Trinity College to Arran Quay

ROUTE I.

Covering Trinity College - College Green - Dame Street - Castle Street

• Parliament Street - Essex Quay - Exchange Street - Lord Edward Street - Christchurch Place - Cornmarket - Bridge Street - Thomas Street - Usher’s Quay - Usher’s Island - Arran Quay.

Commencing*** ***our excursion at College Green, we first visit **

TRINITY COLLEGE. **

In the first floor on the left of the portico of the Examination Hall, standing on the right in Parliament Square - the entrance being in the court-lived, 1807-21, the eccentric Vice-Provost, and Professor of Oriental Languages, **Jolin Barrett, D.D., **familiarly spoken of to this day as “Jacky Barrett.”

Many years before, when a student, and occupying a garret in the library square, where his extreme penuriousness led him to dispense with a fire in the severest weather it is recorded that he was on one occasion found by some frolicsome fellow-students - the night being bitterly cold-sitting doubled up, apparently reading his Greek lecture for the morning, with a rushlight stuck in the back of the chair, and growing stiff and torpid with the cold, and was resuscitated by a draught of hot rum punch from the kettle in which it was the custom to concoct the “brew.”

He kept his money in a stocking - which on one occasion burst in his hand during an interview with a student-until he had accumulated-enough to buy a debenture. “So strong was his passion for hoarding,” we read in the article above quoted, “that he never burned a candle in the evening unless engaged in writing or some other occupation which rendered one absolutely necessary…

How completely this extraordinary passion had counteracted the natural kindness of his disposition was strongly exhibited in another instance towards his poor old attendant Catty.

He had sent her out, as usual, one morning, for a halfpenny worth of milk; he gave her a penny to pay for it, with strict injunctions to be correct in bringing back the change. The poor woman, whom old age and want had rendered infirm, slipped and fell in the college court as she was returning with the milk, hurting her leg so severely that she was immediately carried off to the hospital.

She had for many years been the doctor’s only companion, and being sincerely grieved for the accident he went at once to the hospital to see her. The unfortunate woman was lying in bed writhing with pain, and her old master was at first affected to tears; but his habitual avarice was too strong to be suppressed, and after expressing his sorrow for her misfortune he began:

‘D’ye hear, Catty, where’s the jug?’ ‘Oh, doctor, dear!’ groaned the poor woman, ‘sure the jug was broken, and I couldn’t help it.’ ‘Very good, Catty, that ‘s true, it couldn’t be helped; but d’ye see me now, where’s my halfpenny change?”’

Though reputed by those who had the means of observation to be the most extensive general scholar of his time,” the strangest stories were circulated of his uncouth simplicity. “He was a man of low stature with a huge head, disproportioned to the size of his body, and a large hooked nose, disproportioned to the size of his head… He wore a profusion of his own hair, turned up before and curled upon a buckle behind like a wig: this he used carefully to powdered at every examination and at no other time… When the examination was over he carefully combed out the powder into a sheet of paper, and kept it till the next year.”

He was caricatured as a sweep-his hood being transformed into a soot-bag-an appellation which his exceedingly foul linen and dirty face are said to have fully merited.

Dr. Barrett only dined out of the common-hall once in forty years, and then-the visit being a suburban one - opportunities offered for his identification of sheep as the source from which mutton is derived, - a fact previously unknown to him - and the explanation of the difference between a live duck and a partridge.

He left £80,000 for charitable uses, £200 to the chief porter of the University, and £25 a year to each of his four nieces, who were in poor circumstances - to whom, when they visited him, be would thus address himself: “Eh! do ye see me now? What do ye come after me for till I’m dead.”

Among the other anomalies of this strange being it should be mentioned that though able to speak Latin and Greek fluently his English was absurdly ungrammatical; and while his general conduct and the integrity of his life was strictly consistent with his religious professions, he indulged in cursing and swearing to an unlimited extent. Barrett died in 1821 at the age of seventy-five.

At **No. 35, **in the inner square, lived **James Hellthorn, Todd, D.D., **the distinguished author and antiquary, and, as Archdeacon Cotton designated him in 1850, “the *sine qua non *of every literary enterprise in Dublin.”

