St. Audöen's Church - St. Audöen's Arch, Cook Street, Rosemary Lane

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**Chapter VIII.

St. Audöens Church - St. Audöens Arch - The Cook-Street - Rosemary-Lane

Autaire, a nobleman of Brie, having hospitably entertained St. Columbanus, while travelling through that district, the Leinster missionary, in requital, blessed his host’s son, Audöen, or Dado, who afterwards became eminent for piety, and acquired the favour of Clotaire II., to whose successor, Dagobert, he was appointed Chancellor. Dagobert’s son, Clotaire III., also highly esteemed Audöen, who, in 640, was elected Bishop of Rouen, whence his body was removed after his death on the 24th of August, 683. Rolf Gangr subsequently procured the restitution of the saint’s remains to Rouen, whither, according to Guillaume de Jumieges, they were carried with many miracles. The Abbey Church dedicated to St. Audöen, at Rouen, is regarded as one of the finest specimens extant of pointed Gothic architecture, and in it were deposited the heart of Richard Coeur de Lion, and the remains of most of the early rulers of Normandy.

Although the period of the erection of St. Audöen’s Church in Dublin is not recorded, there can be but little doubt that it was founded by the Anglo-Normans, and by them dedicated to the patron saint of the capital of their original country. Sir Jean De Courcy and Sir Almaric de St. Laurent, two of the most prominent Norman settlers in Ireland, are recorded to have taken their vows of brotherhood in arms in the church at Rouen; and among the relics anciently preserved in the Convent of the Holy Trinity, Dublin, was a portion of the sepulchre of St. Audöen, Bishop and Confessor.

St. Audöen is not commemorated in the native Irish Calendars, but he appears to have been highly esteemed by the old French settlers in Dublin, many of whom bore the surname of Audöen or Ouen, subsequently corrupted into Owen, whence this establishment became generally known as St. Owen’s Church. The parish of St. Audöen was founded before the close of the 12th century, and the church, from its present remains, appears to have originally consisted of a “very extensive pile of building, which was divided in the centre by a range of eight pointed arches and their piers, extending from west to east. These arches appear of an equilateral shape, and of a regular uniform size. The mouldings, even now, bear evidence of very good workmanship, and the heads, or capitals, of the octagonal piers, are composed of mouldings nearly circular.”

John Comyn,. Archbishop of Dublin, 1181-1212, conferred the church of St. Audöen on the convent of Grace Dieu: his successor, Henri de Loundres (1213-1228) bestowed upon that convent the church of Ballimadun in exchange, and allocated St. Audöen’s to the Treasurer of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Henry VI., in the ninth year of his reign, 1430-31, granted letters patent, authorizing the erection in this church of a chantry to the praise of God and of the Virgin Mary, and in honour of St. Anne, - the chapel to be called St. Anne’s Chapel, and its founders and their successors to be styled the Guild or Fraternity of St. Anne, who were likewise empowered to have a chantry of six priests in St. Audöen’s Church, - namely, one in the chapel of St. Anne, when built; another in the chapel of the Virgin Mary; a third at the altar of St. Catherine; a fourth at the altar of St. Nicholas; a fifth at the altar of St. Thomas; and a sixth at the altar of St. Clare; divine service being daily celebrated for the welfare of the Justiciary, founders, brethren, and sisters of the guild, and the souls of their ancestors and successors.

A chapel was erected in 1455 on the southern side of St. Audöen’s Church by Roland Fitz Eustace, Baron of Portlester, whose wife, Margaret, daughter of Jenico D’Artois, was interred here under a large table monument, bearing the recumbent effigies of a knight in armour with his lady, and encircled on the margin with the following inscription in Gothic letters:- “Orate pro animâ Rolandi Fitz Eustace de Portlester, qui hunc locum sive Capellam dedit, in honorem beatae Mariae virginis; etiam pro animâ Margaritae uxoris suae, et pro animabus omnium fidelium defunctorum, Anno Dom. 1455.” Although this monument exhibits a sepulchral effigy of its founder, we may observe, that Sir Roland Fitz Eustace was interred in the Abbey of Kilcullen.

St. Audöen’s was, in 1467, erected into a distinct prebend by Michael Tregury, Archbishop of Dublin. On the suppression of the cathedral of St. Patrick, an inquisition reported that oblations and tithes of this church, called “the previe tithes,” which were payable at Easter, were worth four pounds annually above the curate’s stipend, repair of the chancel, and all other expenses. A writer at the close of the 16th century observes, that the “paroch of this church is accounted the best in Dublin, for that the greater number of the aldermen and the worships of the city are demurrant within the paroch.” Dr. James Ussher, while in Dublin, used to preach at St. Audöen’s at 8 a.m. on every Sunday; and a Report of 1630 tells us, that the “church is out of repairacion: there are but 16 Protestant houses in the parish, all the rest being (above three parts) Recusants. The parish is assessed by Act of State in an hundred markes yearly, but the incumbent cannot make nigh so much of it. Doctor Robert Ussher is incumbent there, and serves the church. There is a guild in that parish called St. Anne’s Guild, that hath swallowed upp all the church meanes which should be for the minister and reparation of the church.”

A decree of Council was made in 1633 to assess the parish in one hundred pounds for the repairs of the church, to which St. Anne’s Guild was ordered to contribute forty pounds.

A further assessment of two hundred pounds from the parish, and eighty pounds from St. Anne’s Guild, was made in 1636 for the repairs of the building, the spire of the steeple being “ready to fall and endanger the whole church; the roof receiving rain in several places, so that one of the pillars was rotten and decayed, the church wanting all necessaries becoming the house of God, and most necessaries by the canons of the Church required.” St. Anne’s Guild was further ordered to contribute “something further to the reparation of the organ and quier, which more properly belonged to the said Guild.”

Originally there existed a lane from High-street to an arch on the southern side of the church, and through this arch there was passage under the church towards Cook-street, by which the “parishioners and those who usually frequented St. Audöen’s had a near and convenient way to the church.” This passage was encroached upon about 1570 by Mr. Cusack of Rathgar, who first built over the entry, leaving only a “door of entrance thereunto underneath the said building, and annoyed the lane with stables and uncleanesse, and afterwards wholly shut up the said passage or entrie, and built a shop with a kitchen and offices close adjoining, and near unto the south side of the church wall, whereby the light of one of the south windows was partly stopped, the church itself much annoyed, especially by a chimney, which endangered it and the smoke of which oftentimes offended the congregation in the time of service.” To remove those annoyances, Dudley Boswell, Prebend of St. Audöen’s, sued Robert Cusack of Rathgar in the ecclesiastical court in 1638, and obtained a decree “that he should forthwith open the entrie or passage into the said lane leading to the arch on the south of the church of St. Audöen, that the shop be quite taken away, and the lane freed from all intrusions that might hinder a free passage through it, as formerly had been unto the said arch and wall, so that there might be made a convenient door and entrance out of the lane to the church for all such as resorted thither to hear divine service and sermons; and that the chambers or buildings over the entrie should be continued to Robert Cusack, so as he made a decent and sufficient gate below upon the said passage, delivering the key to the sexton of the church, who was to retain it, and open and shut the door at all convenient times, all nuisances and encroachments being likewise removed.” This passage, leading from the Corn-market to the church, still exists, and is used by the congregation.

The old rood loft, “whereon the organs of the church were lately placed, being ruinous, not only endangering the people that sat thereabouts every Lord’s day, but also depriving the rest of the congregation of the sight of the east window and the holy table, causing also the voice of the preacher to be less audible,” the Archbishop of Dublin in 1639 ordered the churchwardens to “cause the said loft to be pulled down, and to dispose of the organs in some convenient safe place, until some further order be taken for their reparacion,” as likewise to cause, with convenient speed, to be erected between the nave of the church and chancel, a “new and comelie partition, such as may not in any wise debar or hinder the congregation of or from beholding the minister officiating at the altar.”

During the Protectorate John Murcot, styled by Wood a “forward, prating, and pragmatical precisian,” was the minister of St. Audöen’s, in which church, in 1655, Elizabeth Fletcher and Elizabeth Smith, two of the early Quaker missionaries, published their “testimony of truth,” for which they were committed to Newgate by the Lord Mayor.

