfast had not yet arisen on the commercial horizon. It is now the barracks and recruiting depot of the Dublin Fusiliers, whose ultra-modern khaki jackets seem oddly incongruous amid their ancient surroundings. The arched piazzas, where the merchants made their bargains, and the wide openings in the outer walls on the first and second floors, which were evidently intended for the swinging of heavy bales in and out of storage lofts, still remain as marks of
its original purpose. The Linen Hall was built in 1726.
[The Story of Dublin]
SECTION XVI The Port of Dublin O’Connel! Bridge to Ringsend and Sandymount AT the present time O’Connell Bridge marks the head of Dublin port, though formerly shipping penetrated a mile further up the stream. The Ballast Office, from whence the Port and Docks Board exerts its authority over the harbour, is appropriately placed at the northwestern corner of Westmoreland Street looking seawards. The history of this body and of its predecessors is long and interesting. The early Danish mariners left no traces of their presence except a Long Stane, or Stone, which once stood on the strand opposite Trinity College. By the charters of the English monarchs the first corporations of Dublin were given certain privileges over the stretch of coast from the Nanny Water, a brook near Balbriggan, to Arklow in County Wicklow. The mayors, however, were more anxious to claim their tolls and bounties than to perform their manifest duty of improving the harbour, which, of itself, would be very unsafe, and indeed owes little to nature except its remarkable scenic beauty. For instance, in the case of ships laden with wine, the authorities exercised a right of taking one butt from before and another from behind the mast. If the captains tried to evade the irksome dues at Dublin by putting into other neighbouring havens, such as Baldoyle or Dalkey, the mayors sallied out thither in strong force to obtain their perquisites by force of arms, if necessary. Thus they were often at loggerheads with the lords of the manor along the coast line. After three centuries they began to have a clearer conception of their true 296
The Port of Dublin interest. Just where the Liffey begins to lose itself in the bay, the deposits brought down by the river continually tend to form a bar or submerged sandbank. This extends right across the fairway and would, if unchecked, soon become a great danger to navigation. A ship might easily run aground and bump her heart out in the turbulent sea produced there by the contending forces of wind, tide and river current. In 1577 a “perch “or buoy was set to mark the bar, and in 1 588 proposals were made for the erection of a tower or lighthouse. During the next century the Ballast Office was established. As its name implies, its first function was the regulation of ballast. Before its foundation shipmasters had taken in sand or shingle from the strand haphazard, a course which proved their own ruin, for the harbour soundings, in consequence, varied continually, and the deep water of yesterday was a shoal to-day. The Ballast Office, with an earnest zeal and industry which appear between the lines of their official reports, at once set about the improvement of the port. They defined the channel for at least two miles below old Dublin by the erection of walls on either side. The masonry was carried boldly across the marshy flats, cutting off from the sea a large space, which was gradually filled in and is now covered with streets. One of the shipping quays on the south side is called after the “City.” The longest stretch, however, bears the name of Sir John Rogerson, a local proprietor, who achieved a good deal of private reclamation. The northern line is still known by the generic name of the North Wall, a well-deserved tribute to the conception of the Ballast Office. They placed a lightship at the entrance. It was driven ashore almost every winter, but was invariably restored to its former position, if still seaworthy.
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[The Story of Dublin] They also began a great breakwater designed to remedy the chief defect of Dublin Bay. Considered as a harbour, its great drawback is that it is wide open to every gale from the east. With the not unusual south-east wind, the northern coast from Clontarf to Howth, fringed through most of its length with a sandbank called the Bull, became a dangerous lee shore. The port authorities therefore constructed a granite mole three miles and a half long stretching out from Ringsend into the deep waters of the bay. This continued the line of the South Wall and gave good shelter to ships against gales from the southward. By pile-driving in the shallower water, and by sinking kishes or crates filled with stones in the deeper, they obtained foundations for their work. The task cost Dublin many lives, much material and a huge expenditure of money. The safety of the port was finally assured by the building from the northern shore at Clontarf, in the nineteenth century, of a similar breakwater, which nearly meets the older south wall and completes the enclosure of the mouth of the Liffey. The whole harbour may be viewed by a walk along the southern quays from O’Connell Bridge to the furthermost extremity of the long breakwater beyond Ringsend, which took a good part of a century in the building. Those who do not care for shipping and quaysides, however, may see a good deal from the Ringsend and Sandymount tram route, which passes several points of interest. At its city end, after crossing O’Connell Bridge, the tram passes through D’Olier Street, one of the improvements made by the Wide Streets Commissioners. To the left, off this street, is Leinster Market, a quaint, narrow old passage, which has very little light even in its open parts, and at either end has to burrow under the first floors of houses that lie right across the way. Here, too, is the 298
The Port of Dublin singular Crampton monument, which stands on the site of the Danish Long Stone. It looks more like a botanical curiosity than anything else. In the church
LEJNSTER MARKET.
yard of S. Mark’s, Brunswick Street, is a curious old wooden open-air pulpit. At the suburban end of the tramline are Irishtown, with a venerable ivy-clad square-towered church, and leafy Sandymount with its martello tower on the shore, one of hundreds built 299
[The Story of Dublin] round the coast hurriedly and at great expense to repel an invasion, which was never attempted. “Billy Pitt’s Folly” was the nickname bestowed on these structures, useless even in their day and now hopelessly antiquated. The route chosen for this section will, however, lead along the southern seaward line of quays, going east from O’Connell Bridge. If it has drawbacks, it has also charms of its own. The atmospheric effects are often very striking. On bright days a peculiar, light silvery mist plays over the bay and the lower Liffey, dancing and quivering in the sunshine. There is, too, a romance about seaborne commerce, which compensates for the sombre aspect of the districts where it is to be found. Even the most ordinary of ships is associated with scenes of heroic effort, of danger, and of sudden and cruel death. Of such romance Dublin has had its full share. Before the harbour works were finished, the annual total of wrecks in the bay was enormous, sometimes exceeding a hundred. The strangest story of the many that might be told, is that of the “Ouzel Galley.” She left Ireland with a valuable cargo, which had, as usual, been insured with Dublin underwriters. For several years nothing more was heard of her. At last it was thought that she must have perished. The owners made their claims, as for a total loss, and were paid in full accordingly. Soon afterwards, to the astonishment of all concerned, the “Ouzel Galley” reappeared, laden with spoils and full of adventures. She had been captured in the Mediterranean by an Algerine corsair, who, liking the qualities of the vessel, had not sunk his prize, but adapted her to his own evil purposes. The “Ouzel “preyed on the trade of Europe and was soon stored with a cargo far exceeding in value that with which she had first sailed. By a fortunate chance the Irish crew, who had been biding their time, were 300
The Port of Dublin enabled to turn the tables on their late captors and bring the ship, with her ill-gotten gains, back in triumph to Dublin. The great wealth gained by this achievement, however, gave rise to a long and knotty legal dispute between the merchants and the underwriters. The owners, while offering to repay the amount they had received for the loss of the ship, claimed that the spoils won by their servants should belong to themselves alone. The other party declared that, on paying the insurance money, they had acquired a right to any possible profit to be derived from the salvage or recovery of the “Ouzel Galley.” The matter dragged through the courts for years, but was at last settled privately by arbitration before a committee of merchants. To commemorate this satisfactory solution of the difficulty, the traders of Dublin founded the “Ouzel Galley Society “for the settlement on similar lines of commercial disputes without the intervention of the law. The scheme was popular and successful. Awards were made in hundreds of cases to the apparent content of both parties. After the manner of Dublin institutions, the “Ouzel Galley Society “gradually took a convivial tone. Its nautical associations became a subject of after-dinner jocularity, when untravelled landsmen delighted to style themselves “captain,” “boatswain,” “coxswain,” “gunner,” and so forth. After a long and jovial existence it tamely submitted itself to the law, from which it had tried to rescue others. In 1888 it was dissolved by the Court of Chancery and its funds distributed among city charities. Mr Litton Falkiner mentions that a picture of the famous ship hangs in the newsroom of the Chamber of Commerce. The Commercial Buildings in Dame Street were the Society’s last place of meeting. A little below O’Connell Bridge on
the northern
[The Story of Dublin] bank is the Custom House, the most beautiful structure in Dublin. It would provide a splendid picture to the throngs who daily cross the river to and from Sackville Street, but, unfortunately, the ugly railway bridge of the Loop Line has been allowed to intervene and mar the view absolutely. However, from almost any position on the quays to the eastward of the railway it is possible to obtain a standpoint which does justice to the long semi-classical fagade crowned with its graceful tower and emblematic figures. The hated John Beresford, of Tyrone House, the leading spirit among the Commissioners of Customs, took a great part in the construction of these stately offices for his department. He was a man of a refined taste, but somewhat unlucky in his projects. His Custom House now shelters a dozen boards beside the original occupant. Beresford Place, behind it, was to have been a wide open space, set with trees, and bounded by the not unpleasing rear buildings of the Custom House and the great houses of Dublin merchant princes on three sides, while the fourth looked on to a large and crowded dock. But the dock rarely contains more than one or two small sailing-ships, the merchant princes reside miles away from Dublin, the houses intended for them are now stores or warehouses, and, to crown all, the Loop Line has run a railway viaduct on pillars across the square, blotting out almost all trace of Beresford’s conception. The large house or stores at the north-east corner of Beresford Place is a memorial of bygone methods of taxation. It has no fewer than sixty-seven blocked and bricked-up windows. This wholesale blinding of the eyes of a house was not unusual in the days of the window tax, when each opening to let in light and air cost the owner a certain number of shillings yearly. The result was, of course, that builders omitted 302
The Port of Dublin windows, wherever possible, and occupants of old houses stopped up as many apertures as they could. On the south bank, half way along Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, the old buildings of the Hibernian Marine Society appear. The old naval charity founded for training sailors’ orphans to the sea has now migrated from the quays to the purer air of Clontarf. Close by there are a few old houses and some ancient stores furnished with the old-fashioned rope and pulley for swinging in goods. The pedestrian is at last compelled to turn to the right to obtain a crossing over the inlet to the Grand Canal Docks. This he will find at the lock gates. The “docks,” to which they give access, are really a small artificial harbour constructed in the century before last, to allow sea-going ships to load from the barges which journey hither along the Grand Canal from the distant Shannon and Barrow. The canal boat, the most peaceful and pastoral form of water carriage, contrasts oddly with the weatherworn merchant ship. There is still more water to be crossed. The river Dodder, changed from the romantic stream of the more southerly suburbs, lies beyond the canal docks and is spanned by Ringsend Bridge. There is a tradition that this stream behaved with great perversity when the first bridge was erected here. No sooner was the fabric completed than the waters forsook their old channel, leaving the costly structure high and dry, and, of course, absolutely useless. The peccant river had to be brought back by main force, and narrowly restricted to its present bounds. Ringsend was until recent times the usual landingplace for travellers coming across channel. Some of these have made an obvious joke on the name, which they declared to be a typical Hibernian blunder, since a ring has no beginning or end. However, it is more 305
[The Story of Dublin] appropriate than they guessed. The “ring” in question is the Irish term for a point or spit of land, here apparently that enclosed between Dodder and LifFey. Dublin Bay, curiously enough, beside the ** blunder “of Ringsend, has two remarkable “bulls “(the sand-banks of that name opposite Clontarf and Sandy mount). At this little fishing village Oliver Cromwell landed in 1646 with 8000 foot, 4000 horse and a train of battering guns, by means of which he afterwards destroyed some of the oldest strongholds in Ireland. At Ringsend the South Wall proper, as distinct from the city quays, begins. About half way along is the Pigeon House, a curiously named fort, which has now become an electric light and drainage station. Its grey old buildings, with their embrasures and loopholes, are in odd contrast to the tanks and dynamos around. There are various explanations of its title. The most usual one is that the Ballast Office had a servant named Pigeon, who established a sort of hotel here called, from its proprietor, Pigeon’s House and, later, the Pigeon House. Another story is that the people were struck with a resemblance between the hexagonal fort with its gun ports and the ordinary dovecote, which is pierced in like manner by a number of little apertures. There is a small harbour in the middle of the fort, where vessels were subjected to customs examination before proceeding on their journey to Dublin. Before the Union and even for some years after it each country still had its own scale of tariffs, so that passengers from England were compelled to submit their belongings to the ordeal of inspection. Military officers were sometimes compelled to pay heavy duty on the gold lace in their uniforms. Passing right through the Pigeon House, the pedestrian emerges on the bare and wind-swept 306
The Port of Dublin seaward portion of the South Wall. Hitherto the nature of the engineering work has been somewhat concealed, because the drift of the sea has gradually accumulated sand against the south side of the mole, so as to form a long bank, which has now been dotted with cottages and fringed with an ordinary carriage road. Beyond the Pigeon House, however, the wall is in its original condition, formed of great slabs of granite, one foot in width by four feet long and three feet deep. The sea lies below on both sides and there is no parapet. The waves that break over the narrow causeway with every storm have browned the gray stones to a rust colour. In some places the wall seems to have sunk slightly from its true level, and there are gaping chinks where the cement has disappeared. Still the work, as a whole, does great credit to the perseverance and industry of the ancient Ballast Office. On the left or northern side is the deep anchorage of Poolbeg, the name of which is Irish for “the little hollow.” It was used as a roadstead for ships awaiting a favourable tide, or perhaps unable to enter the port on account of their great draught of water. The Liffey was not deepened artificially until vessels came to be built with lines so sharp that it was dangerous for them to “take the ground,” as had once been the practice. Some stirring scenes have happened in Poolbeg. At one time pirates and privateers hovered off Howth and made daring dashes into the harbour. During the Jacobite wars Sir Cloudesley Shovel boldly ran into the bay, attacked and threw into confusion King James’s fleet at anchor. To the south of the wall is the wide, shallow expanse of the southern half of the bay, a level of sand at low tide, except at one point, called the Cockle Lake, where there is always a fair depth. This name, too, is a perversion. It was
originally the “Cock 307
[The Story of Dublin] Lake,” frequented by the cocks or cockboats, from which the coxswain takes his title. Passing the Half-Moon Battery, an old outwork of the Pigeon House, still preserving its curved form, a further walk of five minutes reaches the lighthouse, which marks the end of the wall. It, too, is an old structure, as is shown by its thickset, stumpy form, not unlike a windmill bereft of its sails. The once dreaded bar of Dublin lies between the end of the South Wall and the half submerged masonry of the companion breakwater on the opposite side. The rough walking of the last mile or two is now rewarded by a beautiful and comprehensive view of the whole bay, from Howth right round through Dublin and out again to Dalkey. The shape is, roughly, a great semi-circle with the city set midway in its circumference. The spectator is in the centre of the tract of water enclosed. To the north-east is the Hill of Howth, rugged on one side, but sloping more gently on the other. It has that curious resemblance to a couchant lion, which has often been noticed in such isolated promontories, notably at Portland and Gibraltar. The bay is fringed throughout its length with villas, on which the sun gleams brilliantly wherever it finds a white or polished surface to reflect its rays. Beyond, the country gradually rises into what seems to be thick woods, but are only the continuous gardens and demesnes of Clontarf, Sandymount, Blackrock and Monkstown. To the west are the spires, domes and chimneys of the city, blended by distance into a vague outline suggesting the presence and the myriad activities of man. But the greatest beauty of all is the long mountainchain that runs along the whole southern horizon, reaching an altitude of nearly 2000
feet. Almost every peak can be named and recognised. On the 308
The Port of Dublin extreme right is Montpellier Hill, crowned with a large square house, where the Hellfire Club were said to assemble and where, it is told, they used to close all the windows and doors and make a mimic hell of their own with burning sulphur and pitch, vicing with each other who could endure it longest. How idle and foolish such pranks seem, cut here in the open amid the sea breezes ! From Montpellier Hill there is a long and lofty ridge, which continues unbroken until it reaches Two Rock and Three Rock Mountains, so called from groups of boulders on their summits. Next is the great natural cleft known as the Scalp, where a “skelp” or slice has been taken out of the mountain. The name is akin to the English “scallop,” meaning “to hollow out,” rather than to the “scalp,” which covers the human skull. In some parts of Ireland such fissures are ascribed to diabolic agency, as, for example, in the Devil’s Bit at Templemore. Further eastward are the mountains near Bray, the Sugarloaf, almost conical in form, the Little Sugarloaf, a poor imitation of its neighbour, and the Paps, so called from the small rounded knolls on its summit. Finally in the extreme south-east there are the three characteristic hills of Dalkey, all of the same size atid shape, and each bearing some obelisk or monument to mark its highest point. North, south, east, west, it is a splendid panorama, which has, not undeservedly, been compared with the Bay of Naples. “Oh, bay of Dublin, how my heart you’re troublin’ Your beauty haunts me like a fevered dream.” ft is a poetic rapture, but many, like the exile in Lady Dufferin’s poem, “feel their heart’s blood warm when they but hear the name “of Dublin Bay, or recall to their minds that magnificent tableau of land and water, which is in most cases the Englishman’s first sight of 309
The Story of Dublin Ireland, or, sad thought, the Irishman’s last glimpse of his lovely native land.
