General history of Dalkey

***Dalkey, County of Dublin

(From - The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 11, No. 83. Feb. 15, November 21, 1834)*

The Island of Dalkey, of which the foregoing is a view taken from Bullock, is divided from the mainland by a channel called Dalkey Sound, in which ships may safely ride anchor in eight fathoms of water, sheltered by the island from the north-east wind, to which every other part of Dublin Bay lies exposed.

This island is said to contain 18 acres, and, although covered with rocks, is esteemed an excellent pasturage for cattle of all kinds. It his curious to see the people conveying black cattle hither from the mainland. They fasten one end of a rope about the beast’s horns, and then tie the other end to the stern of a boat, which is pulled with oars in the direction of the island. By this means they drag the animal into the sea, and force it to swim after the boat across the sound, a distance of about a quarter of a mile.

dalkey4.gif (19749 bytes)Besides good pasturage, Dalkey island produces some medicinal plants, and there is a ruin on it, said to be that of a church, but (the belfry excepted) no lineament survives that would induce a person to suppose it the remains of a place of worship. I much doubt its having ever been used for one. The side of the structure where some traces of an altar might be sought for, presents no such appearance; but, on the contrary, a fire-place and chimney are to be seen where the altar should stand, had the building been for ecclesiastical uses. There are also visible vestiges of its having been lofted. It is therefore probable that the fabric, which is small and in the form of a parallelogram, was used for domestic or commercial and not for religious purposes.

Tradition informs us, that when the city of Dublin was visited by a plague in former days, some of the citizens retired to this island as an asylum from its desolating effects. It is certain that Primate Usher retired with his family from the same calamity to Lambay, and that he introduced a clause into the leases of that island, that, in case Ireland should again be visited by plague, the Lambay demises should be void, in order to ensure a safe retreat for his family

There is a battery mounting three twenty-four pounders on the Island of Dalkey, whose highest point is crowned by a martello tower that differs from any I recollect to have seen elsewhere. The entrance to the tower is at the very top of the building, while the doors of most others stand no more than 12 or 14 feet from the ground. Dalkey Island is uninhabited, save by the military stationed in the batteries.

The engraving which accompanies this article also exhibits a view of part of Dalkey common, which extends from the village of the same name on the west, and the Government quarries on the south side to the sea. There is a dwellinghouse of a most extraordinary kind now being completed on a portion of this common.. It is seen in our drawing, two stories in height, standing alone, with the front door opening within a few feet of a craggy mountain precipice, and its rere wildly hanging over a dreadful rocky steep washed by the boisterous sea.

The erection of this extraordinary edifice was a strange vagary of the projector. The first glance of it at once suggests to the imagination, ideas of the amphibious retreats of desperate smugglers, or cruel pirates of bygone times, rather than of the rural summer haunt of a peaceful citizen. The occupier might repose in it, as it is said the celebrated Granua Uile used to do in Carrickahooly castle, where her shipping was moored to her bed-post, for the purpose of preventing surprise.

The name of Dalkey common is perpetuated in the convivial song called the Kilruddery Hunt, written in 1774 by Father Fleming, of Adam and Eve Chapel, and of which a copy is said to have been presented by the Earl of Meath to King George the Fourth, when he visited Ireland.

The expression, “Dalkey stone common,” in that story leads me to remark that there was formerly a druidic rocking stone in the neighbourhood of Bullock or Dalkey. I find mention made of it by some old writers, and also by Wright, in the Guide to the County of Wicklow: but although I have devoted several days to searching for it, I am with regret obliged to say, I have not been able to find it.

The Government quarries on the common are at present worked by the respectable firm of Henry, Mullins and M’Mahon, who have contracted for the, completion of Kingstown harbour. The largest blocks of granite, raised in the quarries by the force of gunpowder, are lowered (to the long level of the railway where the horses are yoked to the trucks) by a succession of three inclined planes, in the following manner.

A large metal wheel with a groove in it, and revolving freely on an upright axis, is fixed at the head of each inclined plane. Over the groove a strong endless chain is passed, and from thence carried down a railway to the bottom of the inclination, where, running over friction-rollers, it returns up another rail road, parallel to the former, back to the wheel first mentioned.

