The River Dodder

The River Dodder.

The River Dodder has its sources in the chain of hills bounding the south of the County of Dublin. This chain separates it from Wicklow, and is known as the Dublin Mountains. Some of its waters, however, are drawn from lands lying near the summits of mountains in the County of Wicklow. The source of the Liffey is not more than four miles from that of the Dodder, so that they begin and end together, though widely separated in most places. Of the four principal streams which, uniting, form the Dodder, Dothair, or Dodere, as it was variously spelled, the first and largest is Mareen’s Brook, rising at the back of Lough Bray on Kippure Mountain, 2,473 feet high. This runs down a steep valley, bounded on either side by lofty and precipitous hills, covered with boulders, diluvial gravel, and clay, nearly to their summits. It passes Heathfield Lodge, and flows on to Castle Kelly [Ragstones, for putting an edge to iron tools; also clay, for making crocks and pantiles, abound on the shore or the Dodder from Old Bawn to Castle Kelly. - Rutty’s *Natural History of the County Dublin, *1772.], near where it is joined by the second stream, which rises on Kippure ridge, and, receiving another stream from Lugmore, shortly after is joined by the brook which descends from Seeghane Mountain, dividing it fro, Carrigeen Rhua.

Down the rugged course of this stream I had a toilsome walk one day, half carrying, half dragging a friend who, unused to walking on the hills, had become so faint as to be utterly helpless. Had it not been for two countrymen who were looking for stray sheep, I should never have got him home. As it was, we had to carry him, turn about, on our backs, for over two weary miles of as crooked ground as could be walked on. We reached at last the first cottage at the head of Glenasmole, where we left him to recover.

This stream is called the Cataract of the Rowan Tree. It flows in a narrow and tortuous course, through rocks and boulders, forming many a picturesque cascade and pool. Leaving the foot of St. Mary’s Cliff, where grows the giant ivy, celebrated in the Ossianic Poems before mentioned, it flows under many a small rowan tree, no doubt lineal descendants of that which, in Oisin’s time, bore berries larger than St. Patrick’s loaves Lower down the Glenasmole Valley, the Dodder receives little streamlets from Glassmullaun, and one from the Holy Well of Killsantan, another at Ballymore Finn, and another at Allagour. Passing through the village of Glassamucky, it reaches the end of the valley at Friarstown, or Bohernabreena. The river falls about 350 feet in the first two miles, the banks being mostly formed of gravel and boulders, and the detritus of granite, calcareous, schistose, and trap rocks, embedded in granite sand and argillaceous clay. In one or two spots the banks are cemented with a hard conglomerate, by the infiltration of water charged with the carbonate of lime, which has formed aragonite in the interstices of the gravel.

Some enormous blocks of this conglomerate lie at the foot of the cliff, from which they have fallen. Here it was proposed, about 30 years ago, to make some large reservoirs, by which the flood waters would be retained, and not only a regular supply sent to the mills below, but about 110 acres of good land, liable to erosion and flooding, would be made available, and about 70 acres of barren shingle rendered productive of valuable crops, instead of stones and sand, useful only for road-making. These plans were, unfortunately, not carried out. [See Robert Malet’s report on the subject, printed in 1844.] This spot was also spoken of at the time the Vartry scheme was carried out for supplying water to the city at high pressure. It would have answered quite as well as the Vartry; but there were no engineering difficulties to be overcome, and it would not have cost a tithe of the Vartry works.

The project was shelved, and not quite a million expended on the Vartry, which has been, I must say, a successful plan for so far. Anyone looking at the valley above Bohernabreena Bridge, would say that a finer reservoir could not be found. The river flows through a narrow cut in a natural embankment, extending across the end of the valley, which could have easily been stopped up. [In 1877 it was decided to make use of the waters of the Dodder for the supply of the populous township of Rathmines and Rathgar. The works have been carried out with the greatest success, and a supply of 3,000,000 gallons daily has been obtained for the use of the township. See Description of the “Rathmines and Rathgar Township Waterworks,” by A. W. N. Tyrrell, M. Inst. c.e.]