In 1654 two bells were newly cast and hung in the steeple, which having been blown down by a storm in 1668 was rebuilt at the expense of the parishioners and by various donations, the vestry having appointed a committee “to repair to such well affected persons as they should think fit, to request their contributions towards the repair of the church and the spire of the steeple, so as some reasonable supply might be obtained for encouragement of the workmen.” At this period the church was newly roofed, but we are told that the new spire was neither so high nor so stately as the former one. The regiment of Guards, which, till the commencement of the Williamite wars, used to attend divine service in St. Audöen’s on every Friday, contributed in 1671, towards the rebuilding of the church, a sum of £150 out of the arrears of their pay; and in November, 1672, the following resolution was agreed to “freely and cheerfully,” by the parish:

“Whereas the Right Honourable Richard, Earl of Arran, Colonel of his Majesty’s regiment of Guards, did upon the intercession of the present prebendary and churchwardens, out of his liberal and generous nature, as a most worthy benefactor, grant and give towards the repaires and beautifying of the said church the sum of £150, to the use and benefit aforesaid, and therefore we, the prebendary, churchwardens, and parishioners, out of sense and acknowledgement thereof, doe hereby freely desire and grant, that, first, the arms with the supporters of the said Earl of Arran be fairly painted and erected in the said church. Secondly, that every commissioned officer of the Royal Regiment, from the said Earl to the Ensign, doe and shall from henceforth enjoy all privileges and immunities, as of marriage, christenings, and breaking up of the ground in that church or any part of it, as any parishioner or native of that parish whatsoever, for the full term of forty and one years from the date of these presents. Thirdly, it is also agreed by the parties aforesaid, that all the seats now standing be (upon the reparation of the said church) all laid by and taken up, and all new seats placed and fixed in their room, according to the form and model of those seats of St. Warburse, Dublin, lately built. And fourthly, that all the soldiers of the said Regiment that will challenge the privileges abovesaid shall for that term of forty-one years enjoy the same, as also their burials in the churchyard, as any native or parishioner.”

On the 15th of June, 1671, “the annoyance of the buttermilke market, settled under St. Audöen’s Church, Dublin, by the order and command of Enoch Rider, Esq., then Lord Mayor of Dublin, was removed from that place by the express command of the Right Reverend Father in God, Michael, Lord Archbishop of Dublin, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and one of the Lords Justices, in answer to a petition that was preferred to his Grace by the prebend and churchwardens.”

In 1673 an order was made to remove, to the northern and southern aisles, all the tombs and tombstones in the said church, “to preserve the living from being injured by the dead, who were very shallowly buried; to pave and level the church, and to put new mould upon the deceased.”

St. Anne’s Guild having contributed in 1679 one hundred marks per annum, in addition to an advance of one hundred pounds towards the repair of the church, it was agreed to repair and keep in order “all the isle whereof St. Anne’s Chapel was part,” and that no further application should be made to the Guild “for 20 years at least.”

The parish in 1681 purchased from Mr. Pease, for £110, a new organ, for the “gilding and beautifying” of which they paid £40 to W. Wiseman; and in 1694 an order was made that “the five and twenty hundred weight of brass metal given by the Right Honourable Henry Lord Viscount Sydney, late Lord Lieutenant of this Kingdom, to the use of the said church, for the founding a new bell, to forthwith put into the hands of Major Henry Paris, to be by him cast into two bells, that is to say, one tenor and one treble.”

In the 16th and 17th centuries St. Audöen’s church was the burial-place of many important families, including those of Ball, Bath, Blakeney, Browne, Cusack, Desminier, Fagan of Feltrim, Foster of Bally-Dowd, Fyan, Gifford, Gilbert, Malone, Mapas, Molesworth, Penteny, Perceval, Quinn, Talbot, Ussher, and Wemys.

Edward Parry, Bishop of Killa;oe, was interred in 1650 in a recess on the northern side of the church door, in which tomb were also buried his sons John and Benjamin, successively Bishops of Ossory. John Parry bequeathed an annual rent-charge of forty shillings for the preservation of his family tomb, which, having been enclosed by him in 1681 with “a rail and banister,” acquired the name of the “Bishop of Ossory’s Chapel.”

Many generations of the Parrys were buried in this tomb, which, having become defaced by time, was, on the repair of the Church in 1848, surmounted with an inscribed white marble slab at the expense of Dr. John Parry’s representatives, Dame Emma Elizabeth Puleston of Albrighton Hall, Shropshire, relict of Sir Richard Puleston, Bart., and Anna Eleanora, Frances and Elizabeth Hawkshaw, daughters of Lieutenant Colonel John Stuart Hawshaw of Divernagh, county of Armagh. William Molyneux was interred in 1698 in his family vault in the northern aisle of St. Audöen’s church, whence his monument, bearing the following inscription, was removed to Armagh early in the present century by his descendant, Sir Capel Molyneux:-

“M. S. Gulielmi Molyneux, Arm: I.U.D. In summa Cancellariae Hiberniae Curiâ Assessoris; Societatis Regiae Londoniensis et Philosophicae Dubliniensis, Sodalis: In Comitiis Parliarnentariis nomine Academiae Patriae iterata vice Delegati. Qui antiqua Molyneuxorum stirpe ortus, stemmata sua egregiis meritorum titulis ornavit; familiae eruditae famam per universam Rempublicam literariam latiùs sparsit. Abditis Matheseos penetratis, Geometriam, Astronomiam, Dioptricam, Algebramque, inultis auxit inventis. Philosophiae verae ac utilis incrementa studiis et impensis strenùe promovit Patriae jura, quae putavit, noto tibi, Viator, libello propugnavit. Nec moribus minùs, quam scientiâ insignis, tam supra Plebem vixit, quam sapuit. Justitiam coluit et pietatem, optimorum amicitiam fide singulari, omnium desiderium morum suavitate ad se attraxit. Uti Pater, qui cam genuit, Samuel Molyneux, Armiger, vir, si quis alias, moribus sanctissimis, cujam etiam cinis hic requiescit, postquam annos 77 compleverat. At filius, proh dolor! ex calculorum in renibus dolore concitato nimis vomitu, venâ disrupta, ingenti sanguinis profluvio, ipso aetatis flore, anno nempe 42, animam effudit, Octobris 11. 1698.”

The Prebendary of St. Audöen’s parish received an annual pension of £20 from Government for visiting the sick in the several prisons in Dublin; and the cemetery on the western side of the arch was the usual burial-place for prisoners who died in Newgate or the adjacent gaol.

By order of the Consistory Court in Easter Term, 1637, “all doors of private houses opening into the churchyard” were stopped up, and the parish Registry contains a memorandum, that on the first of February, 1695, there “were planted in this churchyard 15 yew trees by Edward Brown, gardener to Dr. John Finglasse,” the then Prebend.

The parish school having fallen to decay, the Churchwardens, in April, 1671, agreed to sign a petition to the Archbishop of Dublin and Lord Chancellor of Ireland, concerning the recovery of a parish school formerly belonging to the said parish, whenever the Prebend shall demand their signing it;” and in April, 1675, it was agreed, that “Mr. Peter Goodricke be allowed leave to teach the children of the said parishioners grammar learning and the Church Catechism, &c., in the vestry of the church.” In 1699 the parish made an order for the erection of a school in the churchyard; and that the parish be not assessed, either now or at any other time, either for repairing or maintaining the said school.” The house thus erected continued to be used as a parish school till about five years ago, when it was taken down and a new building for the same purpose erected on its site.

Among the rectors of St. Audöen’s church, in the last century, were Swift’s companions, Robert Grattan, appointed in 1720, and John Grattan, Prebendary here from 1741 to 1754, when he was succeeded by Richard Chaloner Cobbe, who, a short time after his election, took down the cross from the steeple, and substituted in its place a crown with a boar’s head, which occasioned the following epigram:-

“Christ’s Cross from Christ’s church, cursed Cobbe hath plucked down,

And placed in its stead what he worships - the Crown.

Avenging the cause of the Gadarene people,

This miscreant Lath placed a swine’s head on the steeple;

By this intimating to all who pass by,

That his hearers are swine, - and his church but a stye.”

St. Audöen’s church participated in the reverses which its vicinity experienced consequent on the withdrawal of the wealthy inhabitants, who, down to the middle of the 18th century, had resided in this parish. In 1773 a new chancel was formed by dividing the eastern or chancel end from the body of the church by a wall and window screen, crossing it nearly in the centre.” This new chancel was nothing more than a tasteless range of ill-proportioned Corinthian columns and cornices, stuck round with little urns, in a very bad taste; and painted, or rather daubed over, with cherubim’s heads, in a style still more despicable. Previous to this alteration, or as the inscription affects to call it, this ‘beautifying,’ the communion service used to be celebrated in the original chancel, to which the communicants had to retire. It thus formed a kind of appendage to the church, something resembling the lady-chapels of our old cathedrals. In the year 1820 a further alteration was commenced. The gallery which occupied the pointed arches over the back aisle was completely removed; the arches and the entire spaces between the piers were built up, and that part unroofed. The original chancel was also unroofed at the same time; thus converting three-fourths of the structure into a pile of ruins. The improvements thus introduced by rebuilding and repairing have consequently limited the body of the church to one-fourth of its original dimensions. These alterations were finished, as another inscription informs us, in 1821. In the year 1826 still greater alterations were made in the old steeple, but with more attention to the Gothic character of the building. The old slated spire has been totally removed, and in its stead the pinnacles and battlements have been raised, and the former are finished with octagonal spires of cast-iron. The arched doorway and windows of the steeple have also been much improved. The latter alterations were executed under the inspection of H. A. Baker, R. H. A.”

The building was again altered, in 1848, by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, under whose superintendence a further portion of the chancel was unroofed and a new suite of pews erected.