SECTION XVII The Phoenix Park VERY few cities can boast of a pleasure-ground so extensive and so little spoilt by artificiality as the Phoenix Park. It is a long oval in shape, touching Dublin at one extremity. Its further end is well three miles away, lost in the seclusion of Knockmaroon, Castleknock and Ashtown, quiet tree-shaded districts, to which neither train nor tram penetrates. The great charm of the park is its wildness. At the city end a few acres are laid out in the usual pretty style with flower-beds and ornamental shrubs, but this is soon passed, and ten minutes walking brings one to wooded knolls or great, open commons, where the deer lift their heads to gaze at the passer-by. The history of the Phoenix Park goes back to nearly four centuries ago. In the reign of Henry VIII. the Priory of the Knights of S. John at Kilmainham owned the rich water meadows on either side of the LifFey for nearly a mile above Dublin. At the Reformation their lands were confiscated and their monastery, being a large and handsome building, was adopted as the official residence of the viceroys. However, whether from mere caprice or the insecurity produced by the raids of O’Neill and O’Donnell, the new occupants soon relinquished their suburban home and retreated to the Castle again, leaving the Priory to go to rack and ruin. It was regarded as a white elephant, and the authorities were glad to dispose of the estate to a certain
Sir Edward 310
The Phcenix Park Fisher at the moderate yearly rent of 10. The new tenant, with a keen eye for the amenities of the situation, erected a stately mansion called the Phoenix House on the hill now crowned by the Magazine Fort. From this structure the whole park undoubtedly took its name. There is a derivation of Phoenix from two Irish words fionn and uis^e, signifying a spring of clear water. It is far more likely, however, that the builder of the new house was asserting the unique qualities of his home by an obvious classical allusion. The viceroys, penned up in the Castle amid narrow streets and foul rivers and with a noisome prison under their very noses, soon regretted that they had parted so readily with the Priory estates. With the usual government knack of buying dear and selling cheap, they repurchased the property from Fisher for .2,500, only seven years after they had let it out for 10 a year. The Phoenix House was now the home of Cavalier and Roundhead governors of Ereland, including, among others, Henry Cromwell, the brother of Oliver. The great Ormond is, perhaps, the real founder of the park. In the phrase of the day he “imparked” the estate, surrounding it with walls and establishing a herd of deer. He removed the viceregal residence to the King’s House at Chapelizod, where he set up his court and gave great hunting parties. For a long time almost every official person in Dublin, either in the civil or municipal service, was entitled to claim one buck annually from the herds in the park. In 1758 the King’s House was turned into a barracks for the Royal Irish Artillery, a corps which has since disappeared. The old mansion was subsequently destroyed by fire. Until 1781, when the present Viceregal Lodge, the last of a long series, was bought, Their Excellencies had again to return to the Castle. 3”
‘[The Story of Dublin] After passing the ornamental gateway, the pedestrian finds himself on a broad road with a splendid surface. This is the main avenue of the park and leads straight as an arrow to the Castleknock gate nearly four miles away. On the right hand is the ornamental plot known as the People’s Gardens, where some unknown genius of a gardener annually produces magnificent colour combinations. Great tracts of ground are sometimes ablaze with the scarlet of geraniums, sometimes dotted with the bright yellow of the daffodil, or tinged with the deep refreshing blue of the pansy. Further along the main road the unimposing white front of the Viceregal Lodge comes into view on the right hand. It was originally a small two-story building, the residence of the chief ranger. Though it has been enlarged and improved, it still retains its former character. No one would imagine it to be the palace of a great governor. The old Dublin mansions of the Irish nobility, such as Leinster or Powerscourt House, would look the part much better, if they could be transported here. On the road facing the Lodge, in broad daylight and in full view of the viceroy’s window, the dastardly murder of Cavendish and Burke, chief and under secretaries, was perpetrated. Several persons witnessed the crime from a distance, but thought it no more than a mere drunken brawl. The spot is not now marked in any way, though formerly there was a cross let into the ground. Perhaps the whole tragic business is best forgotten and forgiven. Further along a wide and spacious common appears on the left. This is the famous Fifteen Acres, used now for the peaceful expenditure of powder at reviews and sham-fights. Once the shooting on its broad bosom was less in volume, but more deadly in character. It was the usual duelling-ground of old Dublin. Here, 312
The Phoenix Park in the cold, grey dawn, the hot words and hot blood of the previous night at Daly’s Club or, perhaps, the House of Commons were atoned for at the point of the sword or, more often, at the muzzle of the longbarrelled duelling pistols, the triggers of which responded to the slightest pressure. The Irish are a courageous and hot-blooded nation, so that these encounters were frequent. The very elite of the nation figured on the duelling-field here and elsewhere. Nor were the
PHCEN1X MONUMENT.
combatants always reckless, high-spirited youths. Chief Secretaries, Chief Justices, Attorney-Generals, Chancellors of the Exchequer, Leaders of the Opposition, and even Provosts of Trinity shot and thrust at one another. In some families the murderous pistols used on these occasions were handed down as an heirloom from father to son. The purest air in the park is to be found on this breezy open, whose name, by the way, is quite inaccurate, for its acreage is nearer fifty, than fifteen. After passing the Fifteen Acres, the next object of interest is the Phoenix Monument, standing in the 3’3
[The Story of Dublin] very centre of the park in a circle of some extent formed by clearing away the woodland. During his term of office in 1745, Chesterfield erected this pillar, which bears an effigy of the unique classical bird, with which the park, not undeservedly, is compared. The Latin inscription, well-turned, but a trifle pompous, is characteristic of its elegant author. It runs somehow thus : “To delight the citizens, Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, viceroy, ordered this rough and uncultivated plain to be neatly set out.” The open space around was a fashionable promenade during the period when the court resided at Chapelizod. Chesterfield’s taste effected another improvement in the park. He planted a fine elm avenue from one extremity to the other, following very much the course of the present main road, but serpentining so that on the city side of the Phoenix Pillar it lies to the right of the main road, while beyond, it appears on the left. The trees were arranged in successive clumps, not in single or double file. Some of them are still standing, despite the storms of nearly two hundred winters. After the Phoenix Pillar is passed, the park becomes delightfully wild. The road seems like a highway through a forest. On every side there are the beautiful vistas characteristic of sylvan scenery. The best direction to take now is to break away after a while from the main avenue towards the left, travelling to the south-east. Eventually the Furze, or Furry, Glen is reached, a deep hollow lined on either side with furze bushes and innumerable hawthorn trees. Beautiful always, it is at its best twice in the year, first when it is golden with the furze blossom and the air is heavy with its rich oily perfume, again when the trees are powdered thick with the white may, and the glen seems one huge bouquet from the hand of the 3’4
The Pbaenix Park Creator. A road winds through the bottom of the ravine, leading to the Knockmaroon gate, from beside which there is a fine view of the upper Liffey, stretching away in long, placid reaches through a country of brilliant verdure and fertility. The river here is as different from the river at O’Connell Bridge as the
THE STRAWBERRY BEDS.
Thames at Richmond from the Thames at Westminster. On these sunny waterside slopes are the strawberry beds, from which the village below takes its name. A walk along the bank here will reveal to the visitor why Ireland is called the “Emerald Isle.” The fields are almost vivid in their bright, living green, and the foliage is nearly as gay in its hues. To this district Dubliners once went for health, recreation and rest. A few miles up the valley are the sleepy towns of Lucan and Leixlip, fashionable resorts in the remote past, when the sea coast was thought only fit for fishermen and coastguards. Thei 315
[The Story of Dublin] tall, grey stone houses look despondently on empty streets. At Lucan there was, and is, a spa, the waters of which contain sulphur, and are still drunk, as of old, for various complaints. The district is associated with the heroic Sarsfield, who once lived here, and received from James II. in exile the title of Earl of Lucan. The demesne walk from Lucan to Leixlip beside the LifFey, is perhaps the most delightful, certainly the most tranquil and soothing, piece of woodland scenery in County Dublin. The wooded heights around here are studded with old castles and ruined churches, so that the river seems like a miniature Rhine. At Leixlip again there is a beautiful natural picture to be seen, the cascade known as the Salmon Leap. Here, at certain seasons of the year, the fish going upstream, by herculean efforts, jump from the lower to the higher level. Apparently they have been doing the same thing these thousand years, for the Danes, who settled here long ago, were so impressed by their performances that they called the settlement Lax-Hlaup (Leixlip), from two Norse words meaning salmon and leap. In mediaeval Latin, too, it appears as “Saltus Salmonis.” On return to the park by the Knockmaroon gate, another route may be chosen for the homeward journey. After passing through the Furry Glen, it will be necessary to keep to the right along the southward boundary wall. The Hibernian Military School soon appears on its hill to the left, and just opposite is the gate giving access to the old-world village of Chapelizod. Here, just as at Lucan and Leixlip, the houses have an air of faded gentility. They seem to have been built for grander inhabitants than they lodge at present. Chapelizod, the chapel of Izod, or Isolde, was the residence of that auburn-haired and passionate Irish princess, immortalized in Malory’s
romance and 316
The Phasnix Park Wagner’s opera. While Tristan, loyal knight and true, was escorting her to her destined husband, King Mark of Cornwall, a love potion drunk by mistake bound them for ever in a wild and frenzied passion, which only found its end when Tristan lay dying in his lonely Breton castle, and Isolde came over the sea to perish on his corpse. The village now shows no memorial of this famous old story, but its association with the fair Isolde is probably well-founded. In Dublin city there was long an “Izod’s Tower” on the walls. The site has been inhabited from prehistoric times, for, on a little hill within the park, some yards to the west of the Hibernian School, is an ancient grave marked by the usual huge slab of stone resting on several small supports. Here were found skeletons and utensils of remote antiquity, the latter of which are preserved in the Dublin Museum. The square tower of the church, which lies on a hill off the main street, is fourteenth century work. The body of the building is modern though it contains some ancient inscriptions. Returning to the park road, and leaving the Hibernian School on the left, the traveller passes along a winding and undulating way, that sometimes sinks into wooded hollows, sometimes rises into elevated grassy platforms, looking out over the boundary wall to the spires of Dublin in one direction, and the peaceful river in the other. After another mile the Magazine Fort appears on the left, a monument of a bygone style of fortification. The loopholed “demibastions,” the grassy glacis, the ditch with its edge protected by che<vaux-de-frise formed of close-set iron spikes projecting outwards from the centre so as to form a series of S. Andrew’s crosses, all take the mind back to the days of Vauban and Kohorn and the great sieges in Flanders. The erection of this 317
[The Story of Dublin] fort called forth the last effort of Swift’s genius. During his final illness he was being driven through the park, and, passing here, inquired during a lucid interval the nature of the work which he saw going on. His attendants told him, whereupon the Dean dashed off a characteristic epigram. “Behold a proof of Irish sense ! Here Irish wit is seen. When nothing’s left that’s worth defence, We build a magazine.” The last noteworthy object before leaving the park is the Wellington Memorial, or Testimonial, as it is called, a huge obelisk with an unfortunate resemblance to a gigantic milestone. Situated close to the main entrance, it affords a conspicuous landmark to anyone who may have lost his sense of direction during his ramblings. It is an easy matter to miss one’s way in the wide “Phoenix.”
