The Castle

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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 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. (Pictured, below, is the Record Tower and Chapel Royal).

dublincastle1.gif (25524 bytes)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 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 16th and 17th 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 18th 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 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 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 200 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 1688. 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 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 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 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 10 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 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 effective 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 old-fashioned 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 sentence. All who have studied the history of that period must pity the high-spirited young dreamers who led 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, laved the walls of the Castle here, and was spanned by a bridge, upon which Owen 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. This is a part of the old city wall of Dublin, erected in the 13th century and often hastily repaired in time of stress. It seems to have had projecting bastions, pentagonal in shape, at intervals along its front.

To Chapter 3. To Chart Index