In this gradual uncovering of the original church and aisles no care was taken to preserve the ancient tombs, many of which, being composed of wood and plaster, have gradually crumbled to decay from exposure to the weather. The monumental brasses have been abstracted, the inscriptions rendered illegible, and the gravestones broken by the fall of the old building, and by the accumulation of rubbish from the erection of the adjacent Roman Catholic chapel. On the southern wall of that portion of the old edifice now styled the “back aisle,” is the remnant of a large monument formerly containing many figures, now nearly decayed, and bearing an illegible inscription. Underneath these remains is a large tabular monument inscribed on the ends “John Malone, Mary Pentony. Vivit post funera virtus: Ecce tall domo clauditur omnis homo.” Two tablets on the front of the tomb contain the following inscriptions:-

Here lieth the bodie of Ion Malo’ of Dublin, Alderman, who died the 20 of October, Anno Domini 1592. Here also lieth the body of Mary Penteni wife to the said Jhon, and ther posterity for ever.”

On the northern side of the present church are two mural monuments composed of groups of kneeling figures, which were intended, during the repairs of the building in 1848, to have been “hacked off” the wall, from which fate they were saved by the interference of the Council of the Celtic Society. The centre wall contains tablets commemorating James Ward, Dean of Cloyne; Alderman Walter Motley; Archdeacon William Williamson; Alderman George Forbes, 1719; Sir John and Dame Rebecca Peyton, 1720.

Although the Celtic Society in 1848 directed public attention to the destruction of the various monuments in St. Audöen’s church by the unroofing of the building, none of the representatives of the families there interred, with the exception of the descendants of the Parrys, evinced any desire to preserve the tombs of their ancestors from desecration and decay.

Some workmen engaged in repairing the church about 1780 abstracted all the more ancient muniments of St. Audöen’s parish, the oldest extant records of which commence in 1636, and the parochial registry does not extend beyond the 25th of March, 1673.

St. Audöen’s parish covers an area of 29 acres, 3 roods, 18 perches, and contained, in 1851, 441 houses, and 4,053 inhabitants.

St. Audöen’s-gate was one of the portals in the ancient city wall, which extended from it north of St. Audöen’s churchyard to a building called Fagan’s castle, in Page’s-court, where was another portal, and from thence they extended to Newgate. Pembridge, a writer of the 14th century, notices the existence, at that period, of a tower over this gate, the erection of which some writers seem to have erroneously assigned to the year 1316. The passage leading from the church to Audöen’s-gate was styled St. Audöen’s or St. Owen’s-lane, and in its vicinity appears to have been a stone edifice called the College, or hall of the Guild of St. Anne.

The “Baker’s Hall, in the College joining to St. Audöen’s chancel,” was one of the places in which Mass was privately celebrated in the time of James I., and in the early years of the reign of Charles I., Father Luke Rochfort, Roman Catholic Archdeacon of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, was Rector of St. Audöen’s parish until replaced by Father Edmond Doyle. About 1639-1641 a proposal was made to appropriate the College of St. Anne’s Guild as a residence for the Vicars of the Cathedral of Christ Church.

The Guild of St. Anne, the foundation of which has been noticed at page 277 (earlier in this chapter. KF.), early acquired very extensive property in houses and lands, some of which was secreted on the change of religion at the Reformation. In Michaelmas Term, in the year 1612 (9 Jac. I.), an information was filed by the Attorney-General, Sir John Davis, against Matthew Hancock, Nicholas Stephens, and Edmond Malone, for having, in St. Anne’s Chapel, in the church of St. Audöen, claimed to be a body corporate by the name of the Master and Wardens of the Fraternity or Guild of St. Anne, exercising the right of electing annually a master and two wardens, also the power of appointing chaplains, using a common seal, acquiring lands and tenements, and disposing of the profits thence accruing. The result of this proceeding is not recorded, and the Guild appears to have been unmolested until the reign of Charles I., when Launcelot Bulkeley, Archbishop of Dublin, became possessed of a quantity of documents relating to this fraternity, which had formerly been in the possession of Alderman Richard Fagan, and Christopher Fagan, Mayor of Dublin, who held part of its houses and lands. Amongst those papers was a Bull of Pope Pius V., dated from St. Peter’s, at Rome, on the fourth of the ides of May, in the third year of his pontificate, recommending the governors of religious corporations to let their properties to none but Roman Catholics, and to pay such stipends as they were able to the clergy of that Church. On the discovery of these documents, Strafford, then Lord Deputy, issued a Commission under the Great Seal, in 1636, nominating John Bramhall, Bishop of Derry, Sir James Ware, Dr. John Atherton, and Richard Fitz Gerald, to inspect the records relative to St. Anne’s Guild. These Commissioners, in their Report dated 20th June, 1637, returned a discovery of many houses in Dublin, and several towns and farms in the counties of Dublin and Westmeath. The parties principally interested in the property of the Fraternity were said to have frustrated those investigations by leaguing with the enemies of Strafford, whose “eagerness in searching into this Guild” has been assigned as one of the causes which contributed to “hasten this loyal peer’s death.”

In 1641 the affairs of St. Anne’s Guild were brought before the ‘louse of Commons, which made an order that the Master and Wardens should pay the Vicars, Organist, and Choristers of the Guild the salaries due to them, and “likewise to pay the said salary and wages as often as it shall grow due to the said Vicars and Choristers, until the cause depending in this house concerning the said Guild be determined.” No record, however, appears of the result of this investigation, and for many years subsequently the Guild continued to contribute towards the repairs of St. Audöen’s Church. In 1684 a suit in Chancery was carried on between the Prebend and Churchwardens, on behalf of themselves and the rest of the inhabitants of the parish, as plaintiffs against the “Master and Wardens of St. Anne’s Guild, within the said Church,” Thomas Browne, Michael Chamberlaine, Ignatius Purcell, and James Gernon, defendants. By an act of vestry on 24th June, 1684, the whole matter in difference between the plaintiffs and defendants was, in accordance with the Chancellor’s proposition, submitted to that officer in his private capacity. On the 9th of November, 1702, the Vestry directed the presentation of a petition “to the Master, Wardens, and members of St. Anne’s Guild, desiring them to contribute, according as they had formerly done, towards the great charge the parish was at in repairing St. Anne’s Chapel, within their parish church, the time being now some years since expired wherein the parish obliged themselves not to solicit or cess them toward the repair of the said chapel and church, and that a copy of an act of vestry bearing date November 17th, 1679, be annexed to the said petition.

The property of St. Anne’s Guild, however, finally became concealed and embezzled, and no trace of its existence is at present extant.

The inhabitants of St. Audöen’s Arch having complained, in 1665, that the “turnstile at the upper end thereof was a great inconvenience to them, by reason they could not have coals, drink, or other necessaries brought to their respective dwellings without trouble and charge,” the Churchwardens agreed, “that the turnstile might be removed, or taken down during the pleasure of the parish, reserving to themselves the power of fixing the same either there or in any other place in the Arch, any time thereafter, as occasion might require.”

In St. Audöen’s Arch, at the residence of Angel Golding, priest of that parish, was held, in June, 1666, the National Assembly, or Synod, of the Roman Catholic clergy, for the purpose of signing the “Remonstrance” or Protestation of loyalty to Charles II. They sat, we are told, “all together in one room, which manner of sitting they held on all along till they were dissolved; only their committees meeting and sitting in other rooms.

Andrew Lynch, Roman Catholic Bishop of Kilfenora, was the Chairman of this Conclave, which, after meeting here twice a day, morning and evening, for nearly a month, finally dissolved without having succeeded in unanimously adopting a statement of their views on the doctrine of allegiance satisfactorily to the King’s representative, the clergy being themselves divided into two parties, styled “Remonstrants” and “Anti-Remonstrants.” Peter Walsh, the leader of the former party, in speaking of this period, refers to the “indiscretion of too great a multitude of Catholicks too publicly and boldly convening and thronging in the streets, from about 12 o’clock at night, on Christmas day, till noon, even at the very door of the parish church of St. Owen’s, in Dublin, where those of the contrary religion, warranted by the laws, and where also the very Guards did meet to serve God in their way, occasioned that disturbance and hurry objected: yet they might visibly see the favour done the Remonstrant clergy whose chapel that was. For notwithstanding their indiscreet carriage in that matter, they were all set at liberty within three or four days, and only because they were known to be true and faithful Remonstrants.” The curate of this church, at the Restoration, was Father Peter Ailmer, who had been confessor to Lord Aubigny, a near relative of and grand almoner to Queen Catherine. In 1697 Bryan Kennedy and William Brynan, Augustinian Friars, were resident at the Convent in St. Audöen’s Arch.