The writer of the obituary notice in ‘the *Athenoeum *says: “Though Todd was a clergyman, and even a Doctor of Divinity, he was chiefly known in this country and on the continent of Europe as a Celtic scholar and laborious writer President of the Royal Irish Academy, master-spirit of the Irish Archaeological Society, and Regius Professor of Hebrew, he had a wide field of activity, and be was never unequal to the demands made upon his know-ledge and capacity.” He had a country residence at Clonskeagh in 1852, and after 1857 at Silverton, Rathfarnham, where he died in 1869 at the age of sixty-four. **

COLLEGE GREEN.

No. 3, **now the office of the National Assurance Company, is the central portion of what was formerly **Daly’s Club, **which, in 1822, extended from Foster’s Place to Anglesey Street. The shape of the windows in the top storey, which were formerly circular, as appears from an engraving in possession of the manager of the Assurance Company, was altered as late as 1870.

The Club removed hither on relinquishing the premises at 2 and 3 Dame Street in 1791. It is recorded that in the days of the Irish Parliament a footpath across Foster Place connected the Club with the western portico of Parliament House, the door by which the Club was formerly entered being since converted into a window.

The members of the Hell-fire Club and similar societies used to meet at Daly’s, where unlimited gambling and dissipation abounded. The interior was so magnificently decorated as to excite the admiring surprise of travellers who, it is said, pronounced it superior to anything of its kind in Europe. Peter Depoe succeeded Daly as manager of the Club, and so continued until 1823.

A continuation of College Green is **

DAME STREET. **

In the absence of authentic information as to the date of its erection-which certainly *may *have been prior to 1794 - we will assume that what remains of **No. 60, **the two lower stories being absorbed into a lofty entrance arch to a place of business, contained part of the lodgings of **George Owenson **in the house of Mr. Thomas Dixon, as Mr. Fitzpatrick has shown in his *Friends, Foes, &c., of Lady *Morgan. His daughter Sydney, afterwards to become famous as Lady Morgan, writes to him from Miss Crowe’s school, she being then seventeen:

“I sent Milly to Mr. Dixon, who says there is no one in the world he would so soon have as yourself, and that though more than one have been about them [the apartments], he has kept them for you. You can have a drawing-room and dining-room and bed-chamber on the first floor, and bed-chamber on the second, with kitchen, entirely to yourself, for forty guineas per year; they are fitted up in very elegant style. God bless you, my dear papa, take care of yourself. - S. Owenson.”

Though Owenson’s importance is chiefly a reflection from his daughter’s subsequent celebrity, he was by no means an obscure person. The *Freeman’s Journal *said of him that, “he was the best Irish scholar of his day, and, we may say, the last true Irish musician.”

He seems to have left Dublin the same year in which he took possession of Dixon’s apartments, and went to Kilkenny, despairing of success as a theatrical manager in Dublin. Four years later he retired from the stage and died at the house of his son-in-law, Dr. Clarke, in 1812, at the age of sixty-eight. **

No. 1, **according to Gilbert’s *History of Dublin, *was the residence of **Joseph Stock, **“the respectable and learned Bishop” of Killala, Editor of Demosthenes, in conjunction with Leland, and of the work of Bishop Berkeley; and who is complimented in Hardy’s *Life of Charlemont *for his “most accurate account” of the arrival of General Humbert “with the very insignificant force under his command” at Killala, in 1798,” the rout of the French, and the short battle which took place.”’

Passing round the front of the City Hall we enter **

CASTLE STREET. **

On a portion of the city wall, on the south side, is a long building, stone-fronted in the lower storey, brick above, formerly the banking house of **David D. De La Touche, **who built it in 1735.

He was the second of the name; his father, an officer of a regiment of French refugees in the service of William III. during the wars of the Irish revolution, having established the banking business in Dublin in another house in the same street.

The younger De La Touche was a man of extended if not judicious benevolence. It is said that in his old age he never went out without having his pockets filled with shillings, and in reply to friendly protests against their indiscriminate distribution he would reply, “If my shillings fall a *propos *once in ten times, it is enough.” He died suddenly, in 1745, while on his knees attending Divine Service in the Castle Chapel.