When a laden truck has to be lowered, it is brought to the verge of the descent, and there attached to the chain. At the same time, an empty truck is fastened at the bottom of the descent to the ascending portion of the same chain. The laden truck is then pushed down the sloping rail-road, and by reason of its weight (from five to seven tons) proceeds rapidly down, drawing at the same time the empty truck up from the bottom of the parallel railway.

There are generally three laden and as many unladen carriages moving up or down the steep in this manner at the same moment. Should the motion become too rapid, a man at the top has the power of regulating it by means of a friction-band, which with the help of a compound lever, he can close upon grooved metal wheel. The same contrivance serves serves to stop the descent altogether, the instant the trucks have arrived at their destination.

Thus, by the aid of a simple combination of mechanic powers, a single man is enabled to move and control the motion of six heavy carriages, bearing an aggregate weight of granite of about 20 tons, a task which it would require 27 horses with the ordinary modes of conveyance on common roads to accomplish.

The village of Dalkey stands about seven miles from Dublin, at the northern side of Dalkey hill, on which formerly a telegraph, now dismantled, and nearly undermined by the quarrymen in the neighbourhood. The village was formerly a place of great importance. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it was a repository for goods imported or to be exported by the merchants of Dublin.

The ruins of several castles are still remaining here; they were built for the protection of trade against the hordes of land and sea robbers that infested the country at a remote period.

***The Sound and Island of Dalkey, County of Dublin

(From - The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1, No. 21. Saturday, November 21, 1840)*

The little rocky island of Dalkey forms the south-eastern extremity of the Bay of Dublin, as the bold and nearly insulated promontory of Howth forms its north-eastern termination. It is separated from the mainland of the parish from which it takes, or to which, perhaps, it gives its name, by a channel called Dalkey Sound, which is about 900 yards long, 308 yards wide at its south entrance, and 209 yards wide at its north entrance; the soundings in mid-channel varying from 10 to five fathoms.

This channel was anciently considered a tolerably safe and convenient harbour, and was the principal anchorage for ships frequenting the little castellated seaport tows of Dalkey, from which merchandise was transferred to Dublin as well by boats as by cars. Hence also the harbour of Dalkey was frequently used in former times on state occasions for the embarkation or landing of the Irish viceroys and other state officers. The Lord Deputy Philip do Courtney landed here in 1386, and Sir John Stanley, the deputy of the of Dublin, in the following year. In 1414, Sir John Talbot, then Lord Furnival, and afterwards the renowned Earl of Shrewsbury, landed here as Viceroy of Ireland; and in 1488, Sir Richard Edgecombe embarked at this harbour for England, after having taken the homage and oaths of fidelity of the nobility who had espoused the cause of Simnel. Here also landed Sir Edward Bellingham, Lord-Lieutenant in 1548, and Sir Anthony St Leger in 1553;* *and it was from this harbour that the Earl of Sussex, in 1558, embarked a large body of forces to oppose the Scottish invaders at the isle of Rathlin; and lastly, again, it was here that the unfortunate Sir John Perrot landed as viceroy in 1584. The conversion of this sound into an asylum harbour was at one time contemplated by government, and a plan for the purpose was proposed by the Committee of Inland Navigation; but from certain objections which were made to it, the project was abandoned. The situation would certainly have been a more imposing and magnificent one than that ultimately chosen.

The island of Dalkey is of a nearly oval form, having a very irregular surface, in part rocky, and in part consisting of a fertile salt marsh, very valuable for the cure of sick cattle, who by feeding on it quickly recover and fatten. It is 528 yards long from north to south, and 308 yards wide from east to west, and comprises about 29 acres of pasture. Its shore is rocky, and in some parts precipitous, and it commands the most beautiful views of the bays of Dublin and Killiney.