SECTION XVIII The Northern Suburbs Cabra, Drumcondra, Glasnevin, North Strand WHILE deliberate design may often be traced in the central plan of a city, the suburban districts are usually allowed to grow up haphazard, each sprawling ungracefully over the countryside, and linked with its neighbours by narrow and winding lanes, which have lost their rustic beauty, but still retain their primitive inconvenience. The outskirts of Dublin, however, are a remarkable exception. The men who planned Sackville Street and O’Connell Bridge did not neglect the outlying parts. A great circular road, which was to be some 318
The Northern Suburbs nine miles in length and enclose completely the city, as it then stood, was projected and successfully carried out. In seasons of distress, which once recurred very frequently, the poor were employed on this road as a kind of stock task. So it is possible to traverse the whole length of the suburbs by a wide and easily followed thoroughfare, from which digressions can be made to points of interest on either side. The northern section of this girdle may be taken as commencing with Infirmary Road, a turn to the right off Parkgate Street close to the main park entrance. The infirmary, which bestows its name on the street, is an old eighteenth century hospital for soldiers. It turns its back on its godchild, and its face to the pleasure grounds of the Phcenix. The road is somewhat gloomy, as though it felt the slight. Soon another park entrance appears on the left, giving a pleasant glimpse of the deep glen and lake, which go far to redeem the People’s Gardens from the charge of artificiality. At this gate the North Circular Road proper begins, running in a north-easterly direction. The ground is high, and where the villas permit, the city may be seen in its hollow to the south, and, far away, the ridge of the mountains. This was the main approach to the Viceregal Lodge before the completion of the northern line of quays. The district is connected also with the old times of bribery at elections. There is still a place known as “The Hole in the Wall,” where the virtuous elector used to pass his empty hand through an aperture and withdraw it again filled with guineas by some unseen benefactor beyond. Thus the voter might conscientiously swear his ignorance of the party, from whom he had received the money. The road, too, follows fairly closely the route taken by the mayor and corporation during the formal 319
[The Story of Dublin] perambulation of the city liberties known as “riding the franchises.” Every three years the civic train, bearing the King’s sword, was wont to pass completely round the limits of its jurisdiction, thus asserting its authority wherever it went. If houses barred the way, a chink was made in the wall and the sword was thrust through. On the sea shore the mayor rode out into the water and cast a dart as far as he could into the waves. The precedent of former excursions was usually narrowly observed. But the company sometimes fell foul of local proprietors, who conceived themselves injured by the claims of the city. There were occasional broils. Once a certain Davys offered resistance to the passage of the sword and was ordered “to be cooled by tumbling him in the river.” At the Royal Hospital Captain Sankey opposed armed force to the mayor’s retinue, but was overawed by the arrival of that functionary in person, for the chief magistrate of Dublin was then a great potentate, second only to the Lord Lieutenant. The first considerable turning to the right is Aughrim Street, which later becomes Manor Street and Stonybatter. The latter name, which, at first sight, suggests a culinary disaster, is, like many others, a hybrid between English and Irish. The “batter “is the Irish “bothair” a road. The whole means the “paved or stony road “Stonybatter is part of the old route from Meath to the ancient crossing over the LifFey at Bridge Street, and from thence along the sea coast to Wicklow. The footsteps of S. Patrick followed this path. After a walk of about half a mile the tramlines branch off to Glasnevin, a very pretty and interesting little suburb. It contains the Botanic Gardens, lying pleasantly on a slight incline overlooking the river Tolka, also the celebrated Prospect Cemetery, the 320
The Northern Suburbs open air Pantheon or Westminster Abbey of Catholic and Nationalist Ireland. The monuments are for the most part well-designed, and the place so beautifully kept that the visitor is not overwhelmed, as he is at Westminster, but merely saddened to a tender melancholy and to wistful musings on the whys and wherefores of political strife. Here sleeps O’Connell beneath a tall, white sentinel tower; many other men of note lie around. A curious feature is the circle of tombs around the central space. In a remote corner, and in a grave that seems half-neglected, are the mortal remains of the strongest, yet on one side the weakest, of Irish politicians, the unhappy Parnell. The Botanic Gardens, by the way, are another product of the zeal and enterprise of the Royal Dublin Society. It has well earned its Virgilian motto “What land is not full of our labour? “Glasnevin has associations with famous English men of letters. At Delville, a house in the centre of the village, Dr Delany entertained Swift, Addison and many other writers of note. The mansion was built by the Doctor in conjunction with friend of his, one Helsham. It was at first styled Heldeville, as the result of an attempt to bring in the names of both parties, but this title was soon dropped when the wits of the city began to pronounce it “Hell-Devil.” The Dean is so closely associated with this place that it is not easy to remember that he was but a visitor here. He chose the motto for the temple “Fastigia Despicit Urbis,” in which “despicio,” like the English “to look down on,” is used in a double sense. In a vault below this classic structure, the “Legion Club,” his ferocious libel on the Irish parliament, is said to have been secretly printed. The angry Commons offered a reward for the discovery of the author, but Swift
was never betrayed. His sardonic wit was wont 321
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to indulge itself with an occasional gibe at the homestead of his dearest friend. He mocked at the doctor’s endeavour to realise all the beauties of a large demesne in his limited area. “A razor, though to say’t I’m loth, / Might shave you and your meadow both. / A little rivulet seems to steal / Along a thing you call a vale, / Like tears adown a wrinkled cheek, / Like rain along a blade of leek, / And this you call your sweet meander, / Which might be sucked up by a gander,/ Could he but force his rustling bill / To scoop the channel of the rill. / In short, in all your boasted seat / There’s nothing but yourself is great.” Notice the Irish rhymes of “vale” and “steal,” “great “and “seat.” The pronunciation, which is brogue nowadays, was then cultured English. However, Swift’s account of Delville is mere humorous exaggeration, for the grounds are very extensive and cover several acres. The explanation is probably that Delany’s contemporaries disliked the new, romantic style of landscape gardening, which was beginning to displace the formal lines and terraces made popular by the Dutch. With its lofty lime trees and undulating walks Delville has a distinct charm of its own. The house is a fine example of an old interior, with its spacious decorated rooms lit by quaint windows, the little panes of which are set in wooden frames of tremendous strength and thickness. Dr Delany’s fondness for “multum in parvo “is seen in his tiny oratory, which is no larger than a modern bay window. Some remains of his wife’s hobby appear here and there. She used to collect shells, which she afterwards
painted and affixed to the 322
The Northern Suburbs walls and ceilings so as to form a sort of design. The effect is not unpleasing. Addison is
remembered in the Botanic Gardens by
ADDISON S WALK, GLASNEVIN. his favourite walk under an avenue of old yew trees. It runs in a westerly direction along the brow of a hill from a group of hothouses to the rock garden. The early contributions to the Taller were sent from Dublin, where the essayist held the post of secretary to the profligate viceroy Wharton. The records of Addison’s
stay in Dublin show him a man somewhat
[The Story of Dublin] different from the blameless character depicted by Macaulay. One always fancies that there must be a flaw somewhere in these perfect beings. So it was with Addison. His official correspondence shows him fretfully eager about money, exacting the uttermost farthing of his fees even from personal friends, embarking on commercial ventures with cargoes of shoes, and trying to evade the customs whenever he sent wine to England. He was, probably, on the whole, a conscientious and good-living man, but he was not exempt from the usual small weaknesses of humanity. Continuing the former direction along the North Circular Road, the next tramway crossing to the left leads to Drumcondra, a modern suburb, known only to history as the scene of the runaway match of Hugh O’Neill and Mabel Bagenal in the sixteenth century. The houses here stand amid trees, over a road which is sunk between two green sloping banks. The Mall, as it is called, is the beginning of the Great North Road of Ireland, leading from the capital to Belfast and Derry. There was a noted haunt of highwaymen not far from Drumcondra. The parish church lies off the main thoroughfare. Its graveyard is the most venerable in Dublin. The graves are crowded thickly together under the old trees, and the lichen-covered headstones are inclined in every possible direction, some tottering forward, others almost prostrate. “Edam memoriae pereunt.” The only relic of the past within the building is a monument of Marmaduke Coghill, once Judge of the Prerogative Court. With the characteristic paganism of an artist, the sculptor has supported the central figure, on one side with orthodox religion drooping under her sorrow, on the other with the upright, half-defiant figure of the heathen goddess Minerva, so placed that she
seems to stare fixedly at the preacher. 3H
Northern Suburbs On leaving the Drumcondra district, the North Circular Road comes in view of S. George’s Church, which has, perhaps, the most graceful and conspicuous spire in Dublin. In this part of the city it seems to look down every street. The resemblance to some of Wren’s London churches has often been noted. The remains of the structure, which it superseded, are still to be seen at the foot of Hill Street, a lofty and dark old square tower. The vaults under S. George’s were used as a spirit store by the Revenue authorities, who were once troubled to find that their casks had long been secretly tapped by some ingenious person, who had contrived a hidden passage from the church into the vaults. In the side streets to the right, which lead to Sackville Street and its continuations, the houses grow tall and begin to wear the look of bygone splendour that marks an old aristocratic quarter. Still they have not sunk so low as some of their fellows. Wellto-do professional men reside in the homes of peers and statesmen. In Great Denmark Street off Mountjoy Square, is Belvedere House, now a Jesuit college, where died the unfortunate lady who was the first Countess of Belvedere. When a mere girl, she had been hurried into a loveless match with a handsome roue, whose very methods of wooing frightened her out of her wits. Her husband, the first ardour of his passion spent, went off to court and thought but little of his wife until he discovered a secret attachment between her and his brother. Belvedere took a most cruel revenge on his hapless bride. For seventeen years she was kept in close confinement in a lonely country house, never allowed to go out or to see her children or her relatives. When the death of her persecutor released the
captive, she was a mere shadow of her former self, a scared, whispering, 325
[The Story of Dublin] white-haired creature. To her death she protested her innocence of the charges brought against her. Lord Belvedere had a turn for music, though, apparently in his case it failed to “soothe the savage breast.” His house is almost unique among Dublin mansions, as containing a large organ in one of the rooms. In Gardiner Street, near Mountjoy Square, is a Jesuit Church, with a beautiful interior, adorned with wall-paintings of considerable merit. The route again crosses a tramline, that leading to Ballybough Bridge, the central point of the great battle of Clontarf where Brian Boru broke the overweening power of the Danes. Still keeping on, the road is known as Portland Row. On the right here is Aldborough House, a “sermon in stone” on the extravagance which ruined the Irish nobility. The earl, who built this huge mansion, might just as well have thrown his money into the LifFey. He already had town and country houses in England and Ireland, in London and Dublin. The reason put forward for the erection of this additional residence was the desire of his wife for a separate dwelling. The plan is the most wasteful that could be conceived. Everywhere there are circular rooms, which necessitate curving passages and odd corners at every turn. The hall is equal in height to the building and contains a great white stone staircase winding magnificently around from bottom to top. Aldborough’s purse was, in the end, not equal to the demands made upon it by his capricious and everchanging taste. Though the front of the house is stone, well set off with sweepstakes or curved wings, bearing lions and heraldic devices with Latin mottoes beneath, yet the sides, which the height and situation of the building render equally conspicuous, are of the ordinary brick. After all the expenditure it is said that neither the earl nor his countess, nor indeed any 326
The Northern Suburbs of the family, ever resided in the place. Often derelict for years, it has been successively a school and a barracks, and is now used for the Stores Department of the General Post Office. Beyond Aldborough House our route crosses the North Strand Road, once, as its name implies, the actual north bank of the Liffey, from which it is now distant about Haifa mile. It was a favourite promenade and duelling-ground during one period. The reclamation of the mudlands here was procured in a skilful manner by the Ballast Office. They merely erected their wall, the identical North Wall from which the cross-channel steamers depart. Then they divided the space behind into lots, which they succeeded in disposing of at a fair price. As the river was banked out from these areas, the proprietors, to obtain a profit on their outlay, set themselves to fill in and improve their holdings. Thus a new district, about two square miles in extent, was added to the city. Two streets near the river have names which suggest such an origin, “Lotts,” near Sackville Street, and “South Lotts Road,” near Ringsend. It may be well to terminate the walk at North Strand Road. The level reclaimed district between there and the Liffey is a maze of goods yards, railway sidings
and dock bridges.