The Military Infirmary, “for the cure of the sick and wounded of His Majesty’s Army in this Kingdom,” was held at St. Audöen’s Arch, in a house which, on the expiration of its lease in 1730, was found to be in such a bad state, that a grant was made to erect a new hospital for the same purpose in St. James’-street; and the ground on which the Infirmary had stood was purchased by the city in 1730 from John Mapas, for the purpose of erecting a new gaol in the place of Newgate, - a design which was not carried into execution. Until the middle of the last century the Corporation of Tanners kept their hall in the tower over St. Audöen’s Arch, which subsequently became the printing office of the “Freeman’s Journal,” the first number of which was published on Saturday, the 10th of September, 1763, under the title of “The Public Register, or Freeman’s Journal.” One penny per number was the price of the paper, which was adorned by a vignette representing a female holding in one hand a bough of laurel, and in the other a coil of serpents, surrounded with the words, “The wreath or the rod.” The publishers were Alexander Mac Culloh, bookseller, in Henry-street, and William Williamson, bookseller, at Maecenas’ Head, in Bride-street, and the Journal was stated to be “printed by order of the Committee for conducting the Free Press.” After the completion of the first volume the “Committee” set up a printing press of their own over St. Auden’s Arch, where, on September 8, 1764, they commenced the publication of the second volume. Dr. Lucas has been generally supposed to have founded the “Freeman’s Journal,” but Henry Brooke appears to have been its originator and first editor, his principal literary assistant being Bernard Clarke, of Mary’s Abbey, a schoolmaster, who suffered considerably from having in 1753 published a number of pamphlets in favour of the “Patriots,” by whom he was afterwards most ungratefully treated. The principal original proprietors of the “Freeman” were John Grant, a merchant, residing in Stafford-street, and Tandy and Braddell, woollen drapers, of Werburgh-street. The managers of the Journal, who styled themselves the “Committee for conducting the Free Press,” were described in 1766 as follows, by one of their opponents, in a satire entitled the “Puritan Committee:” -

Ye Nine, assist me to describe

That low, malicious, motley tribe;

That Puritanic, vile Committee;

The pest and scandal of our city,

Who slander virtue, libel station,

And trumpet faction through the nation.

And first a scribbler mean and shabby,

The fav’rite wit of Mary’s Abbey,

Mundungus comes with solemn air,

As President, to take the chair:

To him succeeds a dull enditer,

Poor Cant, who thinks himself a writer,

The stupid Freeman’s scribe diurnal,

And grand reviser of his Journal.

From Stafford-street behold him march,

Deep musing, tow’rds St. Owen’s Arch.

With Petulant, another true boy,

For state attended by a Blue-boy.

Next comes a self-conceited ass,

Distinguished by his front of brass,

Old Drab, the Anti-phlogian draper,

Who ne’er impressed a thought on paper;

Nay, put his wits and worth together,

They both would scarce outweigh a feather!

Nor must the Muse omit another,

Long, heavy Lank his booby brother,

Whose want of sense and lack of grace

Appear conspicuous in his face.

But who can count the crowds that follow

Those wittlings hated by Apollo?

Fanatic cits, who, every day,

Are led by Clunch from Ussher’s Quay;

Or take from Aungier-street their journey,

Headed by Gripe, the tall attorney.

For sure no man alive supposes

The Muse will stand to reckon noses,

Or tot up all the scurvy dwellers,

That troop from garrets, shops, and cellars;

Wretches, who, wholly void of letters,

Commence reformers of their betters,

And, unrestrained by sense or reason,

Improve licentiousness to treason.”

The paper, which originally consisted of four pages of three colums each, published twice a week, was, in October, 1769, enlarged by a fourth column, and issued on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

Henry Lawes Luttrell, in a public notice issued in 1769, offering a reward of £50 for the discovery of the author of a libel on his character, published in the “Freeman’s Journal,” states that this paper “is known to be supported by a set of miserable men, who stile themselves the Committee of the Free Press, and unanimously make a trade of issuing out calumnies, tending to prejudice individuals in the estimation of the public;” and adds, “I should think myself unworthy the protection of the community I live in, if, for the sake of private ease, and to avoid expense, I should neglect prosecuting such miscreants in the manner the law directs, more especially as these professors of defamation are the greatest enemies to the real liberty of the press, by converting what ought to be a public benefit into a public nuisance.” Notwithstanding this denunciation, the “Freeman’s Journal,” in literary ability and arrangement, was incomparably superior to its Dublin contemporaries, and had the merit of being, with the exception of the “Censor,” the first Irish newspaper which published original and independent political essays. The “Freeman’s Journal” became the organ, in 1770, of Flood, Grattan, and the other opponents of the administration of Lord Townshend, who was defended by Jephson and Simcox in Hoey’s “Mercury.” Flood’s letters to the “Freeman” appeared under the signature of “Syndercombe,” and the various essays and jeux d’esprit published in this Journal against Lord Townshend were collected and reprinted in 1773 under the title of “Baratariana,” to which Grattan contributed his celebrated character of Pitt.

Among the essays published in the “Freeman,” which tended to promote the Revolution of 1782, the most remarkable were those written by Dr. Frederick Jebb and Robert Johnson, under the signatures of “Guatimozin” and “Causidicus,” which were several times reprinted. One of the letters of “Causidicus” contained the following passage, which has been often incorrectly quoted:- “Through the intricacies of English law the gradation of Ireland may be traced, as the way of a wounded man, by the blood which follows it.”

In 1779 Isaac Colles, bookseller, of Capel-street, became publisher of the “Freeman’s Journal,” the printing of which continued to be executed at St. Audöen’s Arch until 1782, when the paper was transferred to Forbes Ross, of Crane-lane, printer, who, with Francis Higgins and David Gibbal, conductors of the Journal, were brought before the House of Commons in 1784 for having published various offensive paragraphs. Ross removed his printing-office from Crane-lane to No. 16, Trinity-street, in 1791, about which period the “Freeman” became the property of Francis Higgins, a Dublin attorney, known by the soubriquet of the “Sham Squire,” who died in 1802, having bequeathed the paper to his nephew, Philip Whitfield Harvey, whose representatives disposed of it to a Mr. Lavelle, from whom it was purchased by the present proprietors.

At St. Audöen’s, or St. Owen’s Arch, popularly corrupted into “Town’s Arch,” at the close of the last century, were held the Halls of the Smiths, or Guild of St. Loy; the Bakers, or Guild of St. Anne; the Butchers, or Guild of the Virgin Mary; the Guild of Feltmakers; and the Bricklayers, or Guild of St. Bartholomew. The tower over St. Audöen’s Arch has fallen to ruin, and the houses on the western side of the passage leading to the Arch have been rebuilt within the last three years.

The lower classes of the city entertained a high veneration for a rude-looking stone, somewhat resembling a spud-stone, bearing upon its upper part a cross carved in very low relief, which was built into the wall at the base of the tower of St. Audöen’s Church, so as to abut upon the street. This stone, popularly called the “Lucky Stone,” was daily kissed and embraced by numbers who believed in its reputed powers of conferring health and prosperity upon those who visited it. About two years ago the “Lucky Stone” was removed from St. Audöen’s Arch and placed in front of the new Roman Catholic chapel in High-street, from which it has recently disappeared.

Cook-street was anciently known as “Le Coke-street,” or “Vicus Cocorum,” the street of the cooks, the Dublin members of which profession were incorporated under the name of the “Guild of Cooks,” or “Fraternity of St. James the Apostle.”

“Pycot’s-Lane” in Cook-street is mentioned in a deed of the year 1356; and we find notice in the 15th century of a rivulet called “Coleman’s Brook,” on the northern side of the street, the buildings in the vicinity of which were subsequently known as “Coleman’s Brook houses.”

On the northern side of Cook-street also stood “Burnel’s Inns,” the city residence of the old Norman family of De Burnell. Robert Burnell was appointed Baron of the Exchequer in Ireland in 1402, shortly after which the Burnells, by intermarriage with the De Comyns, acquired the manor and lands of Balgriffin, in the county of Dublin. John Burnell was attainted and executed at Tyburn for having been one of the principal supporters of Thomas Fitzgerald in his war against the Pale in 1535. Henry Burnell is mentioned among the “busie-headed lawyers and male-contented gentlemen,” who in 1577 opposed Elizabeth’s levying of cess upon the Pale, to argue against which he was deputed to London with two other eminent lawyers, Barnaby Scurlocke and Richard Nettervill, “who having been sometime students in the inns of the courts in London, and acquainted with Littleton’s tenures, thought themselves so well fraughted with knowledge in the laws, as they were able to wade in all matters of the deepest points of the law.” “Of Burnell,” writes Sir Henry Sidney in 1577, ” I will say little, but wish he had been better occupied, for he is a man well spoken and towardly enough otherwise, if he would have applied himself to his profession and followed his clients’ causes, and not so busily have meddled with her Majesty’s prerogative. Burnell’s father is alive, and an old man, but neither in youth nor age lived or was able to live in half that appearance that this man doth. He thirsteth earnestly to see the English Government withdrawn from hence.” Burnell was, however, appointed Justice of the Queen’s Bench in 1589. During the persecution of the Recusants in 1605, Burnell, then very aged, was committed as prisoner to his own house, for having engaged in a deputation formed of the principal Roman Catholics of the Pale, to petition for a remission of the religious disabilities imposed upon them. The last of this family of any importance was Henry Burnell, author of the play of “Landgartha,” noticed in our account of Werburgh-street Theatre. In 1613 James I. granted to Philip Hoare “a ruinous stone house, and an orchard or garden, called the garden of ‘Burnell’s Inns,’ in Cook-street, containing in length 172 feet of standard measure, and in breadth 42 feet.” John Bathe in 1632 was tenant of a messuage or vault on the quay, anciently called “Burnell’s Inn Garden.” Philip Hoare, gentleman, at the same period, held a parcel of ground called Burnell’s Inns in Cook-street, on which were built two messuages, - one in possession of Brian Jones, gentleman, and the other in the occupation of Alison Hoare.