Among several springs of fresh water on it, one on its south-west side has long been considered to possess sanative properties, and was formerly much resorted to for the cure of scurvy and other diseases. On the same side there are the roofless walls of an ancient church dedicated to St Benet or Benedict, the patron of the parish; and at its south-eastern extremity there is a battery, and a Martello tower which differs from all the other structures of this class erected on the Irish coast, in having its entrance not at the side but on its top. It is traditionally stated that during the remarkable plague which visited Dublin in 1575, many of the citizens fled to this island for safety.

Dalkey island has several smaller ones contiguous to it, one of which, denominated Lamb Island, is covered with grass, while the others present a surface of bare granite. Of the latter islets one is called Clare Rock, and another the Maiden Rock, an appellation derived from a tradition said to be of 1200 years’ antiquity, that twelve young maidens from Bullock and Dalkey having gone over to this rock to gather *duilisk, *they were overtaken by a sudden storm so violent as to prohibit assistance from the larger island, and all miserably perished. To the north of these islands is situated the group of rocks called the Muglins, extending 132 yards in length, and 71 in width. On those rocks, in 1765, the pirates Mac Kinley and Gidley were hanged in chains for the murder of Captain Glass.

Most of the features we have thus noticed, together with a portion of the adjacent shore of the bay, are exhibited in our prefixed illustration; and to the older citizens of our metropolis, as well as to many others of our countrymen, they must, we think, awaken many stirring recollections of the striking changes in the appearance of the scenery in many districts adjacent to the city, as well as in the character of the citizens themselves, which have taken place within the present century.

It does not, indeed, require a very great age for any of us Dublinians to remember when the country along the southern shore of our beautiful bay, from Dunleary to the land’s-end on Dalkey common, presented a nearly uniform character of wildness and solitude - heathy grounds, broken only by masses of granite rocks, and tufts of blossomy furze, without culture, and, except in the little walled villages of Bullock and Dalkey, almost uninhabited.

The district known as the Commons of Dalkey, which extended from the village to the eastern extremity of the bay, “the Sound,” or channel lying on its north-east, and the rocky bill of Dalkey on its south-this in particular was a locality of singularly romantic beauty, a creation of nature in her most sportive mood, and wholly untouched, as it would appear, by the hand of man.

Giant masses of granite rocks, sometimes forming detached groups, and at others arranged into semicircular and even circular ledges, gave the greatest variety and inequalities of surface, and formed numerous dells of the greenest sward, so singularly wild and secluded that the elves themselves might justly claim them as their own.

To these natural features should be added those of the rocky iron-bound coast, with its little coves, commanding from its cliffs the most delightful views of Killiney Bay, the Sound, the Island of Dalkey, and the Bay of Dublin. These latter features still remain, and can never change; but of all the others which we have noticed, what is there left? Scarcely a vestige that would remind the spectator of what the locality had been. The rocks have been nearly all removed, or converted into building materials for an assemblage of houses of all kinds of fantastic construction, surrounded for the most part by high and unsightly stone walls; and, except in the views obtained from some spots in it, the picturesque beauty of Dalkey common is gone for ever.

The common of Dalkey is now a place of life - a suburb, as we might say, of the city; but at the period to which we have alluded, it was ordinarily a scene of the most desert solitude. A few cottages stretching from the village along its southern boundary, and a solitary cabin originally built by miners, and which still remains, were the only habitations to be seen. But though thus uninhabited, it was not at all times a scene of loneliness. On Sundays and other holidays its rocks and dells were peopled with numerous pic-nic or sod parties of the middle class of the citizens. The song went round and the echoes were startled by the merry notes of the fiddle or the flute, to which the several groups of happy dancers footed the Irish jig and country dance. Nor were such pic-nics confined exclusively to the citizens of the middle class. - the sporters of jaunting cars and jingles. Parties of the higher ranks occasionally assembled here on week days, and had their rural fetes on a larger and more magnificent scale.

It was our own good fortune to be an invited guest to one of these, of which we may he permitted to give some account, as an example of a state of manners and usages of society in Ireland now no longer to he found in persons of the class to which we refer, It was a pic-nic party given by the Alexanders, the Armits, and the present popular and deservedly honoured veteran the Commander of the Forces in Ireland - then lieutenant-colonel of the 18th or Royal Irish Fusileers, which were at the time quartered in Dublin.