SECTION XIX The Southern Suburbs Kilmainham, Clondalkin, Rathmines, Rathfarnham, Ranelagh and Donnybrook FROM Islandbridge on the upper Liffey to Ringsend on the lower, the great girdle road of Dublin sweeps in a huge semi-circle. For the first two or three miles it is known as the South Circular Road, then as 3 2 7
[The Story of Dublin] Harrington Street and Adelaide Road, until at last it meets and becomes identified with the northern bank of the Grand Canal. Each successive suburb hangs, as it were, from this long chain, like pendants from a necklace. Islandbridge is the first crossing over the river above Kingsbridge. It was originally called Sarah Bridge from the Christian name of the Lady Lieutenant at the time of its opening, and was built in the century before last. At Islandbridge were the old waterworks for supplying the north of the city. The south was sufficiently provided for by the cutting made from the Dodder, but ancient engineering shirked the difficulties involved in carrying one stream over another. So the original aqueduct did not cross the Liffey, and when the further bank of the river began to be more thickly inhabited, the corporation constructed a special pumping station here to supply the new demand. Soon after passing the Royal Hospital entrance and the grim front of Kilmainham Gaol, the route is crossed by the tramline leading to Inchicore. Some four miles out along this road, which is the great southern highway to Cork, Waterford and Limerick, is the village of Clondalkin, remarkable as possessing that typically Irish relic of the remote past, a round tower. There are some eighty or so of these erections scattered over Ireland, usually on the site of some old religious foundation. They were there when Strongbow’s men marched through the country, for Giraldus Cambrensis expresses his admiration of their great height and graceful proportions There were once strange theories as to their origin. Some writers maintain that the ancient Irish practised sun-worship on these tall pillars. However, they may be ascribed with certainty to the early Christian period, when the Danes first began to trouble. They are high enough 328
The Southern Suburbs to serve as watch-towers to give notice of the approach of the raiders, yet strongly built so as to provide a temporary refuge for the monks with all their treasure of jewelled shrine, holy relic and illuminated manu
CLONDALK1N ROUND TOWER. script, until the native clansmen should muster for the rescue. Clondalkin tower is a good specimen of its class, though much shorter than the majority. It rises some eighty-four feet, and is a solid mass of masonry for the first twelve feet from the ground : then there is a very narrow doorway, and the tower becomes hollow for the rest of its height. The heavy compactness of the 329
[The Story of Dublin] base and the elevation of the entrance were designed to frustrate any attempt to break down the walls or burst in the doorway by battering rams. Being made of stone throughout, the building was proof against fire. It is possible to ascend to the top by means of ladders linking the three floors or stories of the interior. The ascent, however, is both dark and awkward, for there are only two small windows on the way up and one section of the journey has to be performed in profound gloom. The top story is better lit, having four windows facing the four points of the compass. The use of the round towers as look-out places is exemplified by this arrangement, which is well calculated to sweep the horizon in every direction. Through the deep-set windows there is a pleasant view of the broad, well-wooded, fertile plain, in which Clondalkin lies. The roof of the tower is formed by a conical cap of stone, constructed with great skill. The walls are two or three feet thick. The whole is so strongly built that a great gunpowder explosion, which destroyed an adjoining factory in 1787, did not produce the slightest effect on the tower. Very few thousandyear-old buildings could survive such a trial. With all its durability, however, it could not defy the fiery heathen, against whom it was designed. Either by storm or treaty, most probably the former, the Danes took Clondalkin and established there a fortress and palace for their kings under the name of Dunawley or “Olaf s Fort.” One can imagine the scene of sanguinary triumph at the foot of the tower, the monks, some meekly praying, others defiant and bloodstained, dragged from the interior to fall beneath the axes of the huge, half-naked Norsemen. These old grey stones must have been dabbled with blood more than once in their history. After passing the turning to Inchicore, the South 33
The Southern Suburbs Circular Road crosses the Grand Canal by a highpitched bridge, fancifully called after the Venetian Rialto, with which it has nothing in common except its sharp slope. All the canal bridges around Dublin have this hump back. The next suburb is Dolphin’s Barn, a curious name, of which there is no particular explanation. It may possibly have rural associations, for Dolphin is an occasional surname in Ireland, and some former member of the family may have had a farm here. The name is ancient, for the village is so called in the accounts of the old watercourse, which made its entrance at this spot into the city. A mile and a half from Dolphin’s Barn, on a road leading to Clondalkin, is Drimnagh Castle, one of the oldest inhabited structures in the district. It was the stronghold of the Barnewalls, a great family among the nobility of the Pale. The southern part of County Dublin, being dangerously close to the raiders of the mountains, has an extraordinary number of these grey old fortresses. Usually, beside the central keep, they had a bawn, or fortified enclosure, into which the cattle might be driven for safety, whenever the O’Byrnes were reported to be out on a foray. Further on the tramrails diverge to Harold’s Cross, remarkable only as the scene of the arrest of Robert Emmet after he had indiscreetly returned to Dublin to say farewell to his beloved. It is said that Philpot Curran, father of the lady, was not aware of his daughter’s attachment, until after the catastrophe had happened. The Harolds were a small mountain sept, who were among the first to acknowledge the English supremacy. The next branch leads to three well-known suburbs, Rathmines, Rathgar and Rathfarnham. The “rath” in these names is the Irish for a fort or circular earth331
[The Story of Dublin] work. It is embodied in hundreds of local appellations. The old fortifications usually survive in the shape of low grass-covered ramparts enclosing a central space, where, according to rustic tradition, the fairies dance nightly and gold is buried under the soil in great crocks, to be had for the digging by anyone bold enough to hazard the curse believed to go with elfin treasure. The raths were really the sites of defensible villages. The earthen dyke, probably crowned with a stockade, protected the wooden huts of the clansmen and sheltered their cattle nightly against the raids of the neighbouring tribe. In the case of these three Dublin suburbs, however, the old “fairy forts “have been built on, and their position cannot be traced. At Rathmines, in 1649, the royalist viceroy, Ormond, who was besieging Dublin, was utterly defeated by a sally of the Roundhead garrison. A story is told of the battle, which shows the boorishness of the new republican manners. Ormond wrote to Jones, the Puritan commander, asking for a list of the prisoners he had taken in the fight. He received the following laconically insolent answer : “My Lord, since I routed your army, I cannot have the happiness to learn where you are, that I may wait upon you. Michael Jones.” There are the remains of an ancient castle in the vicinity, but it has been modernized almost out of recognition. Rathgar and Rathfarnham are pleasant districts, still possessing some of their original woodland. Between them in a deep and picturesque glen flows the Dodder, now a true mountain stream, clear and sparkling, with a little silvery cascade every three or four hundred yards. At Rathfarnham there is a castle erected by Archbishop Loftus towards the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Ireland was slowly beginning to settle down, so that Loftus’s house marks 332
The Southern Suburbs the commencement of the transition from the old feudal stronghold to the unfortified mansion of later times. Close by, at Terenure, commences the great military road built to curb the restless O’Byrnes and O’Tooles of Wicklow. It runs straight as an arrow over a shoulder of the mountains to Blessington, eighteen miles away, and penetrates in f o the heart of a wild and lonely district. Before its construction, Wicklow was the refuge of outlaws, who lurked in the recesses of the hills and defied arrest. These men, who were mere bandits in the eyes of the authorities, were the heroes of the peasantry. Like Robin Hood and Rob Roy, they are the theme of innumerable ballads and stories. A stirring tale of devotion is told in connection with Michael Dwyer, a Wicklow rebel, “in arms and ^out on his keeping,” as the legal phrase would describe him. With a couple of companions he was surrounded in a hut by a body of soldiers, who were gradually closing in on their prey. The case seemed desperate. Dwyer saw nothing for it but a last struggle in the open against hopeless odds. But the days of self-sacrifice were not yet past. One of his followers deliberately rushed out and drew the fire of all the attackers on himself. He fell riddled with bullets, but, while the soldiers’ muskets were still empty, the others burst forth from the hut and, before anything could be done to stop them, had passed the line of their enemies and escaped scotfree. After this long digression it will be necessary to return to the South Circular Road, or rather, its Harrington Street and Adelaide Road continuations. Charlemont Street, going off obliquely to the right from the former, leads to Ranelagh, formerly called Cullenswood, or Colony’s Wood (Boscus de Colonia in mediaeval Latin). Here the infant colony from Bristol was almost stamped out by the O’Byrnes whi.e 333
[The Story of Dublin] enjoying itself in the open one black Easter Monday in 1209. The date is remarkable, for it suggests that the familiar Bank Holiday, as by law established at the present time, has been spent in much the same way any time these seven hundred years. In fact we are told that the settlers were “hurling at ball,” which probably means that they were playing hockey. The Irish form of this game is called “hurling” to this day. Annually, for several centuries after this misfortune, the city forces marched to Cullenswood on Black Monday, bearing aloft an ancient ebon-hued banner, which was believed to strike terror into the heart of every O’Byrne and O’Toole that beheld its tattered folds. After a review two tables were laid, one for the mayor, the other for the sheriffs. The civic officials then dined thereat, encompassed at a little distance on every side by a living wall of the armed youth of Dublin, with faces turned outwards and weapons ready for instant action. The old form, Cullenswood, still appears in the names of the streets, and the ancient timber has not yet wholly disappeared. Ranelagh in Dublin, like Ranelagh in London, was subsequently a popular place of entertainment, where balloons went up and fireworks were exhibited and ladies and cavaliers ogled and flirted with each other. It is not easy to say whether the English metropolis borrowed the name from the Irish, or vice versa, though probably the guttural “gh “at the end of the word bespeaks a Celtic origin. Adelaide Road soon debouches on to the bank of the Grand Canal, a great waterway, which once played a very important part in Dublin life. Now, save for the passage of an occasional boat laden with turf cut in the bogs of Queen’s County, it is almost deserted. In some parts of the southern suburbs, especially where the great storm of 1903 has spared the rows 334
The Southern Suburbs of trees on either side, there is a distinct suggestion of Dordrecht or Amsterdam about the Grand Canal. There are the same quiet waterside streets and tall old-fashioned houses. Before the advent of railways, the canal was used for the transport of passengers, particularly for short distances. It had two advantages over the coaches. It was cheap and commodious. The fare was about two pence a mile, whereas the coaches demanded three pence. The travellers were neither so cramped nor so much exposed to the elements as those who went by road. But the delay at the innumerable locks made the pace very slow. It averaged two miles an hour, and twenty miles was a long day’s journey. Portobello Harbour, near the bridge of that name in Rathmines, was the usual starting-point. There is a good picture of a passenger canal boat in the National Gallery. The canal also supplied the city with water, when the old cutting from the Dodder became insufficient for a growing metropolis. The road, which passes over the first bridge now encountered, leads to the celebrated village of Donnybrook, now an ultra-respectable and fashionable locality. The scenes of turbulence which gave the place its notoriety, were enacted at the great fair, which was held annually on the green beside the Dodder. Everyone knows the story of the man, who said he was “blue mouldy for want of a bating “and trailed his coat through the fair, defying anyone to tread on the tail of it. Half the rioting was due to the city factions, which, under the influence of excitement and strong drink, fought out their old quarrels, not only at Donnybrook, but at every other fair held anywhere near Dublin. The police was very inefficient as a check on
disturbers. Like Dogberry of old, they were mostly parish watchmen, 335
The Story of Dublin and seemed to have modelled their conduct after the maxims of that worthy. In the face of any possible tumult, the guardians of the peace used their best endeavours to keep out of harm’s way. Finally Irishmen grew ashamed of such continually recurring disorders. Some fifty years ago the corporation bought up from the holders the ancient patents of King John and his successors, by which the fair was authorised. The annual gathering was suppressed, and Donnybrook relapsed into its present somnolent state. The ivy-clad remains of an old castle, that of Simmonscourt, may still be seen in the grounds of its modern namesake near Anglesea Road, Donnybrook. The next bridge carries the main road to Kingstown over the canal. This crowded highway is quite modern. The older route was by Donnybrook. An interesting illustration of the danger of old-time travelling is furnished by the name of an old barracks to the north of Northumberland Road. It is called Beggarsbush, the bush which harboured the “sturdy beggars,” who solicited alms by day and demanded them at the pistol point after dark. Beyond here are Sandymount and Irishtown, already dealt with in Section XVI.
SECTION XX The North Shore of the BayClontarf, The North Bull, Sutton, Howth THE easiest and pleasantest manner of seeing the beautiful shores of Dublin Bay is to take a seat on the top of the huge tramcars that run along the margin of the sea, from Nelson’s Pillar to
Howth on the 33 6
The North Shore of the Bay one side, and Dalkey on the other. The former line covers the route of the present excursion. After threading its way cautiously through the narrow and busy Talbot Street, the tram passes Amiens Street railway station, built on the site of the house where the novelist Lever was born. The reckless gaiety which he depicted has largely gone out of Irish life, though, perhaps, a Charley O’Malley or a Harry Lorrequer may still be found within the portals of Trinity College or in the old mansions west of the Shannon. The North Strand Road, which bears no sign of its old maritime character, is soon passed. The Royal Canal and the historic, but decadent, Tolka are crossed by bridges, and the lagoon cut off by the Great Northern Railway viaduct appears on the right, opposite Fairview. A very wide and elaborate stone gateway on the left bearing the motto “Deo Duce, Ferro Comitante “(“ With God for my guide, And sword by my side “), gives access to Marino, once the country house of the same Lord Charlemont who built Charlemont House in Rutland Square. It seems poor economy to have two great houses within a mile and a half of each other. Marino is near enough to Dublin to have served all the purposes of a residence in town. But Charlemont was an aristocratic and wealthy dilettante, who never allowed expense to stand in the way of his whims. He erected at tremendous cost a beautiful little temple in the Greek style in the grounds of Marino. Placed on the crest of a hill overlooking the bay, it is a conspicuous object to all who pass along the Malahide Road. The interior was formerly the acme of sumptuousness and refinement. Inlaid floors, blue poplin wall hangings, handsome ceilings, gilded pillars, long mirrors, every device of artistic decoration was employed in this Y 337
[The Story of Dublin] little pleasure-house. Since Charlemont’s time so many tenants, most of them poor, have occupied the Casino, as it is called, that the splendour, though still perceptible, is somewhat tarnished and dimmed. The place has long since passed out of the possession of the original owners. After leaving Marino and passing the railway bridge, the open sea appears on the right, and the breeze freshens perceptibly. Henceforth the route hugs the coastline continually. On the landward side are the gentle, green slopes of Clontarf, classic ground for the historian since the day when the Irish, long tormented by Danish raids, broke the power of the foreigners for ever. The battle was fought somewhat nearer the city than the modern suburb, which is called by that famous name, but the pursuit raged all along the shore from here to Howth. The Danes, who had come from oversea, rushed into the water to regain their ships, which lay aground in Dublin Bay. The victorious Irish followed them, slaying until the sea was red with heathen blood. Conquer Hill, a small mound near the sea, is believed to mark a climax of the battle. Inland from the more easterly part of this district lies the beautiful sylvan tract known as “The Green Lanes of Clontarf,” a complicated system of roads and bypaths, meandering pleasantly along under a continual canopy of green foliage, broken only for a moment by the shrubs and flower-beds of an occasional villa. The old trees, which give the place its characteristic charm, are the remains of a huge forest, that formerly existed here, and was, indeed, the very “Tomar’s Wood “alluded to in accounts of the battle. Where Clontarf begins to merge into Dollymount, the long sandbank known as the North