The total catchment basin of the Dodder is about 55 square miles, of which about 22 and a quarter are mountain, and 32 and a quarter plain, or of moderate inclination. The rapid floods, caused by the steepness of the sides of the catchment basin, carry down great quantities of mud and shingle. The latter is now mostly deposited above the city weir at Fir-House, forming an inexhaustible supply of rather bad road material. Probably not less than 4,000 tons are, and have been for many years, annually removed. The consequence is, that the bed of the river from below Kiltipper has been lowered several feet, the river now running in a deep channel, in some places reaching to the rock, but principally cut in the blue clay. I have seen the roots and part of the stems of trees, apparently *in situ, *in a place where the channel is pretty deeply cut, on a turfy soil, bared by the floods. It is hard to understand how this happened, except that there was a deeper channel, of which there is no present trace, in which the river formerly ran.

Many have been the attempts, and large the sums of money spent by various riparian proprietors in striving to reclaim portions of the extensive strands between Kiltipper and Fir-House. Costly walls have been built, and as often undermined and levelled by this turbulent river; bridges have been swept away, and new tracts of ground devastated. Of late years, owing to the channel having become so deep, the river has become more tractable, and has not done so much damage.

To return to Friarstown; the river here receives the stream from Piperstown, and another from Ballinascorney. Here was at one time a small corn-mill, worked, I should say, by the Piperstown stream. It has long since gone to decay.

Below this, is Bohernabreena Bridge, built about 40 years ago, across a very narrow part of the river, where formerly there was a plank thrown over it as a footbridge, at a spot called the Sheep-hole, which is a deep eddy under a steep rock. It is much used for washing sheep, and abounds with fine trout, which are fished for most assiduously all the season by Dubliners. The trout are so experienced, that they know every fly or artificial bait in Martin Kelly’s, and are not to be taken by fair means. Sometimes the natives put in quick-lime when the river is low, and thus kill numbers. It is soon refilled, for the upper waters above Castle Kelly are preserved, and abound with small trout. The other kinds of fish in this river are eels, sticklebacks, locheen or gudgeon, and minnows. The last were not known in the river until about 20 years ago, when we brought a number from Lough Dan to our ponds, from whence they spread into the river, and are now to be found in myriads.

A little below Friarstown is a weir, formerly made of loose stones and sods, requiring renewal after every flood. This diverts most of the river into a mill-race, which for some distance follows its course under the left bank. Here are the remains of what was called the parchment-mill. Hardly a trace of it exists. The water which supplied it must have been taken from the Ballinascorney stream. This stands high above the millrace, which is carried along in a very rude channel, full of leaks and overflows, staunched, as occasion requires, with sods and boards. When a flood came down, the weir was swept away, and all the mills below to Fir-House left idle, until it was repaired.

Below Kiltipper, or Diana, as this spot is sometimes called, the race is led across the fields into Old Bawn, where it works the paper-mills. The main course of the river below this weir spreads as the valley widens. On the steep right bank under Friarstown, there is a remarkable bed of tufa close to what was once a picturesque cottage called Ferndale, now in ruin. A spring, having a quantity of carbonate of lime in solution, trickles through the moss and grass, and, encrusting the delicate stems and leaves in a short space of time, turns the whole into a beautiful petrifaction, the upper portion being living moss, while underneath it is hard stone. Some of the specimens which I have taken from it rival the finest coral. Every leaf and fibre or the delicate moss is transformed to durable stone. After 30 years’ exposure to the weather, these are as perfect as when removed. Some of the blocks weighed several hundredweights, and are unrivalled for rockery work. I do not think such specimens are now to be had.

A little below this, the river passes an old house on the left bank, formerly belonging to Mr. Wildridge. Near this is the spot where the Kearneys were hanged. This house is now in possession of the representatives of Billy O’Neill, some time since a noted Dublin undertaker. The bed of the river here is now very deep. The floods have cut down to the blue clay, where, about 30 years ago, there were a road and ford across it, now impassable.