On the morning of as beautiful a day in June as ever came, the inhabitants of the leading thoroughfares of the city, and those along the road side from Dublin to Dunleary, were surprised by the unusual crowds of open carriages of all kinds conveying the youth and beauty of the aristocracy of the metropolis to the chosen scene; and when the fine band of the Fusileers, in their magnificent full-dress uniforms of blue and gold, were seen to pass along on the same route, innumerable parties of the inferior ranks of the inhabitants of the city and south-eastern suburbs were hastily formed to follow in their wake.

At noon, or a little after, not only the majority of the original party were assembled in a beautiful and extensive green amphitheatre, surrounded by rocky cliffs, but those cliffs were themselves covered by a crowd of smaller parties - tributary stars around the more splendid galaxy that occupied the centre of the brilliant scene.

Two splendid marquees were erected at an early hour in the morning - one for the accommodation of the ladies, the other for the dinner party; and two beautiful pleasure-yachts which conveyed a portion of the invited to the scene, rested at anchor in the Sound, and with their white sails and coloured streamers contributed their share of life and beauty to the landscape.

Let the reader then imagine what a spectacle was presented when the groups of quadrille-dancers-the beauty and gallantry of the metropolis and its vicinity-commenced dancing on the greensward to the music of one of the finest of military bands - what a delight to the happy multitude of spectators who looked on at the graceful and tempered gaiety of high life! The mind of the accomplished painter Watteau, in his finest pictures of the fetes *champetres *of the French, never conceived anything so exquisitely beautiful and romantic.

This party did not disperse till after sunset. After an early dinner, dancing was again resumed; and it is worthy of remark that throughout the day there was not a single instance of rudeness or indecorum on the part of the uninvited spectators - no attempt even to approach beyond the natural rocky boundary which they had chosen for themselves - and that the festivities were concluded with mutual pleasure to all the parties who had participated in them.

Alas! of the gay party then assembled - the gentle maidens in all the bloom of youthful beauty, the frank young soldiers, the men of fortune, the delighted parents - of all these how many now lie low! More, reader, than you could possibly imagine! Nor can we avoid exclaiming again, alas that such scenes of rational pleasure, in which the higher and the humbler classes came together in healthful and innocent enjoyment, are not now to be seen in our country as they were heretofore!

But while our memory with changeful feelings of pleasure and of pain fondly lingers on the brilliant scene we have attempted to sketch, we must not forget that our subject requires of us a notice of festivities of a very different character of which Dalkey was in former times the scene-when Dublin and its suburbs poured forth their crowds to enjoy the fun and drolleries of the crowning of Dalkey’s insular king! - when Dalkey, its Common, its Sound, and its Island, on a June day annually for several years, presented a spectacle of life, gaiety, good-humour, and enjoyment, such perhaps as was rarely ever exhibited elsewhere.

What a glorious day was this for the Dunleary, Bullock, and Dalkey boatmen! Generous fellows! they would take over his majesty’s lieges to his empire for almost nothing - frequently for nothing; but, being determined enemies to absenteeism, they would not allow them to depart on the same terms, but would mulct those with taxes *ad libitum *who desired to abandon their country. And again, what a glorious day was this for the jingle-drivers of the Blackrock, the noddy-drivers, and the drivers of all other sorts of hired carriages in Dublin!

Has it never occurred to the Railroad people to revive these forgotten frolics? What a harvest they might reap! But what do we say? The thing is impossible. The mirthful temperament, the thoughtless gaiety, the wit and humour that characterised the citizens in those days, are gone for ever. The Dublinians have become a grave, thoughtful, and serious people-we had almost said, a dull one. Their faces no longer wear a cheerful and happy look; the very youths of our metropolis seem to be ignorant of what merriment is, or at best to suppose that it consists in puffing tobacco smoke!

