Nassau and Kildare Streets, Museum, Gallery and Merrion Square

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 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 17th 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, 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, 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 lord mayor to its right. The regalia of the Aldermen of Skinner’s Alley, a political and convivial society which travestied the Corporation, is, perhaps, more magnificent still.

Monasterboice1.gif (25045 bytes)The great Celtic crosses of Monasterboice (pictured on left) and elsewhere, reproduced in their actual dimensions, form a 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, which 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 torcs 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, 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. 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 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. Although 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, whence 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 of death and desolation around. 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. 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.

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, 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 XI., 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 persecutors 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 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 the 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.

To Chapter 12. To Chart List.