A quarter of a mile below here is Old Bawn Bridge, a fine arch of one span, built about 1840. There was a bridge of three arches on the same spot before; but it only stood about 40 years, when, becoming undermined, it had to be taken down. The present one is not likely to last as long. Its foundations are already exposed. Unless some care is taken, down it must come. Below this the bed of the river becomes very wide, and there are acres of shingle and waste land extending to the City Weir at Fir-House.

Half a mile below Old Bawn Bridge, the mill-race before mentioned joins the course of the main river, after turning the wheels of Messrs. Neill’s Mills, at Haarlem. The race does not flow into the river, but runs parallel under tile bank for some distance, until it takes a turn to the left under what appears to have once been the bank of the river, but it is now a long way from it. The race is used in working the Boldbrook Cardboard arid Packing Paper Mills, belonging to the Messrs. Boardman. Here it is joined by the Tallaght Brook, and soon after it flows into the main stream under Mr. Stubbs’s farm.

On the opposite bank of tire river is Kihininy, an old house once owned by a Mr. Johnstone. Next to it is Sporting Hall, formerly called the Moorhouse, once a good residence, but now nearly a ruin. The village of Upper Fir-House divides these lands from the convent, between which and Balrothery Hill, on the opposite side, the river here reaches the City Weir.

The several Acts of Parliament relating to the city water-course all say it existed from time immemorial. In 1308, John Le Decer, then Mayor of Dublin, cleared the city water-course, and embanked it with stone; but whether the weir was then, or previously built, is uncertain. [In Mr. H. F. Berry’s exhaustive paper on “The Water Supply of Ancient Dublin” *(Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, *for 1891, p 557), he says the citizens of Dublin became indebted to this source for their supply as far back as 1244, and on it they continued to depend until 1775. In the map of Tallaght Parish in the Down Survey made in 1656, the “water that supplieth Dublin ” is described at one place as “the tongue.” In 1456 John Pylle, of Templeogue, was sworn to keep the water, and bring it as far as the cistern of the city. In 1491, one Walsh was to have conduct of the water from “the head” at the Dodder to the ” tongue and harbour.” From the “tongue to the cistern” the water was “to be kept as of old time.”] The whole river is here turned into the city water-course, except in floods, when the overflow runs down the main channel in a narrow, deep, and nearly straight course to Kilvare. Thirty years ago it was easy to drive across below the weir: in fact, it was the main road to Tallaght and the Greenhills. Now there is a precipitous bank of 20 feet deep on each side, and it is impassable. For many years the only way of crossing from Fir-House during a flood was by the dangerous one of wading along the top of the weir. The water rushes with great force, although of little depth ; and if the foot slipped, the consequences might be fatal.

Long ago there was a wooden foot-bridge put up below the weir by subscription; but this was soon swept away in a flood, and the planks floated down to Ringsend. About 15 years ago, a neat iron lattice-bridge was put up for foot-passengers, which is. still in good order. It is 20 feet above the bed of the river, and about the level of the old road. Below the weir, the river receives two small streams from Mont Pelier; and passing in front of the paper-mills, where there was another ford, it spread over a wide bed of shingle opposite Spawell. This was reclaimed by Mr. Fowler, of Cherryfield, and the river runs in a straight, deep course to Kilvare.