Bull begins to 338
The North Shore of the Bay range itself parallel to the shore, from which it is separated only by a narrow creek. Long the great danger to ships frequenting the port, it is now a pleasantly wild seaside resort for the citizens. Most of its area is covered with short grass, interspersed here and there with tufts of those peculiar greyishgreen plants which love a maritime habitat, and seem to stand midway between the ordinary vegetation of the land and the trailing, brown weed of the sea. Towards the bay there is a sandy beach two or three miles long, backed by low sand dunes. In the days of sailing-ships the North Bull was a veritable Minotaur to the poor mariner. It was his lee shore, and hardly a gale blew but two or three ships were wrecked and the corpses of drowned seamen lay in the shallows, where Dublin children now paddle every summer. The wooden keel and ribs of a vessel are still to be seen on the beach, half-buried in the sand. The popular attitude in view of such a misfortune was remarkable. Every effort was made to save life, but once the crew were saved or past all human power to save, the energies of the bystanders turned in a different direction. The cargo of a wreck was thought fair prize for all the countryside. Carts came down to the shore in hundreds, and everything portable was borne away, despite the resistance of the captain or his men, if any had survived. Nothing but the despatch of a regiment from Dublin could preserve to the owners their property. The North Bull was once used as an airing-ground for the cargo of ships under quarantine. Such materials as wool and hair, which were thought likely to carry infection, were there exposed to the purifying winds. It is still a great health-giver for the city population, its salty ozone-laden atmosphere contrasting with, yet supplementing, the calmer, though not less 339
7 be Story of Dublin
invigorating, air of the inland Phoenix Park. The name of this sandbank, which is repeated on the opposite side of the bay, is explained by the bull-like roaring of the surf there on stormy days. “Clontarf “contains the same idea. It means the “strand of the bull.” After passing the Bull, the tram passes for a mile or two beneath a series of wooded demesnes sloping to the sea, all aglow in their season with lilac, laburnum and hawthorn. On the left hand appears the old graveyard and ruined church of Kilbarrack. Here beneath a defaced tombstone lies buried Francis Higgins, the * Sham Squire,” a detested government informer. He earned his nickname from an early exploit. Though of very low birth and station, he succeeded in passing himself off as a country gentleman and, in his assumed character, was married to a lady of good family. For this fraud he was sent to gaol, from which he was later released to find himself a widower, with full scope for his evil talents. Popular hatred pursued him to the grave, and beyond it. The churchyard had to be watched, lest the angry mob should tear out his body from its resting-place and cast it on the shore, as they threatened. The isthmus of Sutton, a narrow, flat spit of land which links the peninsula of Howth with the mainland, is now traversed. The Irish Sea lies on the left, with the islet of Ireland’s Eye, rugged and fantastic in its outlines, close at hand, and the larger mass of Lambay further to the north. The names of both these places show Danish influence. The termination in each case is the “oe “or “ey,” which signifies an island. Ireland’s Eye contains the ruined heritage of an ancient Irish recluse, S. Nessan. In old times pious men retreated to the most inaccessible and lonely spots to pass a
life of solitary meditation and prayer. 340
The North Shore of the Bay Recesses in the mountains like Glendalough, or stormbeaten islands such as this, were the usual places chosen. Lambay is almost as desolate as Ireland’s Eye. It is practically abandoned to rabbits and seabirds. In 1551 it was fortified in order to check the pirates and smugglers, who had hitherto made it their headquarters for raids on the commerce of Dublin. The old battlements then constructed are still to be seen. Close to Sutton on the mainland is the racecourse of Baldoyle, a village celebrated in history as the scene of a successful artifice by an impecunious viceroy. William de Windsor, who was husband of Alice Ferrers, the mistress of the doting Edward III., found himself hampered in his government by lack of money. As parliaments in Dublin were apt to be refractory, he summoned an assembly to this out-of-the-way spot, where the members could get neither food nor lodging, so that they were glad to postpone the discussion of their numerous grievances and vote the sums demanded. The Hill of Howth, as seen from Sutton, is a beautiful prospect. It is a huge mass of rock, thinly covered with soil, several square miles in area and rising into peaks four or five hundred feet high. Red cliffs crop out here and there, yet the general appearance is by no means barren. The northern terraces of the hill, which slope towards the spectator, present a pleasant alternation of green fields and dark, wooded plantations. At certain seasons of the year the crimson of the rhododendron and the purple of heather throw a robe of rich colour over the more rugged uplands. Standing out, as it does, in bold silhouette against a sky and sea, which, in summer, rival those of Italy in their beauty of hue, the great sentinel
headland of Dublin Bay presents a picture easier to be recalled 341
[The Story of Dublin] to the mind’s eye than to be formally described in words. Soon after leaving Sutton the ancient stronghold of the Lords of Howth is to be seen on the right. It is so placed as to command the isthmus, that forms the only landward approach to the peninsula, which they owned. In appearance it is a typical border keep, grey and massive, square in shape, its high walls pierced by no openings except a few very narrow loopholes. It is not very large, and apart from its security, could hardly have been a desirable residence. However, in the days when it was built, self-preservation was the first, and, for long, the only thought in the minds of the settlers. Just before the tram enters Howth village, the entrance to the present castle and demesne is passed on the right hand side. Hither the St. Lawrences, Earls of Howth, removed from the ancient Corr Castle, which has just been described. This is one of the oldest families in Ireland, and won both its lands and its name by the sword. Amory Tristram, one of the Norman adventurers, who followed Strongbow, defeated the Danish inhabitants, who still lingered here after the fall of Dublin, and took their lands for himself. The victory was won on S. Lawrence’s Day and the knight in gratitude took the name of the saint, under whose auspices the battle had been fought. Howth Castle is a blend of the ancient and modern. The middle seems to be of late, though not by any means recent construction. At the angles, however, there are gaunt battlemented square towers. Many curious stories have gathered round the St. Lawrences during the eight hundred years of their tenure of this lordship. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Grace O’Malley, known to the Irish as Granuaile, Princess of
Connaught, returning from England, landed at 342
The North Shore of the Bay Howth in expectation of the hospitality, which was ihen universally accorded to travellers. She found the gates of the castle closed, as the family were at dinner. In wrath at the slight, she seized an opportunity to kidnap the young heir, whom she carried off to Mayo and refused to release, until his parents solemnly promised that the doors of the castle should never again be shut at mealtimes. The promise was faithfully kept until recently. Another romantic legend is that of the old tree, now almost reduced to a stump, which is said to lose one of its limbs coincidently with the death of a male member of the Howth line. The family holds the almost unique distinction of never once having joined in rebellion against the crown. The gardens are pretty in the old-fashioned, somewhat formal, style. There are grass slopes and mounds, clipped hedges that form alleys leading nowhere, a broken sundial and what appears to be a fishpond. The demesne is noted for its rhododendrons. They have been planted along the bottom and up the precipitous sides of a little glen, so that as the visitor rounds the corner of the avenue, which forms the approach, the massed colour of countless blooms bursts suddenly on him from below, from right and left, and from terrace after terrace overhead. The dominant note is crimson, but other tints are represented from creamy white to lavender, heliotrope and purple. Near here, a little to the north of the rhododendron glen, is an old cromlech. It was originally formed in the usual way by several upright pillars supporting a horizontal slab, but has partially collapsed, so that the great roof-stone, many tons in weight, has half fallen from its perch and now has one end resting on the ground. These ancient monuments are believed to be prehistoric
tombstones, probably erected over 343
[The Story of Dublin] some great and revered chief. There are many of them in Ireland, and the peasantry, who call them “the beds of Diarmid and Grania,” tell a curious legend to account for their frequent appearance. Finn MacCool, the Irish Hercules, had a wife Grania, who, preferring good looks to muscle, eloped with the handsome youth Diarmid. The angry husband chased the pair through the length and breadth of Ireland. Wherever the fugitives stayed the night, Diarmid built one of these structures as a shelter for himself and his partner in guilt. From the castle to the village is but a few minutes’ walk. The salient features here are the old ruined abbey and the half-derelict harbour. The abbey is still used as a burying-place, and the gravestones are as thick within, as without, the broken aisles. At the eastern end there is a monument to the twentieth Lord Howth, who died in 1589. It is an oblong tomb, bearing on its upper side the recumbent effigies of the deceased noble and his wife, both dressed in the full costume of the period. The harbour, which is obviously artificial, was constructed at great expense to accommodate the cross-channel sailing packets. It cost ^”300,000, but was found unsuitable for its purpose. However George IV., the first English king to visit Ireland in peace, landed here. It is now used only by fishing-boats and an occasional yacht. The tramline which commenced nine miles back at Nelson’s Pillar terminates in Howth village. But the wild cliffs and expansive seascapes of the Head itself have been opened up by another line, which encircles the promontory in a long loop going from Howth railway station to Sutton. There are few such rides as this to be had in the United Kingdom, six miles along the top of precipices and beside rough heatherclad hills. As an
alternative to the tram ride round 344
the Head, a very fine cliff walk may be taken, beginning near the eastern end of the harbour and passing round the face of the cliffs from Howth village to the Bailey Lighthouse. About a quarter of an hour after leaving the former, the Puck Rock is passed, a projecting crag, which, from several points of view, has a distinct and unmistakable resemblance to a human face. Here again there is a legend to account for the natural phenomenon. Puck, or Phouka, is a mischievous, not to say malignant, Celtic sprite, whose name appears in Poulaphouca Waterfall on the upper Liffey and in the phrase * to play Puck,” meaning to throw into utter confusion. The good S. Nessan of Ireland’s Eye, while engaged on his task of illuminating the Gospel of Howth, was so plagued by this Puck that, in a burst of anger, he flung the sacred manuscript at his tormentor. The missile struck the irreverent goblin with such force that he was transfixed against the rock, where he remains to this day, “to point a moral and adorn a tale.” He is still vainly struggling to free himself, and hence his face appears turned upwards and contorted with pain and terror. At the station called “The Summit,” the tram reaches its highest point. Close to here is the peak, which is the loftiest elevation on Howth Head. Its crest is marked by a cairn of stones, erected, doubtless, to mark the grave of some warrior buried up on this height, that his spirit might still look out over the land and the people that had obeyed his sway, while he was yet in the flesh. The view from here is very fine. Dublin city and Dublin Bay seem a small working model of a port, where miniature ships slowly glide in and out. Beyond them is the great central plain of Ireland, reaching away to the horizon. North are the Mourne Mountains, in County Down, a dim line on the horizon, eastward the Irish Sea and, on clear days, 347
[The Story of Dublin] the mountains of Wales. To the south across the bay, which, viewed from this height, seems placid as a mill pond, the familiar ranges of Wicklow fill the sky. Just below the Summit station is the half-isolated rock called the Bailey, on which is perched one of the numerous lighthouses of the harbour. According to tradition a party of Danes fleeing from the “stricken field “of Clontarf turned desperately at bay on this, their last refuge, and held off their assailants until some Norse ship-captains, seeing their plight, put in to rescue their
fellow-countrymen.
SECTION XXI The South Shore of the Bay Blackrock, Monkstoivn, Kingstown, Dalkey, Killiney THE southern margin of Dublin Bay has been more built over than the northern. In the latter direction the suburbs cease definitely at Clontarf three miles out, in the former they extend along the whole nine miles, that lie between Nelson’s Pillar and Dalkey. Yet the beauty of the coastline is not spoilt, but rather enhanced, by the expansion of the city. The houses are not crowded, there is ample room for garden, shrubbery, park and pleasure-ground. Ever and anon the foliage parts or the villas stand away for a moment so as to give glimpses of the sea below, in summer a broad expanse of blue, flecked with white sails, and placid as an inland lake. As before, the top of the tram, that running to Dalkey, provides the best point of view. The town portion of the journey has mainly been described already. However there is an ancient pear tree at a house in Merrion Square North, which deserves some 348
The South Shore of the Bay notice both for its great age and the success with which it has adapted itself to an unfavourable environment. After passing the Botanic Gardens of Trinity College and the famous Show Yard of the Royal Dublin Society at Ballsbridge, the tram comes out on the seashore at Merrion, a village which gave its name to the fashionable square. Next is Booterstown, another hybrid of two languages. The first part is a corruption of the Irish bothair, a road. The name means “the town of the road,” the hamlet by the wayside, where cars pulled up in order to refresh man and beast. It is the usual halfway-house for those going to Kingstown, or Dalkey. Beyond Booterstown is Blackrock, which has lately risen into a fair-sized town. An ancient granite cross in the main street marks the old bounds of the jurisdiction of Dublin. At this spot, during the riding of the franchises, the mayor flung a dart into the water as a symbol of his right of admiralty. Thence the civic cavalcade rode off across country towards Donnybrook, where they went through further ceremonies. The mayors were incline! to neglect this triennial perambulation of the suburbs, but were kept to their duty by the murmuring of the commons. In the absence of documentary evidence, such as is now provided by maps and surveys, the rights of the city could only be asserted in this manner against the encroachments of neighbouring proprietors. The “franchises “were last “ridden “in the eighteenth century. On the right hand, before entering Blackrock, is Frascati, sometime the residence of Lord Edward and Pamela Fitzgerald. They were both much happier here than amid the gloomy mausoleum-like splendours of Leinster House. Pamela was a pretty and fascinating
little person, very much in love with her 349
[The Story of Dublin] husband. After several years of married life, when Lord Edward was flitting from house to house and town to town in pursuit of his schemes, she wrote him delightful letters, in which lively prattle of domestic happenings alternates with expressions of her loneliness and anxiety. The correspondence is pathetic in view of what the future had in store for both of them, for the high-spirited husband a prison and a violent death, for the vivacious wife poverty and shame. The dark rock formation, which gives the suburb its name, is visible from the shore. Monkstown succeeds to Blackrock. Here is a church of singular, not to say grotesque, architecture, adorned with curious little pinnacles, the rounded curves of which recall the familiar pawn at chess. About half a mile off the tramline to the right is Monkstown Castle, a picturesque and typical old Irish stronghold. Like Bullock Castle further down the coast, it was built by the monks of S. Mary’s Abbey to guard their estates in South County Dublin. In the old cemetery are buried the victims of perhaps the most disastrous wreck recorded in the annals of the bay. The cross-channel packet Prince of Wales sailing to Parkgate in Cheshire, and the transport Rochdale, carrying the 97th Foot, left Dublin all well, but, a terrible gale and snowstorm coming on, they failed to get clear of the harbour, lost their bearings completely, and, in the night, were driven on the rocks near Monkstown. Four hundred lives were lost, and an entire regiment disappeared for a time from the British Army List. In those days of dangerous sea travelling, the military forces of the crown were often destroyed in this way. In fact, one regiment, the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, bears as its motto ** Aucto Splendore Resurgam “in order to commemorate its
successful revival after such a misfortune.