Harris, writing of the ancient timber structures formerly extant in Dublin, observes: “Several of these houses erected in Queen Elizabeth’s time, as well as in the reign of her successor, have subsisted till of late years, and one particularly at the corner of Skipper’s-lane in Cook-street, at the west side, was totally demolished on the 27th of July, 1745, to make room for new houses. On an oak beam carried over the door the whole length of the said house, was the following inscription cut in large capitals and a fair Roman character, nothing damaged by time in the space of 165 years, except in one part, where an upright piece of timber being mortised into it had received the drip, and was somewhat rotted: ‘Qui fecisti coelum et terram benedic domum istam, quam Johannes Lutrel et Johana nei construi fecerunt, A. D. 1580, et anno regni Reginae Elizabethae 22.’ It is no way improbable, that John Luttrel, who was Sheriff of Dublin in conjunction with Gyles Allen, in the years 1567 and 1568, was the builder of this house. Next door to the former lately (1766) stood a large and stately cage-work house, with this inscription over the door in Roman characters: ‘Robert Eustac, An Manning 1618.’ This Robert Eustace was Sheriff of the city in conjunction with Thomas Allen, in the years 1608 and 1609.

In Cook-street was the residence of Sir James Carroll, King’s Remembrancer to James I., and Mayor of Dublin in 1612, 1613, and 1634. Thomas O’Carroll, the father of Sir James, settled in Dublin to escape the oppression of the head of his clan. His son was knighted by Sir Arthur Chichester, and obtained a grant of 1,000 acres of land on the plantation of Wexford, in 1611. Sir James Carroll wrote and presented to the Lord Deputy Wentworth, in 1634, a memorial entitled “propositions concerning the keeping of the streetes of the cittie of Dublin clean, and for ordering and settling the multitude of beggars in and near the cittie, and for reforming and correcting sundry other sorts of disordered persons.

A local writer tells us that in 1623, “the Council of Ireland having intelligence how many Jesuits, Fryers, and Popish Priests, had come from beyond seas and from England into this kingdom, private search was made, and a schedule came into the Council of these whose names ensue, who were then succoured in Dublin: William Malone, a Jesuit; James Comfore, a Fryer; Bartholomew Hamlin, a Priest; James Hamilton, a Scotch Fryer; one (Luke) Rochford, a Priest; Thomas Coyle, alias Cooley, a Priest; one Hamlin, brother to the aforesaid Hamlin, a Friar; Patrick Brangan, a Priest; one O’Donogh, a Priest; Laurence Cheevers, a Fryer; John Nettervill, a Jesuit; Francis Fade, a Jesuit; one (James) Talbot, then Vicar General. At this time the rumour was how these and others met in great numbers at Alderman Fyan’s house, and at Sir James Carroll’s, Alderman, and at Alexander Ussher’s, where they were quarrelling several times about the disposing of titular bishoprics, and other benefices: upon this discovery a proclamation, upon Saturday, being the 24th of January, 1623, issued out, and was proclaimed at Dublin for the banishing of Jesuits, Fryers, and Popish Priests, out of Ireland, within 40 days after the date thereof.”

In Cook-street, in the early part of the reign of Charles were located the Convents of the Carmelites and of the Franciscans or Gray Friars. The latter order, which was always highly esteemed by the Irish Roman Catholics, acquired additional importance by the appointment, in 1623, of Dr. Thomas Fleming, a Franciscan friar, to the Archbishopric of Dublin. Dr. Fleming was brother to Christopher Fleming, 17th Baron of Slane, and had taught theology with great reputation in the College of St. Antony, at Louvain, whence he was promoted to the See of Dublin. The Franciscans erected a school in connexion with their convent in Cook-street, where Fathers Flan Gray and Thomas Strong used to lecture publicly on theology; and in this establishment the poor Franciscan Friar, Michael O’Clery, chief of the “Four Masters,” passed some time in transcribing “every old material which he found concerning the Saints of Erin, observing obedience to each Provincial that was in Erin successively.” For he tells us, it seemed to him a “cause of pity and regret, grief and sorrow (for the glory of God and the honour of Erin), how much the race of Gael, the son of Nial, had gone under a cloud and darkness, without a knowledge of the death or obit of Saint or Virgin, Archbishop, Bishop, Abbot, or other noble dignitary of the Church; of King or Prince, Lord or Chieftain, and of the synchronism or connexion one with the other.”

In his transcript of the lives of St. Finnen of Clonard, and St. Benean, now preserved in the Library of the Dukes of Burgundy, O’Clery observes: ” The lives of Finnen and Benean, and their sequel, were first written ty me in the Convent of the Brotherhood, at Dublin, out of a vellum book which I borrowed from Father Nicholas O’Casey; and I wrote the same again in the House of the Fraternity at Bun Drobhaoisi (Bundroose) 7th March, 1629; the ancient book was written by Gillaglas O’Higgin in the year of Christ, 1471.”

On St. Stephen’s day, December, 1629, at about 11 o’clock, a. m., during the celebration of high Mass, the church of the Franciscans, in Cook-street, was invested by a file of musketeers, who dispersed the congregation, levelled the chapel, school, and residentiary house, profaned the altar, destroyed the furniture, hewed down the image of St. Francis, and arrested several of the friars, who were quickly rescued by the populace. Dr. Launcelot Bulkeley, the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, who accompanied the Mayor and pursuivants in the execution of the warrant, which had been issued at his solicitation, was obliged, we are told, “to take to his heels, and cry out for help, and with difficulty saved himself, by taking shelter in a house. On the 9th of January (1629-30), the Lords Justices gave the King and Council of England an account of this riot, who on the 31st following issued orders for a due execution of the laws, and commanded that the house where these seminary friars appeared in their habits, and where the Archbishop and Mayor received the first affront, should be demolished, and left as a mark of terror to the resisters of authority; and that the rest of the houses of these suspicious societies should be converted into houses of correction, and applied to other public uses.” Consequent on this affair, the Franciscan schools throughout Ireland were dissolved, and Father Valentine Browne, the then Provincial Minister, sent the novices to complete their studies in foreign countries. After the persecution had abated the Franciscans appear to have re-established their chapel in Cook-street in 1630, at which period great dissensions prevailed among the Roman Catholic clergy of Dublin, relative to the alleged preference evinced by Archbishop Fleming for friars of his own order. The most strenuous opponents of the Archbishop were Father Paul Harris and Dr. Patrick Caddell, who for “their obstinate disobedience and continual insolence, without hope of amendment,” were on the 6th of March, 1631, publicly excommunicated “through all the chapels and oratories of Dublin,” the Catholics of which diocese were forbidden under pain of excommunication to be present at, or to hear their masses, Dr. Fleming having “recalled and taken away from them all power and jurisdiction of hearing confessions or ministring, or doing any act, or acts, of the pastoral function within the district of this diocese,” all absolutions given by them being likewise annulled and declared void. Harris, however, appealed against these proceedings, and published several tracts in his own defence, and against the Franciscan and Dominican friars. “To make themselves strong,” he writes, “was to take into their Orders by all manner of allurements and persuasions, such as may be thought any ways fit for their purpose: and to this end they induce gentlemens second sons, as also farmers and merchants apprentices, among which they found, and still do, a plentiful harvest. For I have heard merchants of Dublin complaining, that scarce could they have an apprentice to serve out the half of his years, before he had a vocation to be a friar. And among those they refused not also to admit serving men, tailors, and horse-boys, who are now become reverend fathers, though neither reverend nor civil men. And, indeed, by taking in such a multitude of rude and licentious youths, of all sorts and conditions, many scandals have happened among them those years past.” “I say then,” continues Father Harris, “since the time that our friars began to give their habit, and to take in Probationers in the kingdom (which before in much fewer numbers were bred for them beyond seas) they are increased to such a height, as they are become not only terrible unto the bishops and clergy, but whosoever shall oppose them shall find of what power they are of. And this may well be understood if we do but observe what inwardnesse, or rather I may call it, a kind of kinred and alliance they have contracted, not only with the common people, but with them also of best note and rank, by drawing unto them this son, that daughter, this brother, that sister, this uncle, that aunt, this nephew, that niece, this kinsman, that apprentice: so as they are become far more dear and near unto the inhabitants, than ever were fosters or gossips: so as by their own multitudes and this entailment of their devotees, they are now able in two hours to make the worthiest man either of our clergy or laity within the city of Dublin, or where else they reign, as odious and hateful unto the people, as any malefactors whatsoever. The citizens,” adds Harris, “can well witness with us, how like so many bees our Friars did swarm about them, applying them sometimes with the honey, sometimes with the sting, as best might serve their turn. In confession persuading such as repair unto them, and never giving them absolution, till they have promised not any more to frequent the Masses of the two priests. Others who are slow in coming unto the Friar, the Friar comes unto them, he visits them in their houses: he tells them how such a good friend of theirs remembers their love unto them; he brings them a letter or a token from such a Friar of their kinred or acquaintance, and wishes them to be advised by him. He protesteth how well he loves them; how much St. Francis or St. Dominick is beholding unto them for their great charity and alms, and for their parts, they pray continually for their happiness and prosperity, both in this life and in the next. If they prevail, as commonly they do, they have their intent. If they happen upon others that are of a better head-piece, and have a little more steel in their beards, and will not so easily be drawn by their sweet words, if he be a merchant, they tell him plainly, he will lose his custom; and neither they nor any of their friends will buy aught hereafter in his shop; and this they will not stick openly to declare unto their journeymen and apprentices. The like they do unto the tradesmen, cooks, tailors, and shoemakers. Nay, they will threaten the very taverns, that they have no sale of their wine and beer, if they will adhere unto these two priests (I write nothing but what is well known through all the streets in Dublin), nay, and they will be as good as their words; for all our friends who wish us well, or give us a meal’s meat, or a lodging in their house, fare this day the worse for us, and are partakers with us of this friarly persecution. And brother against brother, the husband against the wife, the children against the parents, and one neighbour against another, to the great disturbance and disquiet, not only of the Church, but even of the commonwealth.” Those invectives against the friars being maintained with incessant pertinacity, Thomas Dease, Roman Catholic Bishop of Meath, received an order from Rome, in 1634, to expel Harris from the diocese of Dublin: the latter, however, declined to obey the mandate, saying, “Certes if the Bishop of Meath’s warrant come in the name of King Charles, it will doubtless be obeyed, but if it come in any other man’s name, Paul Harris is resolved not to depart, nay, if all the Friars, Priests, Bishops, Cardinals, Popes, and a general Council, shall command him to depart, he will not remove a foot out of the diocese of Dublin. No, no, with the good leave of the State, Paul Harris, now of the age of 63, hath set up his rest, and is resolved to say of Ireland, and in particular of this diocese of Dublin, here will he dwell, for that he hath made choice thereof, till such time as his better part be translated into a better habitation.”