Kilvare is here surrounded on three sides by the river. It receives a stream at a spot called Pussy’s Leap, and soon after passes Templeogue Bridge, built, as before noticed, by Mr. Bermingham. This means he was the overseer, and got the credit of it, like “the noble lord who, of his great bounty, built a bridge at the expense of the county.” Templeogue Bridge some years ago was nearly undermined; but there is now a substantial weir or dam built below it. This, as long as it lasts, will keep it safe. [A house called Riversdale stands at the corner, where Butterfield Lane joins the road from Fir-House to Templeogue Bridge. It was built about 1840 by Mr. Hughes. It was occupied subsequently by Mr. W. Pigeon, J.P., and afterwards by Dr. Noble Seward, for many years the dispensary officer of Tallaght district. He was a great ventriloquist. By the exercise of his power, on one occasion, he induced some people in Dublin to tear up the pavement, under the belief that there was a man, who had escaped from prison, in the sewer underneath. The scene is graphically described by Lever in *Charles O’Malley. *Dr. Seward, shortly before his death, in 1877, told his friends that Lever’s account was founded on fact, and that the occurrence had really happened. See Fitzpatrick’s *Life of Lever, *vol. i, p. 124.]

The river now runs between very steep clay banks, 20 or 30 feet high, in a very winding course to Bushy Park, the late Sir Robert Shaw’s demesne. Sir Robert, taking advantage of a shelf of slaty clay that crossed the river, made a small weir, to turn some of the water into ponds in his pleasure-grounds. This weir is now demolished, and in floods a tremendous current runs through a narrow cleft in its ruins. It leaves many testimonies of its prowess by tearing down walls and buttresses of enormous strength, reaching Rathfarnham. Here we must leave it, and return to Kiltipper and follow the mill-race. This, having assisted in the making of newspapers at Old Bawn Mills, is brought along the crest of a rising ground to the Haarlem Mills, where formerly there was the most celebrated bleach green in Ireland.

In 1776, the mills were worked by Haarlem & Company, from whence the present name. They were calico printers. In 1813 Mr. Bewley was one of the principals. He was uncle to the late Samuel Bewley, so well known for his extensive benevolence. In 1812, Mrs. Elizabeth Dawson left by her will an annuity of £6 per annum to Anne Bewley in trust, while she should reside here, for the poor of Haarlem. I wonder what has become of it? Here are now four mills, owned by Messrs. Neill - one of them being woollen and the others flour mills. The next mill is that at Boldbrook, owned by Messrs. Boardman, and the next the old paper-mills at Fir-House, before mentioned. The river here joins the city water-course. The citizens are fortunate that they are not now dependent on it, for it is so polluted by the paper-making that it has become poisonous, and cattle and horses have died from drinking it. Sometimes it is the same colour as porter. The course now runs through Spawell, and through a field called the coal-field, from traces of coal said to have been found in it. There was probably a turf-bog here at one time, as peat is to be seen in the bottom of the deep ditches. The Tallaght road from Templeogue crosses the course over an inconveniently steep bridge. This is called the new road, and was made about 1798. The old road followed the bank of the Dodder. The course next works the Templeogue flour-mills, and flows to Kimmage.

The principal tributaries to the Dodder in our parish are:-

I. A stream rising in Featherbed Bog, behind Mont Pelier. This passes the curious little valley between Mont Pelier and the hill behind it, runs through Piperstown and Friarstown Glen, and joins the river above Ballinascorney Bridge.

2. A stream rising at the top of the Gap of Ballinascorney (“the town of the gurgling water”). It flows down that steep, romantic pass, through part of the old deer-park belonging to Belgard, and, I think, formerly worked the old parchment-mill. This stream also ran through part of the extensive deer-park on Mont Pelier, enclosed by the Conolly family. No doubt, these deer-parks were well stocked in old times; and it must have been a grand sight when a meet of the hounds took place in the beautiful lawn in front of Lord Ely’s hunting-lodge, then surrounded by woods. The nobles and ladies would take their way up the steep avenue behind the house, and over the hills, to the glen at the back of it, under Featherbed Bog. Here they would probably start some outlying stag, and the chase would lead over the hills and valleys of Glenasmole, rivalling the legendary stories of the Finnian hunts celebrated in old Irish poems. In the steep, narrow glen through which the Ballinascorney stream flows, there were formerly some rare ferns to be found, such as the *Osmunda regalis *and the *Hymenophyllum Tunbridgense. *Amateur botanists from Dublin have long since extirpated every specimen.