Ah! very different were the notions of their predecessors, the nobility and gentry of his Majesty the King of Dalkey. Smoking would not at all have suited their mercurial temperament: it would have been the last thing that they would have thought of to have had their tongues tied and their mouths contorted into ugliness in the ridiculously serious effort to hold a cigar between the lips, and look absurdly important! These fellows thought that mouths were given for a very different purpose - to sing the manly song, to throw forth, not clouds of tobacco smoke, but flashes of wit and humour; and we are inclined to think they were right.

We are not about to describe the annual ceremony of the coronation of the Dalkey king, though we should gladly do so if we had the power, for the memory of it, as an interesting illustration of the character of Irish society in days not very remote, should not be allowed to die.

We have indeed been an eye-witness of some of these brilliant follies, but we were young at the time, and our memory only retains a general impression of them. We can recollect that the green island figured in our woodcut, as well as the common, presented one mass of living beings, gaily dressed and arranged into groups of happy parties, each with its own musicians.

We can recollect also that the dress of the ladies was almost invariably white, with green silk bonnets - a costume that gave a singularly brilliant effect to the scene. A large marquee was erected about the centre of the island for the use of his Majesty and attendant nobles, and a cordon was drawn around it, within which none others were permitted to enter.

There was a military band in attendance upon the royal party; and while the noblemen and ladies of the court danced upon the sod within the bounds, to the music of the state minstrels, the subjects of the monarch danced outside.

But these were only the evening festivities. The day was devoted to graver purposes - the landing of his Majesty and nobles from the royal barge under a salute of 21 guns, the band playing “God save the King,” and the assembled multitude rending the air with their acclamations! Then the ceremony of his coronation, and afterwards his journey through his dominions, attended by his nobles!

At an early hour the monarch with his court proceeded in ludicrously solemn procession from the palace to the church - the ruin figured in our cut - in which the ceremony was performed with a mock gravity which was, however thoughtlessly profane, still irresistibly humorous.

The nobles, with painted faces and a profuse display of stars and ribbons, had their titles and appropriate badges of office. There was the grand chamberlain, with his bunch of old rusty keys - the archbishop with his paper mitre and his natural beard of a month’s growth!

The very titles of these great personages were conferred in a spirit of drollery, and made characteristic of the peculiarities of the individuals who bore them. Thus there was a Lord of Ireland’s-eye - a grave-looking gentleman who had lost one of his visual organs; a Lord Posey - a gentleman who was remarkable for his habit of carrying a bunch of flowers at his breast; and so on.

All the nobility were wits, orators, and generally first-rate vocalists, and the royal visitors were similarly gifted. Charles Incledon, the prince of ballad-singers of his time, here sang his “Black-eyed Susan” and other charming ditties, and John Philpot Curran, the greatest wit of the world, set the table in a roar with his meteor flashes.

But the prime spirits of the court were his Majesty himself, Stephen Armitage, his Lord High Admiral Luke Cassidy, and his archbishop — Gillespy. The long coronation sermon of the latter was one of the richest treats of the day, and produced effects such as sermon never produced before.

During this august and imposing ceremony, the church was not only crowded to excess, and its ruined walls covered with human beings, but it was also surrounded with a dense mass of anxious listeners. As to his Majesty himself; he was at times the gravest and at times the merriest of monarchs, much of his humour consisting in the whimsical uncertainty of his movements, for there never was a crowned head more capricious or changeable in disposition than the King of Dalkey He would set out attended by his court on a journey to some distant region of his dominions, change his mind in a minute and alter his route elsewhere, and again change it within a few minutes; and all of these mutations of purpose were most loyally approved of and sympathised in by his majesty’s nobles and subjects.

Another trait in King Stephen’s character was his love for song; and when the word ran through his empire that at the royal banquet his majesty had commenced or was about to commence his favourite “Love is my passion and glory,” there was scarcely one of his subjects, male or female who did not make a rush to get within earshot of him. Peace be with thee, Stephen! thou wert a king “of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy;” and though thy reign was short and thy dominions small, thou madest more of thy subjects truly happy than many monarchs whose reigns were as much longer as their possessions were more extensive!