Dr. Fleming dated his letter to the Bishop of Ossory, enforcing Rinuccini’s interdict, from his chamber in the Convent of St. Francis, Dublin, 10th June, 1648, the original of which is extant among the manuscripts of St. Isidore’s College, at Rome. After 1650 Fleming retired from Ireland, and while suffering all the inconveniences of exile, contributed both materials and funds for the publication of the “Triadis Thaumaturgae Acta,” edited by his pupil, the learned Franciscan Friar, John Colgan, who acknowledges his obligations to the Archbishop in the following terms

“Inter argumenta quibus hoc opus nomini tuo nuncupandum duxerim, ultimum refero, et inter alia infimum recolerem, nisi temporis aliarumque difficultatum circumstantiae redderent illud magnum; quod illustrissimae vestrae Dominationis impensis ipsum opus impressum sit; quod ejusdem, libros et alia monumenta antiqua opportunè subministrantis, industria (quod magis recolo) factum sciam, quod opus magis elucidatum prodeat, quam alias posset prodire. Magnum igitur ex hac parte videri potest, et censeri debet argumentum; quod inter praesentes belli calamitates, inter privatas necessitates, illustrissima vestra Dominatio à sua Diaecesi exul, non soluin necessaria impensa, sed et monumenta, quibus opus elucidatius prodiret; subministraverit.”

After the Restoration, the Franciscans settled again in Dublin, under the guardianship of Father James Fitz Simons; and although the members of this Order were pre-eminently distinguished as advocates of the Remonstrance of loyalty to Charles II., their chapel, in which the Procurator, Father Peter Walsh, “himself did officiate, and whereunto he laboured to obtain all the favour, connivance, and countenance he could possibly, without any peradventure, was, by guards of soldiers, and whole companies with naked swords, assaulted on St. Stephen’s and New Year’s days, 1662-3, the altars rifled, the priests carried prisoners to Newgate, and many hurt both men and women grievously, and some slashed and wounded sorely, even to the great endangering of their lives.”

In this convent died, in May, 1666, the erudite Redmond Caron, or Mac Carron, who had been delegated, in 1649, by the Commissary General of the Franciscans, to investigate the dissensions then existing among the religious of that Order in Ireland. At the Restoration, Caron, adhering to the opinions of all the most eminent divines and writers of his own Church, strenuously opposed the Ultramontane doctrines then sought to be introduced by a section of the Irish Roman Catholic clergy, in opposition to the advocates of the “Remonstrance,” or declaration of loyalty to Charles II. In reply to the arguments of the Ultramontane party, Caron published, in 1662, a treatise entitled “Loyalty Asserted,” in which he adduced extracts from the writings of 250 Roman Catholic divines, condemnatory of doctrines of his opponents. This publication was followed, in 1665, by his learned Latin work on the same subject, styled, “Remonstrantia Hibernoruin contra Lovanienses Ultramontanasque censarus de incommutabili Regum imperio, subditorumque fidelitate et obedientia indispensabili, ex SS. Scripturis, Patribusque, Theologis, &c, vindicata; cum duplice appendice, una de libertate Gallicana, altera contra infallibilitatem Pontificis Romani.” This work, which displays great learning and research, has been reprinted in the “Vindiciae Ecclesiae Gallicanae,” nearly the entire of the original edition having been consumed in the great fire of London. After having superintended the publication of his volume, Caron resided for some months with Lord Powis in Wales, whence he returned to the Franciscan Convent in Dublin where he died a few mouths subsequently. His friend and companion, Father Peter Walsh, tells us that, “when Caron was on his deathbed, even after he had received the sacrament of Extreme Unction, and his last viaticum, too, of the Holy Eucharist, when he was every moment expecting his death, without any kind of hopes of recovery, and being in this condition, however, still in his perfect senses, he was told by me and others, it had been bruited of him abroad in the city, even amongst lords and ladies, that being come to this point, he retracted his signature and defence of the Remonstrance, and his whole doctrine or books of that matter. He presently desired me to call into his chamber the whole community of the Franciscan Fathers (who were then next room to him at supper), and as soon as they were all entered, the Commissary-General (who a little before came from Spain), Father Mark Brown, heading them, our dying Father Redmund Caron, having first declared the cause of his sending for them at that time to be the foresaid false report; and then his trouble that any religious men should be so unreasonably desirous to advance, or cherish a faction, as to invent lies of a dying man that was every moment expecting to appear at the tribunal of the Great Judge, to give there an account of both his life and doctrine; in the third place he declared unto them, and desired them all to bear witness of his declaration, that as he was now suddenly to answer God, he both subscribed first the Remonstrance, and engaged after in defence of that Formulary and subscription thereof according to the best and clearest dictates of his inward conscience, without having ever at any time since entertained the least thought of fear, doubt or scruple of any error, sin or unlawfulness, either in doing so, or in not retracting what he had so done. - And then in the fourth and last place, converting himself to me, and desiring me,” says Father Walsh, “to sit by him on the bedside, and I accordingly sitting there, he further declared his conscience to be, that I was bound in conscience to prosecute still even after his death that matter, and continue that defence or advancement of that doctrine which in his lifetime I had for so many years, and notwithstanding so much contradiction, maintained.” On the day following this declaration, Caron expired in the arms of his brethren: his obsequies were performed with great solemnity, the funeral sermon being preached by Peter Walsh; and more than 2,000 people accompanied his remains to St. James’s churchyard.

A general Chapter of the Franciscans was held in Dublin in 1703, a year particularly awful in the annals of terror; in this Chapter 64 Vocals, or persons entitled to vote at capitular elections, attended; in 1705 a middle Chapter was convened in the same city. Another general Chapter, at which 62 Vocals assisted, was solemnized in the metropolis during the November of 1706: and an intermediate one in 1708. A third general Chapter was held in Dublin, October 12th, 1709, the number of Vocals being 62; the intermediate Chapter is dated the 7th of June, 1711. The fourth general Chapter, at which 63 Vocals attended, was held in the same city on the 13th of October, 1714; these Chapters are ail dated ‘In loco Refugii nostri;’ signifying that they assembled in a place of refuge and security from their enemies.

From the middle of the last century, the establishment of the Franciscans in Cook-street became known as “Adam and Eve’s” chapel, its entrance being on the eastern side of “Adam and Eve’s” lane, extending from Cook-street to the Merchants’-quay. Father Christopher Fleming, who published a volume of sermons, and died in 1794, was one of the most eminent clergymen of his time connected with this chapel.

In the reign of James II., the Dominicans, or Friars Preachers, established themselves in Cook-street; and in 1697, Friars Thomas Marshall, James Fannin, James Eagan, and Christopher Farrell, were located in this convent, which, after having been deserted by the friars, in consequence of the penal enactments at the close of the same century, became the Roman Catholic chapel of St. Audöen’s parish, still, however, retaining the name of the “Old Dominicans.” Father Edmond Murphy, ordained at the Escurial in 1677, was Roman Catholic rector of St. Audöen’s in 1704, and his successor here, in 1731, was Father Thomas Wolfe. Patrick Fitzsimon, rector of St. Audöen’s parish, was appointed Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin in 1763, and the parochial establishment was transferred about 1770 to the eastern side of Bridge-street.

John Wright, “musitioner,” is mentioned as living in Cook-street in 1635, where at the same period were “Mr. Baggot’s Tavern,” and the “Ship Tavern,” kept by Patrick Warren.