3. The third stream has the longest course of any that here fall into the Dodder. It rises in a small valley over Johnville, on the side of Tallaght hill, near the old high road to Blessington. It flows through Johnville and the lands of Kiltalown, where it is joined by another small stream, which descends from a valley above Kiltalown, and is led through some pretty ponds and waterfalls. The stream bounds the north and west sides of Kiltalown, on which lands there is a spring of the purest and coldest water possible. In summer a glass of it will condense the moisture in the air round it as if it was iced. This stream passes through Jobstown, Brooklawn, Whitestown, and again crosses the Tallaght road. By this time it is a good stream, owing to several rills that descend front the slopes of the Tallaght hills. It enters the lands of Old Bawn, where there is a weir which formerly diverted the principal part of it into a course of about a mile in length, to the ponds of the episcopal palace. This weir is of considerable antiquity, and the stream was used to work the old Manor Mill of Tallaght at the end of the town. This is all in ruins now, and the mill-race is so choked with mud and weeds, that but little water passes through it. Formerly, after turning the wheel of the Manor Mill, and grinding all the corn of the tenants - under the usual toll or mulcture of 1s. a barrel for every barrel not here ground - part of it was brought across the fields at the back of Haarlem, by means of deep cuttings and large iron pipes. There it crossed the parent stream and the tail-race from Haarlem Mills, down to Boldbrook Mill, where, from its great purity, it was used in paper-making before chlorine, China clay, and other bleaching stuffs were known. It then falls into the Dodder with the tail-race. This course is long since obliterated, the cuttings filled up, the iron pipes removed, and so changed are the fields, that it is scarcely credible that water could have been brought this way. However, in my young days, along this very stream there was a short cut from Fir-House to Tallaght. The only bridges across the stream were the iron pipes, and it was a hazardous feat for a young or timid person to walk across them. To return to the little weir at Old Bawn. Nearly the whole stream now flows through the fields of Old Bawn, and crosses the road from Allenton to Tallaght, under the Watergate bridge. This is rather a recent construction. Formerly there were stepping-stones and a ford here, and the name was derived from a gate of the old castle on this side. A farmer at one time appropriated the stepping-stones for building his cabin, but the country people made him replace them. One of these historic stepping-stones is now lying opposite the forge at the entrance to the village, near where once stood the celebrated cross of Tallaght. The stream then flows through some pretty fields, where a splendid mill-pond might easily be made, and joins the Dodder mill-race just above the Boldbrook Mills, after a course of five or six miles.

4. The fourth stream rises to the left of Mont Pelier House, and flows through a little glen, formerly welt planted, but where now only about 20 trees remain. There is a little well under an arch, built when the Long House was erected. It is down in the glen, close to the stream, and must have been a pretty spot. An old limekiln, long unused, stands close to it. The stream crosses the old avenue, and receives another little brook, rising in a marshy place close by, a sure find for a snipe or two in winter. It runs then through Old Court, now the residence of J. Magrane. There was a chapel here at one time, but only a bit of an ivy-covered wall remains.