The South Shore of the Bay After passing Monkstown and before reaching Kingstown proper, the little fishing cove of Dunleary may be seen. Formerly the whole town was known by the latter name, but assumed its present appellation on the visit of King George IV. Viewed from the sea Kingstown presents a pleasant aspect. There is a good deal of grassy slope to be seen, and the spires of a couple of churches supply just the necessary contrast to the long horizontal lines of the Town Hall and the
BULLOCK CASTLE.
other buildings of the front. The large artificial harbour here is formed by two great curving breakwaters, that stretch out into the bay like the fore claws of a lobster until they almost meet. The work was undertaken in order to save ships from the fate of the Rochdale and the Prince of Wales. It was to be an “Asylum Harbour “or, as we should now say, a harbour of refuge. Since steam has diminished the dangers of a lee shore, the haven is not so much frequented by ships in distress. Between Kingstown and Dalkey is another little cove, 35’
?be Story of Dublin called Bullock, probably from a rock of that name at its entrance. With two “Bulls” and a “Bullock,” Dublin Bay is surely bovine enough. The tiny harbour here was once considered important enough to deserve protection. A good-sized and well-preserved castle, evidently constructed for that purpose, still overlooks the little inlet. It dates from the twelfth century. The tram is now nearing the end of its journey, the remarkably romantic and picturesque village of Dalkey, perched over the sea on a rocky promontory, which divides the beautiful semicircle of Dublin Bay from the still more beautiful crescent of Killiney. The place was originally a Danish settlement as the -ey of its termination shows. Then, for a long period, it acted as the outport of Dublin, since ships, to which the shallow Liftey was closed, might cast anchor in the deep sound between Dalkey Island and the mainland. The fortifications were very strong, as they had need to be, for, what with hill caterans on one side and pirates on the other, the little town was literally “between the devil and the deep sea.” Two or three of the seven castles, which formerly guarded Dalkey, still remain, notably one in the main street, which is, somewhat incongruously, made to carry a large public clock. There are also the ruins of an ancient church, dedicated to S. Begnet. Off the coast is the little island of the same name as the township. It is associated with a freak of Dublin society in the past. A convivial party met here annually under the form of an independent monarchy and government. The president was hailed as “King of Dalkey, Emperor of the Muglins, Elector of Lambay and Ireland’s Eye, Defender of his own Faith and Respecter of all Others,” etc., etc. Fortunately for themselves the ministers of this little
The South Shore of the Bay state were not bound to reside permanently within their dominions. The fun was harmless enough for a while, but eventually the club became tinged with the United Irish principles, and was accordingly suppressed by the government. The Muglins referred to are a ridge of rocks to the north of the islet, where two notorious pirates were rnce hanged in chains for murder and robbery on the high seas. Our ancestors had a nice sense of the fitness of things. Marine criminals were exhibited at the entrances of harbours, just as highwaymen were left to swing at cross-roads. The ruffians whose remains were exposed on the Muglins had originally adorned the South Wall, but the citizens objected to their presence on a muchfrequented promenade. Their crime had been both daring and atrocious. Joining the crew of a treasure ship, they had, in midAtlantic, risen in arms, murdered the captain and the passengers, and made off in a boat with some 250 bags of dollars. Eventually they reached Waterford Harbour, where they buried most of their booty in the sand, until opportunity should offer for its removal. Howevel, they were soon arrested, put on trial in Dublin and executed at Stephen’s Green. The Maiden Rock, the most easterly of the chain of islets beyond Dalkey Island, is believed to take its name from some hapless girls who perished there, having been cut off by the tide while seeking “dilisk,” a kind of seaweed quite popular as an article of diet in Ireland. About a mile beyond the town, at Sorrento Point, is perhaps the most famous view to be found in all Ireland, a scene which seems the dream of some great landscape painter, too lovely to be real. The spectator looking south-east from his lofty post has before him the long, gradual curve of Killiney Bay, the vivid green of the Irish countryside and the deep blue of 2 353
[The Story of Dublin] the summer sea meeting and running side by side away into the remote distance, where the white specks, which are the houses of Bray, and the bold outlines of Bray Head terminate the picture. At a little distance inland are the mountains of Wicklow, ranged in a scries of groups, so as to form a picturesque background. The conical peak of the Sugarloaf and the beautiful long sweep of the coastline recall Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples. Sorrento Point and Vico Road get their names from the foreign resorts, to which they have often been likened. The road here becomes a cornice winding and undulating along the face of the gorseand heather-clad bluffs, which overhang the sea. After a mile of upand-down travelling, where the view at every turn is like a glimpse into fairyland, a gate is passed on the right, which gives access to Victoria Park, a half wild stretch of elevated woodland lately thrown open to the public. A winding path leads to the summit, which is cleared of trees and surmounted by an obelisk erected to provide employment for the poor in a season of distress. The inscription records this act of benevolence in a singularly quaint and laconic manner. *’ Last year being hard with the Poor, the Walls about these Hills and This, etc., erected by John Mapas, Esq., June 1742.” This peak is the southernmost of the three hills, which might fitly serve as the armorial bearings of Dalkey, so strongly do they dominate the little town. The rugged slopes around are dotted with villas perched in seemingly inaccessible situations, while higher up an occasional castle, fort or signal tower lifts its sentinel form against the skyline. Here again there is a magnificent panorama, not limited in any direction. Killiney Bay appears to the south-east, as it did from the road at
Sorrento. But here to the north-west is the great bay of Dublin, 354
The South Shore of the Bay invisible before. Due north across that bay is the great rock mass of Howth, while to the southward and nearer than we have ever seen them before, are the Dublin and Wicklow mountains, an endless succession of lofty summits, some wrapped in a mantle of cloud, others with the “soft sunlight sleeping on their green uplands” and forming the “picture rare” celebrated by the poetess. Beyond that great range is the garden county of Ireland, where beauty is lavished on every side, legend-haunted Glendalough with its dark, lonely valley, its seven ancient churches and its two lakes, the verdant vale of Ovoca, “in whose bosom the bright waters meet,” the tall waterfall of Powerscourt, the deep, wooded glen of the Dargle behind Bray. To the eastward roll the broad waters of the Irish Sea, gleaming like silver when they catch the glint of sunlight. Far away to the westward stretches the green, level plain, which is Ireland with all its tragic history and its deep-seated, devastating hatreds and prejudices, always an enigma, often a reproach to the staid and practical Saxons, with whom her lot has been for centuries bound up. Many a brave, warm heart and generous hand are to be found between here and distant Galway Bay, yet prosperity and contentment are slow in coming to this lovely land and lovable race.
355
GENERAL INDEX
A. Abbott monument, 140. Abductions, 101, 283. Adam and Eve Chapel, 270. Addispn, 279, 321, 323, 324. Adelaide Road, 328, 333. Agard monument, 135. Albemarle, Duchess of, 240. Aldborough House, 326. Allen, Archbishop, murder of, 56. All Hallows Monastery, 57, 155. Altham, Lord, 207. American War, depredations of privateers, 108; first battles of, 1 88; Declaration of Independence, 214. Amiens Street, 337. Andrew, S., church and statue of, 16, 204, 205. Anglesea Street, 206. peerage, romance of, 206-208. Ann, S., church of, 241, 242. Anne, Queen, portrait of, 199. Annesley, James, 207. Ardagh Chalice, 250. Arklow, 296. Arran Bridge and Quay, 84, 284. Quay Chapel, HI. Artane, 56. Artillery, the Royal Irish, 311. Ashtown, 310. Astrologers, 219, 220. Ath Cliath, 268. Audoen, S., church of, 219, 224-226, 282. Audoen’s Arch, 226. Aughrim Street, 320. Aungier Street, 257. Autonomy, Irish, struggle for, 93-126, 169-174.
B. Bacall-Iosa, or Staff of Jesus, 46, 57. Bachelors’ Walk, 275. Back Lane, 74, 114, 220.
B-\genal, Mabel, 67. Bagenal, Sir Henry, 67, 68. Baggot Street, 80. Baggptrath Castle, 80. Bagpipe, Irish, the, 250. Baile-Ath-Cliath, 2. Bailey, the, 348. Balbriggan, 296. Baldoyle, 296, 341. Baldwin, 161. Ballast Office, 100, 296, 297, 306, 307, 327Balloon ascent, 251. Ballsbridge, 173, 349. Ballybough, 9, 326. Bank of Ireland, no, 167, 174, 277. Barnewalls, the, 331. Barracks, Royal, 101, 285. Barrett, Jacky, 165. picture by, 254. Barrington, 209. Basilea, sister of Strongbow, 19, 21, 136. Basin Lane, 232. the city, 232. Battle Axe Guards, 178. Beaux’ Walk, the, 238. Bedford, Duke of, viceroy, 104. Beggarsbush, 336. Begnet, S., 352. Belfast, 168. Bellahoe, battle of, 57. Bells, mottoes on, 182. Belvedere House, 325. Earl and Countess of, 325. Beresford family, the, 115, 289, 302. Place, 302. Berkeley, Bishop, 157, 158. Bermingham Tower, 143, 147, 148. John De, 148. Bindings, Irish, 163, 192, 280. Bishop Street, 258. Black Church, the, 294. Monday, 23, 69, 334. rents, 32, 35, 36. Blackball Place, 84,
85, 284. Blackrock, 308, 349. Blake, Catherine, abduction of, 288. 357
Blessihgton, Lady, 295. Blood, Colonel, 87. Bloody Bridge, 84, 272. Bluecoat School, 85, 284, 285. “Bog butter,” 249. oak, 151. Bolton Street, 294. Bond, Oliver, 270. Booterstown, 349. Borlase, Lord-Justice, 78. “Botany Bay,” 162. Boyle, monument, 75, 184 Richard. Earl of Cork, 74, 184. Robert, 184. Boyne, battle of the, 91, 174. Brass money, 90, 264. Brasses, old, 189. Bray, 354. Brennan, picture by, 254. Breweries, encouragement of, 112. Brian Boru, 7-11. Bride, S., church of, 216, 219, 258. Street, 216. Bridgefoot Street, 271, 272. Bridge Street, 111,270, 320. Bridges, 36, 83/84, 266, 268, 271, 272. Bristol, colony from, 19, 21. Brodar, 9, 10. Browne, Archbishop, 56. Bruce, Edward, 30, 31, 147, 181. Robert. 30, 31. Brunswick Street, Great, 200. Bull Alley, 183. Ring, Mayor of the, 227, 267. Bullock Castle and Cove, 350, 352. Bulls, North and South, 298, 306, 338. Bully’s Acre, 193, 194. Burgh, Hussey, 170, 171. Burke, Edmund, at Trinity College, 158 , 161; founds Historical Society, 167; birthplace, 284. Thomas, murder of, 124,
312. Butlers, family of the, 34, 182. Byrne, Daniel, 267, 268.
C. Cadogan, William, 141. Canal, Grand, HI, 305, 328, 331, 335Royal, HI, 337. Capel Street, 276. Carew, or Carey, Sir G.,
168. Carey’s Hospital, 168.
Carlisle, or O’Connell, Bridge, 233, 287. . Carmelites, 227. Carolan, 187. “Case of Ireland,” 93. Casino, the, 337, 338. Castleknock, 30, 80, 203, 310. Castle, the, foundation of, 22-24; refusal to deliver up, 45; siege ofi 55; citizens sent to prison in, 62; combat in, 64, 145; O’Donnell’s escapes from, 65-7; plot tosurprise, 77; seized by Royalists, 81; Papists excluded from, 88; description and history, 142-154; nature of site, 270; abandonment by viceroys, 310, 311. Street, 213. Castles, architect, 290. Cathedral, Roman Catholic, 291. Catherine, S., church of, 230. Catholics, Roman, persecutions and petition of, 71; retire from Parliament, 72, 73; found a university, 74; riot in church of, 74; besiege Dublin, 79; emigration of, 85; penal laws against, 01, 95; freedom of worship permitted to, 103; removal of disabilities, 114, 120; alliance with United Irishmen, 114; appointed to offices in Trinity College, 156, 157; Committee of, 104, 114, 220. Cavendish, Lord Frederick, murder of, 124, 312. Celtic crosses, 187, 193, 248. Chaloner, Luke, 155, 162. Chamber Street, 261. Chapelizod, 311, 314, 316, 317. Chapel Royal, 151. Charlemont House, 293, 294. Lord, 113, 337. Charles I., 73, 79. II., 141, 195, 199,244. Cheshiremen, reunion of, 216. Chesterfield, Earl of, viceroy, 103, 146, 314. Chichester House, 168, 169. Sir A., 168. Cholera, I2r, 194. Christ Church Cathedral, foundation of, 1 1; building of, 20; archiepiscopal objections to, 27; damage to fabric, 46, 61; coronation of Lambert Simnel, 48; changes at Reformation, 57; Strafford’s reforms, 76; description and
history,
358
General Index
128-142; relations with S. Patrick’s, 179, 181; enclosure around, 22 c. Christ Church Place, 213-215, 219. Church Lane, 204. Street, 280. Churches, number of, in old Dublin, 219. Cipriani, 199. Circular Road, North, 319, 324; South, 193, 203, 328, 329, 333. City Hall, 113, 211, 269. Quay, 297. Clare, Lord, 158. Clarence, George of, 44. Lionel of, 35. Clifford, Sir C., 188. Clondalkin Round Tower, 328-330. Clontarf, 56, 120, 298, 326. battle of, 9-11, 268. Green Lanes of, 338. Coats, astrologer, 220. Cockle Lake, 307. Coghill, Marmaduke, 324. Coinage, 28. College Green, 33, 83, 98, 200-206, 280, 287. Colton, Dean, 35. Commercial Buildings, 210, 301. restrictions, the, 93, 96, 108, 109. Commons, House of, 162, 178, 313. Commonwealth, mutiny during, 204. Comyn, Archbishop, 27, 181. Confiscations, 168, 210, 257. Cong, Cross of, 250. Conn of the Hundred Battles, 2. Conquer Hill, 338. Cook Street, 227. Coombe, the, 261-263. Cork, Earl of, 74, 184. Hill, 83, 143, 211. Cornmarket, 227, 228, 230. Corr Castle, 342 Corry, duel with Grattan, 173. Cosgrave monument, 224. Couple-Beggars, 227. “Coved “roofs, 285, 290, 292. Crampton Court, 210, 211. Crawford, 210. Creed, 240. Cromlech, 343. Cromwell, Oliver, 80, 81, 306. Henry, 311. Crow Street, theatre in, 208-210, 217, 266. Cullenswood, 23, 333, 334. Curran, Philpot, 170,
187, 331.
gated to Oxmantown, 21; ThingMount, 204; rarely erected stone buildings, 282 : take Clondalkin,
Curran, Sarah, 117. Custom House, new, no, 302; old, 71, 211, 252. Cutpurse Row, 230.