Conor Maguire, Baron of Enniskillen, “the first in point of quality,” of those engaged in the projected revolutionary movement against the Puritans in Ireland, was arrested in Cook-street on the 22nd of October, 1641, under circumstances detailed as follows, in the examination of Charles Kinsalagh of Dublin, taken before Sir Richard Bolton, knight, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and Sir Gerrard Lowther, knight, on the second day of November, 1641:

“This Examinant sayth that about six of the clock on Saturday morning was sennight he heard a knocking at his door in Winetavern-street, where he dwelleth, whereupon he arose out of his bed, and shortly after the door was opened by this Examinant’s Boy, and there came in Tirlagh O’Connor, a servant to the Lord Maguire, who demanded of this Examinant whether he had any good ale in his house, whereunto he answered him there was not any but small beer, whereupon he sent this Examinant’s Boy for four penny worth of ale, and when the Boy came back he told this Examinant there were 10,000 Scots drawing near to the town, and thereupon the said Tirlagh O’Connor said that the gates were shut, and that he could not come to my Lord his horses, then this Examinant asked the said Tirlagh if he thought the Lord Maguire was up, whereunto he answered he thought he was, by reason he left him at his lodgings at Nevill’s house in Castle-street, about to rise. And this Examinant having understood the day before, being Friday, from one Edmund Mac Mahon, a servant to the Lord Maguire, that his Lordship desired to speak with this Examinant, the said Edmund Mac Mahon then coming into this Examinant’s house, he left the said Edmund and Tirlagh drinking of the ale, and went to his Lordship’s lodgings at Nevill’s house to speak with his Lordship, and there inquiring for him, the people of the house told this Examinant that he was gone abroad long before; whereupon this Examinant returned back again to his own house, and there was told by his wife that the neighbours told her that it was the Lord Maguire that was knocking at the door before, and that he went down towards the Quay, and returned back again towards Cook-street, and this Examinant supposing that he was gone to one Kearnan, a tailor, his house in Cook-street, who worked for him, this Examinant went thither to seek his Lordship, and coming into the house found not any one there but young children, and that then this Examinant went up a pair of stairs leading to a cockloft, where looking over a door he espied his Lordship lying upon a bed with an old caddowe wrapped about him, and discerned him by his hair, thereupon looking under the door he found the key and opened the door and went into the room, whereupon his Lordship wished him to sit him down by him upon a chest by the bed side and to put on his hat, and told him that his life and goods, and all he had were in this Examinant’s hands, and desired him if possible he could to convey him secretly out of that house, and this Examinant answering that he could not, he told this Examinant that there was a place in St. Owen’s Arch, where if he were conveyed he might be kept secretly, whereunto he answered that he could not convey him thither, the Lord Maguire replied, that he thought if he were disguised in woman’s apparel he might be conveyed thither, and this Examinant told his Lordship that he thought if he were so disguised he might be conveyed some better way, which was to go on the other side of the street about five or six of the clock at night, and so be conveyed by Colman’s Brooke. And thereupon his Lordship wished this Examinant to walk abroad and hear what news there was, soe this Examinant departed and locked the door, and before this Examinant could venture back again, he met his Lordship apprehended by the Sheriffs coming through Fishamble-street towards the Castle. - Cha. Kinsallagh; R. Bolton, Canc.; Gerrard Lowther.”

John Woodcook, the captor of Lord Magnire, gave the following additional details in his deposition sworn on the 27th of October, 1641: “That he, being one of the Sheriffs of the city of Dublin, in the year 1641, having notice given him in the night, upon the 22nd of October in the same year, of some great design intended, did, by virtue of his office, walk up and down the city that night; and coming to the house of one Nevill, a chirurgeon, in Castle-street, he understood by the said Nevill, that the Lord Mac Guire with some 10 or 12 others were there; This Examinate told him, it was fit for his guests to be in bed at that time of night; but the said Nevill did bring this Examinate word, that the Lord Mac Guire and his company were then going to bed. The said Examinate departed, setting a watch near his house; by which watch he was informed, that the said Lord Mac Guire and the rest were gone from the house, and were at the house of one Kerne, a taylor: Whereupon he searched the said house, and there found some hatchets with the helves newly cut off close to the hatchets, five petronels, five or six swords, three or four small pistols, five or six skeins, with other arms of the Lord Mac Guire’s in an house of office in the said house; in another place divers pole-axes, and also behind a hen-roost some great weapons with sharp pikes of iron in one end of then), the said Kerne affirming that he knew nothing of any of the particulars before mentioned, nor how they came in his house. The said Examinate showed all the said instruments unto the said Lord Justices and Council of Ireland; and thereupon the said Lords Justices and Council commanded search to be made for the said Lord Mac Guire. Upon which the said Examinate, searching narrowly for him, at last found him in a cockloft, with a cloak wrapped about him, standing by a bed, the door lockt upon him, there being no key to be found; as also the master of the house flying away, and making an escape to the enemy.

Tradition stated that Lord Maguire was arrested at mid-night, in a small house on the northern side of Cook-street, nearly opposite St. Audöen’s Arch; and to commemorate his capture in this parish, it was an annual custom, down to the year 1829, to toll the bells of St. Audöen’s Church at 12 o’clock on the night of the 22nd of October.

At the Restoration, the parish of St. Michael obtained a grant of a house in Cook-street called the “Blue Bell,” and at the same period, the name of “Pipe-street” was occasionally applied to a part of this locality. Among the residents in Cook-street in the reign of Charles II. were the family of Mapas of Rochestown; and Sir Nicholas Plunket, barrister at law, who had taken a prominent part in the proceedings of the Roman Catholic Confederation at Kilkenny.

In 1673 a stone building was erected as a meeting-house at the rere of the northern side of Cook-street, by the Society of Dissenters founded by the Rev. Edward Baynes, the ejected Nonconformist minister of St. John’s parish, noticed in our account of Winetavern-street.

Mr. Baynes, who died in 1670, was succeeded by the Rev. Thomas Harrison, who had been chaplain to Henry Cromwell, and continued minister here till his death in 1682. Dr. Harrison wrote several religions works, and was “so ready in the Scriptures that he was called by many ‘the walking Bible.’” His successors in the Cook-street Presbytery were, Rev. Henry Newcome, Rev. John Howe, Rev. James Symonds, Rev. Samuel Bryan, Rev. John Pinney, Rev. William Mitchell (1683-1687), Rev. Elias Travers (1690-1703), Rev. Ralph Norris, Rev. Thomas Steward (1714), Rev. James Strong (1721-1767), Rev. Peter Butler (1731-1736), Rev. William M’Cay (1739-1765). Dr. William Dunne was appointed colleague to Mr. Strong in Cook-street in 1765, where he became sole pastor after the death of the latter in 1767. On the 29th of March, 1787, this body became united with the congregation of Strand-street, where are yet used the communion cups bequeathed in 1682 by Dr. Thomas Harrison to the Cook-street Society. This meeting-house still exists in a dilapidated condition, and not far from it, on the same side of the street, stands a building used in the last century as the Hall of the Guild of Shoemakers.

A house, called the “Old Robin Hood,” in Cook-street, is mentioned in 1694; and in 1697 the following Roman Catholic priests are noticed as resident in this street:- Patrick Lutterell, at William Dayly’s, the sign of the “Sun;” Jeremiah Nettervill, at the sign of the “Harp;” and Edward Chamberlin, Jesuit, “living neere the convent.” Captain Peter Drake, of Drakerath, county of Meath, who highly distinguished himself on the Continent, tells us that he was taught the use of the small sword by “one Captain Butler, who, in 1700, kept a school of that kind in Cook-street, and who was then reputed the best master of the science in the city. “I gave him,” says Drake, “a guinea entrance, and promised to pay him monthly, according to our agreement. I went constantly twice a day for three months, and may justly say, I did not prove the worst of his scholars for that time, the ‘Captain himself having freely owned that he got credit by me, there being several gentlemen of much longer standing, who had not made half the proficiency.”

