Dublin Defence

In Defence of Dublin

(From the Dublin Penny Journal, 1832)

A few years ago, at a public meeting in the city of Glasgow, a worthy old man who had made a sort of tour throughout Ireland, dilated in a speech upon its miserable condition, painted it in dark and gloomy colours, and concluded with a warm and earnest appeal to those present, to “take pity on that unhappy country.”

This roused the blood of one of the audience - and he was an Irishman! He could not sit still and hear the land of his birth caricatured, or permit any one to go away with false impressions; and so, in parliamentary phrase, he “got on his legs,” and in glowing and energetic terms rebutted the charge of Ireland being a miserable and a degraded country.

Dublin, he told them, was one of the finest cities of Europe, having a greater number of benevolent institutions than any one of a similar size throughout the world; while with genuine Irish eloquence he enlarged upon the politeness and hospitality of its inhabitants, the splendour of its public buildings, and the variety of its literary and scientific associations.

When he concluded, a dissenting and well-known clergyman of Glasgow, an intelligent and liberal man, started to his feet, and exclaimed,

“Breathes there the man with soul so dead,

Who never to himself hath said,*

” This is my own, my native land!”*

Thunders of applause followed, and the honest and outspoken defender of his native metropolis sat down amid the approbation of a large audience.

Now look at the wood-cut, and say if, even in this indistinct view, Dublin does not deserve the appellation of “a *fine *city?” True, it wants *something *which London and Edinburgh have; we are told that our metropolis wants the business and the bustle of the English, and the singular and romantic air of the Scottish metropolis.

But in our miniature way, we are much more busy and bustling here than in the “great city.” London is the elephant of cities, enormous but calm, and performing its mighty efforts with such habits of regular and unostentatious strength that we only become conscious of what is doing, by reflection upon what has been and must be done.

It is true, that in the great thoroughfare from Charing Cross to Whitechapel there is a rushing sound of men and carriages and horses, travelling to and fro: but this is emphatically *the *great thoroughfare, and what are four or five miles of street, compared with the huge mass of London? In “the city,” the calmness and utter absence of outside show, where we know there is such prodigious business, and prodigious wealth, seems very extraordinary to an Irish-man.

And again in Edinburgh, beautiful and romantic as it is, its old town huddled upon the hill, and guarded by the fortress’ which, perched on high, frowns upon all around, and fills the eye from whatever point you view the place, or its new town, swelling away round the base of the rock, built of *“rale *stone,” and justifying in some degree the appellation which the modern Athenians have assumed, the “city of palaces;” even *it, *can it boast of such a view as one may have, standing upon Carlisle Bridge, and looking eastwards, westwards, northwards, and southwards?

First, the long continued line of quays extending right through the centre of the city, from Ringsend point to the Military road, a distance of nearly three miles. In the direction of the Bay, the Custom-house” (see our first number) rising at a little distance in all the beauty of truly classical architecture, and surrounded by ships and other vessels of considerable size, which approach quite close to the bridge; to the west, the bridges crowded with busy mortals passing and repassing; in the distant perspective, the Four Courts, and different churches, whose domes and spires are seen towering above the intervening buildings; while still further off, the Wellington Testimonial (occupying the fore ground in our wood-cut) may be distinctly observed;, rising above the trees in the Phoenix Park. To the north, Sackville street, one of the most splendid streets in Europe, having in its centre the noble pillar erected in memory of the immortal Nelson; on the left of it, the Post Office, a specimen” of elegant and chaste architecture, while southwards is Trinity College and the Bank.

What association does that noble building, with its handsome dome – the Four Courts – create in the mind? Every man in Dublin knows what a delightful place the hall of the Four Courts is; so diversified, and apparently confused; exhibiting a motley group of barristers, bailiffs, attorneys, men and women, collected from all parts, divided into smaller circles, the component members of which are severally engaged in disputing, asseverating, and denying - in fighting over again in the hall, that which has been decided in the court; or in making fresh preparations for a renewal of legal strife. And what eloquence has echoed within it-what wit has made its walls to ring again-what feeling has roused every emotion of the heart!