D. Dalkey, 55, 296, 309, 352, 353. Daly’s Club, 205, 206, 246, 313. Dame Gate, 211, 218. Street, 83, 201, 208, 286, 287. Danes, first settlement of, 3; raids and campaigns of, 3-17; become Christians, 7, n; ecclesiastical foundations by, n; their power broken, 10; become Hibernicised, 12; end of their rule, 17; rele
330; place names given by, 340, 352. Dargle, the, 355.Da vies, Sir J., 72. Davis, Thomas, 120. Davys, 320. Dawson, Joshua, 243. Street, 99, 239-244. De Bicknor, Archbishop, 43. De Burgh, Richard, 31. Burghs, become Hibernicised, 34Cogan, Miles, 15-18, 218. Courcy, 2!. Gaveston, 29. Gray, 24. Lacy, 19, 22. Vere, 36. Death masks, 253. Decay, arrest of, at S. Michan’s, 283. Delany, Dr, 161, 321. Delville, 321, 322. Denmark Street, Great, 325. Desmond, Earl of, 45. “Devil’s Half Acre,” the, 148. “Diarmidand Grania, beds of,” 344. Dillon, Gary, 86. Dirty Lane, 271. Dodder, the, 2, 305, 306, 332. Doggett, 213. D’Olier Street, 89, 287, 298. Dollymount,
338. Dolphin’s Barn, 28, 331. Doininick Street, 99, 294. Donatus, Bishop, 128.
359
General Index
Donnybrook, 23, 335, 336. Dorset Street, 99, 294. Dowdall, Archbishop, 57. Drapier Letters, 98, 214. Drimnagh Castle, 331. Drogheda, massacre at, 80. Street, 288. Drumcondra, 9, 324. Dubh-Gaill, 5, 9. Dublin, derivation of name, i; first settlement at, 3; capture by Normans, 15; colonised from Bristol, 19; prominence of religious element in, 24, 219; formation of county, 27; coinage struck at, 28; water supply, 28, 123; joins Confederation of Irish towns, 29; sieges and attempts on, 15-18, 30, 31, 55, 79; famine, pestilence, and fanaticism at, 33; Parliament held at, 33; grant for walls and paving, 36; exploits of citizens, 41, 61; sword and title of mayor granted, 41; pirates, 42; university at, 44; Reformation reaches, 56; primacy transferred to, from Armagh, 57; Protestant refugees at, 58; prosperity of, 70; Parliament held at, for all Ireland, 72; claims immunity from maintenance of soldiers, 75; sends a member to Parliament of the three kingdoms, 81; expansion of, 82, 99; panic in, 89; lighting system, 92; Parliamentary struggle in, 98; exhibitions at, 121; abandonment of old town, 123; old street markets, 179; small size of old city, 221; peaty soil under, 269; operations of Wide Streets Commissioners, 287. Fusiliers, 126, 199, 295. Society, Royal, 99, 141, 210, 247. 321. 349Duels, 312. D’Ufford, Raoul, 34. Dunawley, 330. Dunleary, 251, 351. Dwyer, Michael, 333.
E. Earl Street, North, 288. Edward VI.,
183. VII., 126. Edwin, John, actor, 217.
Elizabeth, Queen, 59, 61, 68, 155. Ellis’s Quay, 284. Ely, Lord-Justice, 74. Emmet, Robert, 116, 117, 158, 229, 230, 284. English, Buck, 2o5. Essex, Viceroy, 68, 84. or Grattan Bridge, 84, 265-7. Street. West, 265. Eustace Street, 210. Everard, Sir John, 72. Exchange, Royal, 113, 211. Exchequer,
144, 222, 256.
F. Faction Fights, 101, 278. Fairview, 337. Fenians, the, 122. Fifteen Acres, the, 3:2. Finachty, Father, 219. Fingal, 9. Finglas, 80. Finn-Gaill, 5, 9. Fire engines, primitive, 216. Fishamble Street, 99, 107, 214. Fisher, Sir Edward, 311. Fitzgerald, Lord Edward, 115, 217, 229, 272, 349, 350. Pamela, 272, 349, 350. Fitzhenry, Meiller, 143. Fitzstephen, Robert, 14, 20. Fitzwilliam, Earl, viceroy, 115. Fleet Street, 287. Flood, 170, 292. Foundling Hospital, 100. Four Courts, new, no, 264, 270, 278; old, 221, 222; origin of name, 222. Fownes Street, 208. Francis Street, 250. Frascati, 349. Freeman’s Journal, 106, 227. French Protestants, 189. Revolution, effects of, 114. Furniture, old
Dublin, 250, 275. Furry Glen, 314. Fyche, Dean, brass of, 189.
G. Gaelic manuscripts, 242. Gardiner Street
Church, 326. “Garrick fever,” the, 265.
360
General Index
George I., II., and III., Kings, statues of, 243, 238, 177. IV., visit of, 243, 344, 351; portrait, 244. of Denmark, Prince, 199. S., honours paid to, 256; fraternity of, 44, 49, 256; church of, 325George’s Street, South Great, 256, 257Geraldine family, foundation of, 22; feuds with Butlers, 34, 44, 182; punished by Poynings, 50; ruin of, 56; monuments and town house of, 216, 217, 246. Gibbons, Grinling, 199, 203. Giraldus, Cambrensis, 148, 328. Glasnevin village and cemetery, 320-324. Glass, old Irish. 251. Glassmanogue, 61. Glendalough, 15, 65, 341, 335. Glenmalure, 66. Glenmama, 8. Glunduff, Niall, 6. Goldsmith, Oliver, as student at Trinity College, 158, 166. “Goose Pie,’’ the, 169. Gorge, Nicholas, 188. “Graces,” the, 73. Grafton Street, 233, 234. Granby Row, 294. Grania, 344. Granuaile, 342. Grattan, Henry, enters Parliament, 107; obtains independence and freedom of trade, ioS, 109 : waning of his influence, 112; speeches of, 170-173, 284; duel with Corry, 173; statue of, 202; birthplace, 2’5or Essex Bridge, 265-267. Great Britain Street, 99. Green, 156. Grey, Lord, viceroy, 46. Guinness family, 183, 238. Guinness’s
Brewery, 112, 231.
H. Half-Moon Battery, 308. Hamilton, Sir William, 295. Handel, 214, 237. Harcourt Street, nr, Harold’s Cross, 117, 331. Harrington Street, 328, 333.
Haverty, picture by, 254. “Hell,” 222. Hellfire Club, 100, 206, 240, 252, 39Helsham, 32r. Hemans, Mrs, 239, 242. Henrietta Street, 295. Henry II., 14, 16; visit of, 19. VIII. .accession of, 53; assumes title of King of Ireland, 57; confiscation by, 183. Henry of London, Archbishop, 24, 27, 28. Street, 288. Hervey, Frederick, Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Londonderry, 112. Hibernian Marine Society, 305. Military School, 316. Hibernicising of colonists, 35. Higgins, Francis, 340. High Cross, 221. Street, 222-224, 286. Highwaymen, 324. Hill Street, 325. Historical Society, 167. Hoey’s Court, 217 Hoggen Green, 200, 243 “Hole in the Wall,” the, 319. Holyhead, packet service with, 112. Hone, Nathaniel, pictures by, 233. Hooker, 145. Hoppner, portrait by, 161 Horse Show, 100, 349. Hospitallers at Kilmainham, 33, 43, 45, 46, 194, 19-,, 200. Howth, 55, 307, 308, 338, 341-348; abbey and castles at, 342, 344. Lords of, 62, 342, 344. Huguenots, 89, 189, 261. Hurling, game of, 334. Hutchinson, Hely, 165, 170. I. Illuminated manuscripts, 163, 279. Inchiquin, Lord, 170. Infirmary Road, 319. Inniskilling Dragoons and Fusiliers, 196. Ireland, Henry VIII. assumes title “King” of, 57. Ireland’s Eye, 6, 340, 347. Irish Academy, Royal, no, 242. Brigade in French service, 187, 188. Guards, Royal
Regiment of, 226. 361
General Index
Irish language, books and manuscripts in, 242, 271. regiments, colours of, 184. Royal, the, 187, 188. rishtown, n, 299. slandbridge, 327, 328. solde, 316, 317. veagh. Lord, 183. zod’s Tower, 317. JJackson, trial and suicide, 114, 115 James I., 71, 155. James II. in Ireland, 88-91; proceedings at Christ Church, 139; statue and tapestry, 141, 174; reply of, 156. James’s Gate and Street, 8^, 231. John, Prince, afterwards King, 22, 27. S., Church of, 215, 216, 219. the Mad, 16, 17, 211. Johnson, Esther. See Stella. Johnston’s Court, 234. Jones, Archbishop, monument of, 187. Elizabeth, penance by, 166. Michael, 79, 332. Paul, 108. theatrical manager, 210. Justice, Courts of, held in Castle, 144. K. Kauffmann, Angelica, 146. Keating, Prior, 46, 48. Kells, Book of, 163. Kevin, S., parish of, 258. Street, 258. Kilbarrack, 340. Kildare, Earls of, 54, 104, 241, 246; monument of, 135. the great Earl of, viceroy, 47; crowns Simnel, 48; is pardoned, 48; accused of treason, 50; attempts to conciliate Ormonds, 50; death of, 54. Street, 245 Kilkenny, confederation of, 78; Statute of, 35. Killiney, 353, 354. Kilmainham, 9, 55, 144, 328. See also
Hospitallers. “Kilmainham minuet,” 229.
Kilmainham Priory, 310, 311. Kilmashogue, 6. Kilwarden, Lord, murder of, 117, 230. King Street, South, 234. King’s County, 61; King’s House, 311; King’s Hospital, 284, 285; King’s Inns, 295. Kingstown, 251, 351. Kinsale, battle of, 69, 163. Kirk, sculpture by, 140. Knockdoe,
battle of, 50. Knockmaroon, 310, 315.
Lambay Island, 42, 340, 341. Land agitation, 124. Latouche, bank of, 89, 213. Laud, Archbishop, 75, 76, 139, 193. Le Decer, 29. Le Fanu, 254. “Legion Club,” the, 169, 321. Leinster, Dukes of, 246, 251, 255. House and Lawn, 217, 246, 247, 251, 255, 290. market, 298. Leixlip, 315, 316. Lely, Sir Peter, portrait by, 24 4. Lever, novelist, birthplace of, 337. Liberty Boys, the, 101, 161. Library, National, 126, 247. Liffey, runs dry, 46; upper reaches of, 315, 316. Lighting system, 92. Linen Hall, 100, 295. Little John, 269. Loftus, 155, 332. Londonderry, tapestry depicting relief of, 174. “Long Stone,” the, 296, 299. Lord Edward Street, 212. Lords. House of, 174-178, 244, 280. Lotteries, 233, 234. Lotts, and Letts Road, South, 327. Lover, Samuei, 187. Lucan, 315, 316. Lucas, 103-107, 170, 212. Lumbard, John, inscription to, 135. Lurgan Street, 295. M. MacCarthy, Father, 157. MacCool,
Finn, 344. MacGille Mocholmog, 16.
362
General Index
Maclise, picture by, 251. MacMahon, 77. MacMurrough, Art, claims of, 35; submits to Richard II., and receives knighthood, 30, 40; revolt of, 40. 41. Dermot, King of Leinster, 12, 13; abduction by, 14; banishment and return of, 14; marries his daughter to Strongbow, 15; death of, 15, 16. Eva, 15, 133. MacNally, Leonard, 114. Macnamara, 240. MacThorkil, Hasculf, 12-17, Hamund, 279. Magazine Fort, 311, 317. Maiden Rock, 353. Maignend, S. , 194. Mailmora. 8. Malachi II., King of Ireland, 7, 8. King of Meath, 4. Malahide Road, 337. Malone, 104. monument, 225. Malpas, Sir John, 31. Malton, views by, 252. Mangan, 212. Manor Street, 320. Mansion House, 243, 244. Mapas obelisk, 354. Marino, 337. Mark, S., church of, 299. Market Cross, 166 Marlborough Street, 289. Marsh, Archbishop, 199; library founded by, 192. Marshalsea Lane and Prison, 116, 146, 229, 230. Martello Towers, 299. Mary, Queen, wife of William III., 199. S., church of. 289. and Little Mary Streets, 277, 289. Mary’s Abbey, S., foundation of, ii; arrests of De Burgh and Ormond in, 31, 4_2; Silken Thomas renounces allegiance at, 55, 277; position of, 83; Bank of Ireland set up in, up; stones of, used for Essex Bridge, 267; description of remains, 276, 277 : pos c essions in South County Dublin, 350. Mathew, 239, 240. Mayor and Corporation,
charter of city, 19, 212; title of mayor intro
duced, 41; sword presented to city, 41; title of Lord Mayor introduced, 82; pews of, 136; receptions and entertainments by, 201, 223, 243; antiquities in possession of, 212; “riding the franchises” by, 320, 349. Meath Street Chapel, in. Mendicity Institution, 271. Mercer’s Hospital, 100, 214, 234, 237Merchants’ Quay, 268-270. Merrion Square and Street, 99, nr, 254. 2 SS, 348. “Messiah,’ the, performance of, 99, 214. Michael, S., church of, 219. and John, SS. , church of, 266. Michael’s Hill, S., 220. Michan, S., church of, foundation of, ii; site of, 83, 275; description of building and vaults, 280-284. Minot, Archbishop, 181, 182. Mint, 144. Mogh, King of Munster, 2. Moira House, 271, 272. Molesworth Street and Court, 214, 240, 241, 246. Molyneux, William, 93, 225, 258. Monasterboice, cross of, 248, 249. Monkstown, 308, 350. Monro, 79. Montagu, Lord, 240. Montpellier Hill, 309. Moore, Dr, 157. Thomas, 117, 138, 158, 234, 257. Street, 288. Morality play, 280. Mortimer, Roger, 40. Mosse, Dr, 291. Mount Brown, 233. Mountains, Dublin and Wicklo*, 308, 309. Mountjoy, Viceroy, 69. Square, 325. Muglins, the. 353. Mulready, picture
by. 254. Murrough, son of Brian Boru, 8, 9 194. Museum, 126, 247-251.
N. Nanny Water, 296. Nassau Street, 205,
244, 245.
363
General Index
National Gallery, 121, 247, 251-254. Nationalist party, 118, 124, 125. Nessan, S. , 340, 347. Netterville, Lady, 288. Newcomen’s Bank, 213. Newgate, 56, 217, 228, 229. Nicholas Within and Without, SS., churches of, 189, 219. Street, 219, 220. Normans, landing of, 14. North Strand Road, 327. Wall, 297, 327. Northland House, 242. Northumberland, Earl of, 244. Road,
336.