Old Court is mentioned in several early inquisitions and maps. [On the 29th January, 1875, part of the lands of Old Court, portion of the estate of the Marquis of Ely, were sold, in the Landed Estates Court, to Mr. Williani J. Tyndall for £2,060.] There are now a substantial farmstead and out-offices here, surrounded by a grove of ash trees, in which there is a large rookery. Before 1828 there was not a rookery in all this parish, except in the wood at Templeogue. About that year, a colony established themselves in Sally Park, where there is now a large rookery. Generally there are from 250 to 300 nests every year. A multitude of starlings also build, mostly in the same bundle of sticks that the crows collect for their nests, and in every hollow tree in the place. After the young birds are fledged, it is pretty to see the gyrations of the starlings and crows. The former fly in a compact mass, at great speed, round and through the crows. These circle about for sometimes half an hour before settling on their roosts for the night. The next rookery established was at Old Court. There is now a thriving colony at Allenton, [This house is built on the site of the ancient church and monastic establishment of Killininny, or Cill-na-ninghen. These were founded by the four daughters of Maclaar, who are commemorated on October 26th in the Irish Calendar. There are remains of a castellated building and of a narrow square tower still to be seen, also some walnut trees supposed to be contemporaneous with St. Maelruain’s tree at Tallaght. At Allenton resided Sir Timothy Allen, who was in 1762 Lord Mayor of Dublin. In *The Dublin Journal *of July 24-27, 1762, it is announced that “last Saturday evening our worthy Lord Mayor, coming from his country seat at Temple-Oge, the horse took fright, and ran into a ditch, by which his lordship was very much cut and bruised; but we have the pleasure of assuring the public his wounds are no way dangerous. His lady, who was in the chaise, received but little hurt.”] and another at Killakee. Near Ballycra the stream is divided by a small weir: one part is diverted through a deep-covered drain into Ballycra; another flows direct through Killininny into the Dodder; and a third runs through the walled-in garden of Tymon Lodge. Here is an old-fashioned house, with a curious chimney-stack. The stream supplied an ancient bath-house, about 30 feet by 12, formerly roofed in, but now in ruins. The garden, too, is now a grass field, with no trace of former cultivation. The stream soon after enters Sally Park, where it supplies the ponds and yards; and then, flowing through the village of Fir-House, reaches the Dodder just below the weir.

5. The fifth stream rises not far from Killakee upper gate, behind Mount Venus, and, flowing down by Orlagh gate, is joined by a rill that rises very near the top of Mont Pelier, and supplies a pond and fountain in Orlagh. Crossing the road, it flows by the holy well of St. Columkille, then through Ballycullen farm - which has seen better days - and on through Mount Prospect, where were a bath-house and ponds. It now runs through the farmyard of Old Knocklyon, and the lower end of Sally Park, into a fine pond, well stocked with trout, over a waterfall, and on, in a straight course, into the Dodder.

6. The sixth and last stream rises above Woodtown House, on Mount Venus, and, running by a belt of plantation, reaches Beech Park, formerly Sabine Fields. This was once owned by an attorney named Moran, celebrated for having ridden a pony all the way to the Curragh before George IV in 1821. On this occasion several horses of the royal escort dropped dead, from the rapid rate at which it proceeded. Some say His Majesty was afraid of getting a shot. At all events, his splendid horses went at a gallop the whole way. Moran thought much of his pony, which kept ahead the whole time. He was very proud when His Majesty remarked that it was a good pony. He had its portrait painted, as it died after the day’s work.

Moran bought at an auction a beautiful group of figures. This represented “The Rape of the Sabines.” It included four life-sized figures, cast in metal - those of a Roman soldier, with a female figure in his arms, and of two others equally well modelled. He erected this on a handsome pedestal in the lawn, where it was a conspicuous object. From want of care it fell to pieces, and the metal was stolen about 1848. There were also two grotesque marble figures on the piers of the gate, representing Nero and Caligula, which have also long since disappeared. This place was afterwards held for some time by a sect of White Quakers, who established an Agapemone here. Here they dressed, men and women alike, in long white robes, and had all things in common. The money was put into a wooden bowl, and each helped himself as he or she needed. Of course, this state of bliss could not long continue. The establishment was broken up, and the lawyers had some pickings out of the bottom of the bowl. This stream ran through a little wooded glen, where were rustic bridges and summer-houses, all now gone. Crossing part of Ballyroan, the stream formed the boundary of our parish and of the barony, and joined the Dodder, through a long tunnel under the road at Pussy’s Leap. For some time past this stream has been brought through the lands of Ballyroan, and joins the Dodder half a mile lower down towards Rathfarnham.

These six streams are all those in the parish; owing to the improved system of drainage, and the quantity of mountain and marshy land reclaimed, their quantity has greatly diminished, so that in dry summers many places are badly off for water.

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