Clontarf, North Bull, Sutton, Howth.

SECTION XX

The North Shore of the Bay - Clontarf, 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 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’MaIley 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 little pleasure-house.

Since Charlemont’ s time so many tenants, most of them poor, have occupied the Casino, [here’s another article and illustration. KF] 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 overseas, 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 by-paths, 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 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 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.

Recesses in the mountains like Glendalough, or storm-beaten 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 sea-birds. 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 Perrers, 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 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 Strong-bow, 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 Howth in the in expectation of the hospitality, which was then 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 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 (pictured below) 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.

Howth Abbey.jpg (108235 bytes)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 heather-clad hills.

As an alternative to the train ride round 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 a 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, 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.

To Chapter 21. To Chart Index.