O. O’Brien of Munster, 35, 40. O’ Byrne, Fiach Mac Hugh, 66, 68 O’Byrnes, clan of the, defeat Dubliners, 23; activity of, 64; O’Donnell escapes to, 66; suppression of, 68; attempt on the Castle, 77; raid on the Exchequer, 256; road built to curb, O’Connell, Daniel. 119-121; residence of, 254;; will of, 279; grave of, 321. Monument, 286, 287. or Carlisle Bridge, 67, 265, 287 O’Connolly, 77, 78. O’Connor, Roderick, King of Ireland, marches against MacMurrough, 14; besieges Dublin and is defeated, 17,18; daughter marries De Lacy, 22. O’Connors, clan of, chief knighted, 40; judicial combat between tribesmen of, 64, 145. O’Donnell, Owen Roe, kidnapping of, 65; escapes from Dublin Castle, 65-67, 152; campaigns of, 68, 69, 188; agreement relating to, 279. Olaf the White, 5-7, 330. O’M alley, Grace, 342. O’Moores, clan of the, 68, 77. O’Neill, Art and Henry, 66; Owen Roe, 79, 141; Phelim, 77, 79, 141. clan, chiefs of, 39, 40, 61, 63. See also under Tyrone, Earl of. Orange toast, 264. Ormond Boys, 101, 166. Bridge, 84; Quay, 166, 278. family, members
of, 42, 48, 364
5. S3> 54i *6 2 i J 82; feuds with Geraldines, 34; become Protestants, 60; memorials of, 289. the great Duke of, encounter with Strafford, 78; thrice LordLieutenant, 78, 82, 88; leaves Ireland, 79; returns and besieges Dublin, 79, 332; superseded, 86; Blood’s attempt on life of, 87; portrait, 109; founder of north city and Phoenix Park, 83, 275278, 311. O’Rourke, Ternan, 14, 18. O’Toole, Adam Duff, 33. S. Lawrence, Archbishop, negotiates surrender of Dublin, 15; organises confederation of Irish, 17; submits to Henry II., 19; shares in foundation of Christ Church, 20; memorials of, 135, 136. O’Tooles, clan of the, 23; allied to Silken Thomas, 55; O’Donnell flies to, 65; road built to curb, 333. “Ouzel Galley” Society, 300, 301. Ovoca, Vale of, 138, 355. Oxmantown, 21, 83-85, 269, 278, 285. P. Pack, 240. Pale, the, 41, 49 Paps, the, 309. Parkgate Street, 319. Parliament, first holding of, 3?; stormy meeting of, 72; struggle for independence, 97-116: held in the Castle, 144; in Bluecoat School, 285; at Baldoyle, 341; parish church of, 205. House, building of, 102; mob burst into, 170; admission of Trinity students to, 158; description and history, 167-178; benches from, 232; Speaker’s Chair, 247. Parliament Street and Square, 157, 158, 265. Parnell, 125, 126, 321. Parsons, Sir William, Lord-Justice, 78. _ “Patriots, the, 102. Patrick, S., journeys of, 2, 3,320; statue of, 100; holy well of, 181, 245; Knights of, 184. Cathedral of, foundation of church, 3. 27; becomes a cathedral, 27; during Bruce wars, 31; rebuilding of, 36; college in, 4;
General Index
riot in, 50; position of, 83; consecration of twelve bishops in, 86; Trinity College procession to, 161; description and history of, 179193; well near, 245. Patrick’s Hall, S., 146. Hospital, 231, 232. Well Lane, S., 244. Peep o’ Day Boys, 253. Penances, public, 281, 282. Fender, Margrett, 279. Penny post, HI. People’s gardens, 312, 319. Perrott, Sir John, viceroy, 63, 64, 67, 183. Peter, S., church of, 219, 258. Street, 258. Petty, Sir William, 210, 220, 257 Phoenix Park, formation of, 85, 210; description and history, 310-318. Phcenix House, 311. Monument, 313, 314. Physicians, College of, 205, 257. Pigeonhouse Fort, 1 16, 306. Pirates, 42, 307, 341, 352, 353. Pitt, William, 115, 172-300. Plantations, 76, 168. Plays at College Green, 201, 280. Plumes, Pass of the, 68. Poddle River, 152, 153, 180, 181, 261. Police of Dublin, 113, 288, 335. Pool Street, 261. Poolbeg, 307. Port, the, description and history of, 296-310. Portland Row, 326. Portlester monument, 224. Portobello Harbour, 335. Poulaphouca, 347. Powerscourt House, 237. Waterfall, 254, 355. Poynings, Sir Edward, Viceroy, 49. Poynings’ Law, agitation against, 107; repeal of, 171. Prendergast, 14. Sir Thomas, 170. Presbyterians, 79, 86, 92. Preston, 79. Primate’s Hill, 295. Prince of Wales, wreck of, 350, 351. Prior, Thomas, 141. Protestants, refugees in Dublin, 58; synod of, 73; domination of, 91, 95; Episcopal
Church disestablished, 122. Puck Rock, 347. Purcell, 207.
QQuakers, 92. Quarantine, 339. Quays, 85, 264-286, 297, 298, 300, 35Queen’s Co., 61. R. Ranelagh, 333, 334. “Rath” in place names, meaning of, 332Rathfarnham village and castle, 331, 332Rathgar, 331, 332. Rathmines, 80, 123, 331, 332. Raymond le Gros, 15, 19, 20, 21. Receivers-General, 279. Record Tower, 143, 144, 148, 151i53i 182. Office, Public, 278-280. Reformation, the, 56, 57; resistance to, at S. Patrick’s, 183. Requests, Court of, 178. Restoration, the, 81, 82. Reynolds, Sir Joshua, portrait by, 244. Rhododendron Glen, 343. Rialto Bridge, 331. Richard II., 36, 39, 40. Richmond Bridge, 267. “Riding the franchises, 1 320, 349. Ringsend, 80, 100, 298, 305, 327. Riots, 54, 74, io>-., 221. Rochdale, wreck of, 350, 351. Roe, Mr, restoration of Christ Church by, 142. Rogerson, Sir John, quay built by, 2 97. 35Romney, portrait by, 244. Rosse, Earl of, 240, 241. Rothwell, picture by, 254. Rotunda Hospital, no, 291. , Round Room of, 113, 292. Round Towers, building of, 17; date and purpose of erection, 328, 329. Royal Hospital, 85, 320; description and history, 193-200. Rutland, Duke of, viceroy, 178, 266. Fountain, 255. Square, 292. S. Sackville
Street, 286 288. Saggard, 42.
365
General Index
Salmon Leap, 316. Sandford, Fulk de, Archbishop, monument of, 189. Sandymount, 298, 299, 308. Santry, Lord, trial of, 177. Sarsfield family, the, 62, 71, 223. Patrick, General, 174, 223, 316. Patrick, Lord Mayor, 223. Scalp, the, 309. Schomberg, 90, 91; depicted on tapestry, 174; epitaph on, 189. Scottish invasions, 30, 31, 79. Sepulchre, S., palace of, 27, 258. “Sham Squire,” the, 340. Shaw’s Court, 210. Sheares, the brothers, 284. Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 234, 294. Thomas, 266. Ship Street, 56, 153, 213. Shirley James, dramatist, 76, 218, 219. Shovel, Sir Cloudesley, 307. Shropshire Light Infantry, the King’s, 350. Sidecar, origin of, 275, 276. Sidney, Sir Henry, 61, 62, 139. Thomas, 188. Silken Thomas, rebellion of, 54, 277; besieges Dublin, 55, defeat and death of, 56, 228; place of imprisonment, 152. Silver, old Irish. 251. Simmonscourt Castle, 336. Simnel, Lambert, 48, 138, 201. Sirr, Major, 117, 212, 217, 229, 272. Sitric, King of Dublin, 8, 9. Sitric III., n, 128. “Sixth of George I.,” Act known as, passing of, 97; agitation against, 107, 169; repeal of, 171. Skinner’s AHey, 248, 263. Skinners’ Row, 214. Smock Alley theatre, 209, 265, 266. Smugglers, 341. Snakes, legend as to banishment of, 218. Sneyd monument, 140. Sorrento Point, 353, 354. South Wall, the, 298, 306, 307, 353. Spanish Armada, 146. Invasion, 69. Speaker, the, 178; chair of, 247. Spenser, the poet, 279. St Lawrences, the, Lords of Howth, 342. St Leger, or Sentleger,
Sir Anthony, 3 66
viceroy, 57; monument to wife of, 1 88. “St Patrick for Ireland,” old play called, 218. “Standfast Dick,” 260. State Paper Office, 151, 152. Stearne, Dr, 205. Steevens” Hospital, 100, 272-275. Madame, 273. Stella, relations with Swift, 190, 191; will of, 279. Stephen’s Green, formation of, 8c~, 83; laid out as a park, 124; description, 237-239; executions at, 353Stephens, capture and escape of, 122. Stevenson, Sir John, 138. Stocks, 141. Stonybatter, 320. Strafford, Karl of, viceroy, 74-76, 139, 141, 166, 187, 218, 219. Strong, Kate, 231. Strongbow, allied to Dermot MacMurrough, 14, 15; takes Waterford and Dublin, 15; marries Eva, 15, 251; besieged by Danes and Irish, 16, 19; becomes viceroy, 19; helps to found Christ Church, 20; tomb of, and legend as to murder of his son, 137, 138; grant by, 279. Suffolk Street, 233. Sugarloaf, 309, 354. Surgeons, College of, no. button brass, 189. isthmus of, 340. Swift, Jonathan, remark on Irish bishops, 97; writes Drapier letters, 97, 98; friend of Dr Delany, 161, 321; portrait of, 161; as student at Trinity College, 157, 167; writes Legion Club, 169, 321; as Dean of S. Patrick’s, 183, 187, 189; relations with Stella and Vanessa, 190, 191; death, 192; annotations by, 192; birthplace, 217; hospital or asylum founded by, 231; influence over weavers, 262; will of, 279; epigram on Magazine Fort, 318; at Delville, 321, 322. T. Talbot, Peter, Archbishop, 88. Talbot, Sir John,
viceroy, 42. Street, 337. Tallaght, 42, 122.
General Index
Tapestry, 174. Templeogue, 232. Terenure, 333. Thing-Mount, 204. Tholsel, 83, 141, 212, 221, 232, 267. Thomas, S., church of, 291. Street, 30, 115, 117, 229-231, 278, 279, 286. Thorkils or Turgesius, 4. Three Rock Mountain, 65, 309. Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, viceroy, Titian, picture by, 253. Tolka, 2, 9, 337. Tolls, system of, 231. “Tomar’s Wood,” 10, 338. Tores, 249. _ Tories, origin of name, 77. “Tottenham in his boots,” 102. Townshend, Lord, viceroy, 107. Tregury, Archbishop, monument of, 189. Trevor, Miss, picture by, 254. Trinity Boys, 166, 203, 266. College, founding of, 67; reconstituted by Laud, 76; use of by James II., 90; building of Library Square, 92; Provost’s House, no; description and history, 154-167; offshoot of, 205; picture of old buildings, 252; Botanic Gardens of, 349. Hall and Street, 205. Tristan and Isolde, 317. Tristram, Amory, 342. Turlehydes, 33. Two Rock Mountain, 309. Tyrconnell, Earl of, viceroy, 88, 156, 195, 284. Tyrone, Owen Roe O’Neill, Earl of, marries Mabel Bagenal, 67; allied to O’Donnell, 67; campaigns and defeat of, 68, 69;
signature of, 279. House, 289, 290.
U. Union, first mooted, 96; riots, 104; carried, 116, 172; effects of, 118; attempts to repeal, 120. United Irishmen, 114-117, 153. University, early attempts to found, 44, 183; of Dublin, 155; Royal, 123.
Uppercross Fusiliers, 203.
Ussher, James, 73, 155, 158, 163, 271; John,
271; Sir William, 271. Ussher s Quay and Island, 271.
V. Van Der Heist, picture by, 253. Vanessa, 92, 191. Vanhomrigh, Bartholomew, 92 , Esther, 92, 191. Vartry Water, 123, 233. Venus Library, 294. Viceregal Lodge, 311, 312, 319. Viceroys, first appointment of, 19; ecclesiastics as, 24; unable to cope with Geraldines, 34; ability of, during Tudor period, 49; nonresident, 96; move from Castle to Kilmainham, 144, 310; entertainments by, 147; reside in Phoenix Park, 311, 312. Vico Road, 354. Victoria Park, 354. Queen, visits of, 121, 126. Vincent’s Hospital, St, 239. Violante, Madame, 257, 291. Volunteers, the, formation and successes of, 108, 109; breaking up of, 112, 113; relations with Parliament, 171, 172; reviews of, 203; Convention of, 292; picture of, 252. V Walker, George, 174. Waller, Sir Hardress, 81. Walsh, Father, 219. Warbeck, Perkin, 49. Wardrobe Tower, 148. Ware, Sir James, 213. Water supply, 28, 232, 328, 335. Watling Street, 272. Weaver Square, 261. Weavers, 71, 261-263; hall of, 261. Wellington, Duke of, 120, 255, 279, 318. Wesley, John, 228, 271. Westmoreland, Earl of, viceroy, 244. Street, 140, 174, 286, 287, 298. Werburgh, S., church of, 216, 217, 219. Street, 17,
76, 215-219. Whalcy, Buck, 238, 239. Whalley, astrologer, 220.
367
General Index
Wharton, viceroy, 323. Wheatley, picture by, 252. Whitney, Squire, 268. Whitworth, Earl, viceroy, 151. Whyte, Samuel, 234. Wide Streets Commissioners, 287, 298. Wilder, Dr, 166. Wilkie, picture by, 253. William III., campaigns of, 90 0.3; treasure chests of, 177; portraits and statues, 174, 199, 203, 204, 244, 245; toast to memory of, 264. Street, South,
237. Window tax, 302. Windsor, William de, viceroy, 341.
Winetavern Street, 139, 267, 268. Witchcraft trials, 33. Woffington, Peg, 209, 257. Wolfe, Charles, 190. Tone, 114-116, 224. Wood Quay, 267. Wood’s halfpence, 97, 98. Wrecks, 339, 350, 351. Wren, Sir Christopher, 194. Y. Yellow Ford, battle of, 68. York, Richard, Duke of, as
viceroy, 43. 44“Young Ireland,” 120,121.
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