Imperfect as these recollections of the Dalkey festivities are, they will perhaps convey to many who have not hitherto heard of them some slight idea of their character; and they will, we trust, excite some surviving actor in them to preserve their’ memory in a fuller and more graphic record.

They were, it will be seen, a sort of extemporaneous acted drama of the Tom Thumb kind, admirably preserving the unities of time and place - the time being one day, and the place - his majesty’s empire! As to the theatre on which it was acted, it was most admirably adapted for the spectacle, and had the most abundant accommodation for the audience.

The scenery too was real scenery - not painted canvass, that required distance to give it the effect of reality: the greensward, the blue sky and bluer sea, the rocky islands, the distant hills and mountains, were painted by the hand of the greatest of all Artists; and the theatre, instead of miserable foot-lights, had its illumination from the glorious sun, the greatest of all ” His visible works!

It may be supposed that these annual festivities must have been productive of scenes of drunkenness and quarrelling, and we cannot state of our own knowledge whether they were so or not: but we have been informed that they did not lead to such results; and the statement would seem true, from the fact that no accident ever occurred to any of those engaged in them - a singular circumstance, if we consider the dangers to which so many persons were exposed in consequence of having to cross the sound in crowded boats at a late hour in the evening. P.

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It was not till after the preceding article had been in type that we were informed that a notice of the Dalkey festivities had recently appeared in the preface to the first volume of the beautiful edition of the poems of our own national poet, Moore, just published; and as it adds some interesting facts to those furnished by our own recollections, we gladly present them to our readers, in the perfect confidence that they will be read with that intense pleasure which his writings have rarely failed to afford.

“It was in the year 1794, or about the beginning of the next, that I remember having for the first time tried my hand at political satire. In their very worst times of slavery and suffering the happy disposition of my countrymen had kept their cheerfulness still unbroken and buoyant; and at the period of which I am speaking the hope of a brighter day dawning upon Ireland had given to the society of the middle class in Dublin a more than usual flow of hilarity and life.

Among other gay results of this festive spirit, a club or society as instituted by some of our most convivial citizens, one of whose objects was to burlesque, good-humouredly, the forms and pomps of royalty. With this view they established a sort of mock kingdom, of which Dalkey, a small island near Dublin, was made the seat; and an eminent pawnbroker named Stephen Armitage, much renowned for his agreeable singing, was the chosen and popular monarch.

Before public affairs had become too serious for such pastimes, it was usual to celebrate yearly at Dalkey the day of this sovereign’s accession; and among the gay scenes that still live in my memory, there are few it recalls with more freshness than this celebration on a fine Sunday in summer of one of these anniversaries of King Stephen’s coronation.

The picturesque sea views of that spot, the gay crowds along the shores, the innumerable boats full of life floating about, and above all, the true spirit of mirth which the Irish temperament never fails to lend to such meetings, rendered the whole a scene not easily forgotten.

The state ceremonies of the day were performed with all due gravity within the ruins of an ancient church that stands on the island, where his mock majesty bestowed the order of knighthood upon certain favoured personages, and among others I recollect upon Incledon the celebrated singer, who rose from under the touch of the royal sword with the appropriate title of Sir Charles Melody.

There was also selected for the favours of the crown on that day a lady of no ordinary poetic talent, Mrs Battier, who had gained much fame by some spirited satires in the manner of Churchill, and whose kind encouragement of my early attempts in versification were to me a source of much pride. This lady, as was officially announced in the course of the day, had been appointed his Majesty’s Poetess Laureate, under the style and title of Henrietta Countess of Laurel/

There could hardly be devised a more apt vehicle for lively political satire than this gay travestie of monarchical power an its showy appurtenances so temptingly supplied.

The very day indeed after this commemoration there appeared in the usual record of Dalkey state intelligence, an amusing proclamation from the king, offering a large reward in crone-banes (Irish halfpence) to the finder or finders of his Majesty’s crown, which owing to his “having measured both sides of the road” in his pedestrian progress from Dalkey on the preceding night, had unluckily fallen from the royal brow.”

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