Passing onwards, let us walk along the quays, cross one of the bridges, and stand at the open iron gate that leads into Trinity College. Here we are moored, as it were, at the confluence of sundry human tides, and hundreds and thousands are passing by. Before us is the equestrian statue of King William; and in the indistinct smoky distance, the Castle, and to our right, that majestic pile of building, The Bank. What a change has passed upon the circumstances and associations of all these! Within that massive structure, were wont to be uttered, the splendid antitheses of Grattan, the caustic wit of Curran, the oily and glozing amplifications of Castlereagh, the puns of John Toler, the wit of Bushe, the blunders and the bulls of the Momus of our Irish Olympus, Sir Boyle Roche.

It is now three o’clock; some thirty-four or thirty-five years ago, we remember standing at the same place, and at the same hour, not to witness the rush of clerks and men of business, with thoughts intent upon drafts and checks, and paper and gold: but to see the array of lords and commons as they entered their legislative halls.

See! there comes *the *duke’s coach turning round from Nassau-street you may see the strawberry-leaved coronet, and the baboon supporters. Boys, let us give a shout for the Duke of Leinster! Methinks some one behind me cries out, Yes! and another for Lord Edward Fitzgerald! hurrah, boys, let us all cry, crom-a-boo! Whose carriage is this dashing down Dame-street, with six horses all hot and blown, as if coming from a distance, and the outriders in white? That’s Tom Connolly of Castletown, a man above a Castle price or pension. And whose is that splendid equipage with its running footmen coming slowly along in proud parade, and its owner sitting so stiff and so lordly? Oh! that’s the proud Earl of B---, a specimen of the French “Vielle Court,” very haughty, very profligate, and very brave.

But who is this little man ascending the colonnade, whose recognition every one seems anxious to gain? The patriot of ‘82 – Henry Grattan!** **His prominent Frenchified features; his little body and long stride; his port so particular; his bearing like his mind, so antithetical and ambitious; were you and he accidentally to meet under a shed, while avoiding a shower of rain, you would say, here is either a singular or a great man!

But who is this other little man, smirking and smiling, with chin protruded, and keen black eye, cast up towards the skies, as if he was saying some witty or saucy thing to one above him? Oh! John Philpot Curran!** **If in figure and proportion he is far below a man, in wit and humor and force and eloquence he is as far above! What a pity that an angel’s intellect should be ‘given to preside over a will and affections so uncertain and so unsound!

But stay, the vision is vanishing - the Bank is ejecting nothing but clerks, and merchants, and messengers! Let us turn away, and look down Westmoreland street, towards Carlisle Bridge. Again we say, no *city in Europe *can match such a view!

But let us pass onwards, up Sackville-street, and turn round till we reach Summer-hill. This is the Clifton of Dublin, and from the windows of one of these houses, what a view may be obtained. The mountains in the back ground, reminding us of Wicklow and its thousand and one enchantments! The remarkable eminence aptly termed Sugar-loaf; the serrated back of Bray-head; the three-topped promontory of Killiney; the spangling villas of Kingstown, enclosing its fair harbour; and above all, the bay - the beautiful bay-basking in the clear sunshine, and bearing on its broad boson) the numerous sail ships and steamers entering or leaving the harbour.

Out wood-cut represents in its foreground the handsome bridge, called Sarah-bridge, sometimes termed the Irish Rialto, and the span of which is, in fact, seven feet wider than the famous Venetian-bridge. The view dues not admit the King’s-bridge, erected by subscription in honour of the late king’s visit to Ireland. That was a gay and a proud time, when Irish hearts evinced how they could feel at the thought of a *monarch *being on their soil, and residing in their metropolis. And proudly and nobly did he bear himself amid the thousands who shouted around, in that spacious park, near the entrance of which the massive pillar, called the Wellington Testimonial, stands.

This park is very improperly termed the *Phoenix Park, *that being a gross corruption from the old Irish name; but the use of the name is so universally established, that it would be folly to attempt to remove it.

In the mean time, we conclude, hoping that Dublin and Ireland soon be (what they ought to be) a happy metropolis and a happy nation.

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