Thomas Austin, parish priest of St. Nicholas Within, who had received orders in 1691 from Jacob de Bryas, Archbishop of Cambrai, is noticed as resident in Cook-street in 1704. Father John Austin, born in Dublin on the 12th of April, 1717, and admitted to the Order of Jesus at Champaign, in 1735, returned in 1750 to his native city, where he acquired a high reputation as a preacher, and established a school in Cook-street, in which John O’Keeffe, the dramatist, and the majority of the Roman Catholic youth of the metropolis, received their education. Dr. Thomas Betagh became subsequently associated in the management of this seminary with Father Austin, who died on 29th September, 1784, and was interred in St. Kevin’s churchyard. “I was informed,” says a writer in 1791, “that Austin was a very remarkable character in this metropolis about 12 or 14 years ago, of extraordinary learning, and extraordinary piety; that he constantly dedicated all his acquisitions, which were very considerable, to the poor; visiting them in cellars and in garrets; never a day happy that he did not give food to numbers. The principal Roman Catholics, knowing well his disposition, were liberal to him; and he kept his door open to all who were in want; and, while the means lasted, was constantly on foot, administering relief to innumerable poor wretches, never resting while he had a single guinea. Besides this, he was a great preacher, and injured his health by his exertions in the pulpit. He was a most affectionate son to an aged mother - she died, and he was overpowered with affliction - he never afterwards raised his head - but drooped into a second state of childhood. He remained in this situation near three years, and would have perished, were it not for his brother Jesuits, Messrs. Betagh, Fullam, and Mulcaile. When he died, his friends, who neglected him on the bed of death, erected a monument to his memory.” Another writer concludes his remarks on Father Austin as follows:-” May the memory of the hard usage you received from a public, to whose service you sacrificed your health, sleep with you for ever in the grave! May it not be recorded lest it should intimidate, through the painful apprehension of thy fate, other benevolent souls from treading in thy footsteps - nor be the means of withdrawing from the houseless children of want, such relief as you freely bestowed on them! It was thy lot to be caressed by the great - to be followed and hailed by the multitude: and yet the period arrived that saw you live in misery unpitied, and die unlamented.” A portrait of Father Austin, engraved by Brocas, was published by B. Corcoran, dedicated to the Roman Catholics of Dublin, and inscribed, “To you the poor were left, and you became the guardian of the orphan.” A large house at the end of “Archbold’s-court” in Cook-street was traditionally pointed out as having been occupied by Father Austin, after whose death the court became the residence of Father Magaulay, an excommunicated Roman Catholic priest, by whom nearly all the clandestine marriages in the city were performed, and who was commemorated in various popular ballads.

In 1750 a Cockpit was held in Cook-street; and at the sign of the “Angel and Bible” here, about the same period, was the shop of Patrick Lord, a poor printer, and one of the most zealous promoters of Roman Catholic emancipation.

“His labour and time were devoted to printing and publish-lug many tracts in vindication of the conduct and principles of the Catholics; neither loss nor ingratitude could abate his zeal or relax his exertions. With the enthusiasm which marks the character of the middle class of Irish, he sought the good of his country as the first object of his pursuits.” Lord, in 1755, published Charles O’Conor’s “Case of the Roman Catholics,” relative to which, the author’s grandson, the Rev. Charles O’Conor, gives the following particulars:- “When this pamphlet came out, the Roman Catholics entertained hopes, and collected some degree of courage, from the manner in which it was written. It was advertised in Pue’s, Faulkner’s, and Williamson’s papers; copies elegantly bound were sent inclosed to the Secretary of State, for the Lord Lieutenant, and the following paragraph appeared in all the Dublin papers:- ‘We hear that the Case of the Roman Catholics, was yesterday presented to the Lord Lieutenant at the Castle, and most graciously received.’ An elegant copy was also sent to the Primate; it went off very rapidly, and the Roman Catholics of the three kingdoms read it with conscious exultation. Lord, the printer, was so timid, that he often stopt the press, on account of his being informed that it would not find purchasers among its own party, that the boldness of it would do more harm than good, and that the strokes against the Court of Rome (very different from the Church of Rome) would disgust all the Popish clergy, and damn the work. ‘Yet,’ says Reilly, in a letter dated June 23, 1755, ‘100 copies have been sold since Friday morning, and if a piracy is not carried on, Lord will make his fortune of it. Primate Boulter’s chaplain called on the printer yesterday, and told him that his Grace was talking very favourably of this work, and said he was very well disposed towards us in consequence of it.”’ A subsequent letter states that “There is a pirated edition in twelves almost finished by one Bowes, out of resentment to Lord, who refused him credit for some copies; Lord, who was closely on the look-out, discovering that there was a progress made in the small edition, applied to old Brown, who, with great difficulty, prevailed on Bowes to give up his edition on Lord’s paying his expence, which is no trifling sum.” Lord was totally unacquainted with the author of this pamphlet, and did not suspect, until three months after its publication, that it had been written by some gentleman from the county of Roscommon. A similar secrecy was observed in 1759 relative to the “Historical Memoirs of the Irish Rebellion” of 1641, the proof-sheets of which were sent to his friend Reily, who carried them in the dead hour of the night to the house of Dr. John Curry, the author. The establishment of James Byrne, another Roman Catholic publisher, was located in. 1766 at the corner of “Keysar’s-lane,” in Cook-street.

From the year 1770, a tavern, called the “Struggler,” located on the south-west part of Cook-street, was much frequented by the respectable citizens of the neighbourhood, and subsequently became one of the rendezvous of the members of the “Society of United Irishmen.” The sign from which the tavern acquired its name represented a man struggling to maintain his position upon a terrestrial globe. An opposition establishment, styled the “New Struggler,” opened about the close of the last century on the north-west side of the street, continued for many years the principal tavern in this part of the city.

Among the many respectable and wealthy traders who resided in Cook-street before the termination of the eighteenth century, when it became the Libitina of Dublin, was Sir Antony King, an eccentric brazier, Lord Mayor of the city in 1778, having been previously knighted while Sheriff, for the courage which he displayed in capturing a fugitive felon, whom he pursued through the subterranean and noisome recesses of the Poddle water-course.

A passage extending from the north-eastern side of Cook-street to the Merchants’ Quay, is styled in a lease of 1403 “Lovestokes-lane,” a name subsequently changed into “Longstick-lane,” and “Woodstock-lane;” but from the early part of the 17th century this locality has been generally known as “Rosemary-lane.” The “Golden Lion” is noticed in Rosemary-lane in the reigu of James I., and in the middle of the last century there was standing in this lane part of the wall of an old cagework house, over the door of which, cut in timber, were two escutcheons, and between them the date of 1600. Laurence Whyte, a teacher of mathematics, and author of various poems, resided here from the early part of the succeeding century till his death in 1755.

On the western side of Rosemary-lane was a large building, used for a considerable period as the Roman Catholic chapel of the parishes of St. Michael and St. John, which, in the reign of Charles I., appear to have been placed under the care of the same priest. Father Thomas Coyle, Roman Catholic rector of St. Michael’s parish, was succeeded about 1628 by Patrick Brangan; and a Report of 1630 states that “there is one Masse-house in St. Michael’s parish, which stands on the backside of Mr. George Taylor’s house; it is partly in St. Michael’s parish, and partly in St. Nicholas’ parish within the walls; the Recusants of that parish, and of the parishes adjoining, resort thither commonly; the priest that saith Mass there, and is commonly called the priest of that parish, is named Patrick Brangan. The parishioners of St. John’s parish that are Recusants,” adds the Report, “frequent the above-named Mass-house, and have the same man for their priest.”

Father Patrick Cahil, of the diocese of Meath, Professor of Theology, was subsequently nominated rector of St. Michael’s parish, having, during his tenure of the office of Vicar-General of Dublin, acquired great reputation for his solicitude in preaching and performing the other functions of his office. Father Cormac Higgins was appointed coadjutor to Cahil, but the latter, being groundlessly suspected of having written a satire on the Inquisition, was suspended by Archbishop Fleming from officiating in the diocese of Dublin, whence he was ordered to depart in 15 days. Writing of this affair, Father Paul Harris, in 1632, observes - “Shall we think that St Augustin brought with him his censures and his sentences in his pocket, as Tho. Fleming, alias Barnwell, Archbishop of Dublin, useth, and then to send for a priest against whom he desireth to have a cause; and when he finds his opportunity draws out his sentence of’ suspension from his pocket, as he did against that R. priest Fa. Patrick Cahil, suspending him from all priestly function, and the same so causelessly and so inconsequently, as he offered at the same time to give him under his hand a testimony of his learning and good life, yea, and hath often, and to diverse avowed that he was both an honest and a learned man, which many of the inhabitants of this city and diocese can, and doe witnesse.”

Cahil, however, having appealed to Rome, obtained, after considerable delay, a Bull from Urban VIII. directing the Roman Catholic Bishops of Ossory, Ferns, and Cork, to investigate the matter, which appears to have eventuated in his restoration to the rectory of St. Michael’s; and in November, 1644, the Pope appointed him Dean of Christ Church.

Patrick Cary, ordained at Dublin, in 1689, by Dr. Patrick Russell, was parish priest of St. John’s in 1704; and the Roman Catholic rector of St. Michael’s parish, at the same period, was James Russell, who had been ordained at Paris in 1682.

Father O’Neil is noticed as Roman Catholic rector of this parish in 1731, and his successor, John Clynch, who died on the 30th of October, 1757, was selected by Dr. Edmund Byrne, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin (1707-1724), to maintain, before the Roman Court, the pre-eminency of the See of Dublin, in opposition to the claims of Dr. Hugh Mac Mahon, Roman Catholic Primate of all Ireland. The Rev. M. Field afterwards became priest of this parish, and was succeeded, about 1790, by his coadjutor, the Very Rev. Thomas Betagh, of the Society of Jesus, and Vicar-General of the diocese of Dublin; who died, aged 73, in 1811, deeply lamented by all classes, whose esteem he had acquired by his indefatigable zeal in the promotion of religion and education among the lower orders of his parish, many of whom he gratuitously educated and clothed out of his private resources.

The old building in Rosemary-lane having become ruinous, the parochial establishment was in 1815 transferred thence to the new edifice in Exchange-street, styled St. Michael’s and St. John’s chapel.** **

Gilbert Index