Returning to the front of the City Hall, we pass down **

PARLIAMENT STREET.

No. 12 **was the office of the Fenian newspaper, *The Irish People, *which was entered by the police on the night of September 15th, 1865; when the type and presses were seized, and those persons on the premises at the time arrested, the books of the concern with the names of the agents and subscribers being also carried away. This was followed by the arrest of the editors and of several other persons prominently associated with the organization. **

No. 27**, at the south-west corner of Essex Street, was the house of **George Faulkner, **the printer, having been erected by him. He established a newspaper called the *Dublin Journal, *in 1724, in conjunction with James Hoey, when in business at Skinner’s Row. Swift requiring a printer after the death of Harding sent for the publisher of the *Dublin Journal, *and was, in due course, waited on by Hoey; but Hoey’s manners and mode of speech were not to the taste of the Dean.

When asked “if he was a printer?” he replied that he “was an apology for one,” and in response to the query, “Where do you live?” he answered, *“Facing *the Thobel.” Swift sent him away and asked to see his partner.

Faulkner accordingly came; and in reply to the same questions said that “he was a printer,” arid that he lived *“opposite *the Thobel.” “You are the man I want,” said the Dean, and forthwith arranged his business with him.

In one of his letters Swift describes Faulkner as “the printer most in vogue, and a great undertaker; perhaps too great a one.”

An amusing account is given by Sheridan of how Faulkner went to visit Swift on his return from London-where he had been on the business of soliciting subscriptions for his edition of Swift’s works - “dressed in a laced waistcoat, a bag-wig, and other fopperies.”

Swift received him ceremoniously as an entire stranger, and asked, “Pray, sir, what are your commands with me?” “I thought it my duty to wait upon you, sir, on my return from London.” “Pray, sir, who are you?” “George Faulkner, the printer.” “You, George Faulkner, the printer! Why, thou art the most impudent bare-faced impostor I ever heard of. George Faulkner is a sober, sedate citizen, and would never trick himself out in lace and other fopperies. Get you about your business, and thank your stars that I do not send you to the House of Correction.”

Poor George returned home and having changed his dress, returned to the Deanery, and was received most cordially by Swift, who, having welcomed him “on his return from London,” said, “There was an impudent fellow in a laced waistcoat who would fain have passed for you; but I soon sent him packing with a flea in his ear.”

Faulkner is described as large-bodied, but of medium height, with a manly and dignified cast of countenance. He was the original of Peter Paragraph, a character the performance of which by Foote, in *The Orators, *crowded the *matinees *of the time at “the little theatre in the Haymarket.”

Foote also produced *The Orators *in Dublin, and it is said that his imitation of Faulkner was so close that the latter could not appear in public without becoming the subject of ridicule.

Enraged at this he sent all the “devils” in his printing office to the seat of the gods -the gallery- one night to hiss Foote off the stage, while he sat in the pit to enjoy the latter’s discomfiture. To his chagrin the lads all shared in the laughter which rang through the house, and when taken to task next day on the score of their behaviour, their spokesman replied, “Arrah, master, don’t be tipping us your blarney, do you think we didn’t know you? Sure it was your own sweet self was on the stage, and showers light upon us if we go to the play-house to hiss our worthy master.”

Faulkner afterwards sued Foote for damages and got a verdict for £300. One of Faulkner’s visits to London resulted in a lost leg from an accidental injury. Jokes on his “wooden understanding,” and his having “one leg in the grave” were afterwards rife among the Dublin wits. He lived on familiar terms with the most eminent men of his time, and died at an advanced age, in 1775. The blot on his character is his undertaking the publication of Lord Ossory’s strictures on his patron Swift. **

No. 26, **at the opposite corner, is the establishment of **Lundy Foot & Co., **bearing the date, on its more modern-stuccoed front, of 1780. The original proprietor of the manufactory of “Bristol Roll, Common Roll, High and Low Scotch Snuff, and Superfine Pigtail for Ladies,” removed hither, according to Gilbert’s *History of Dublin, *in 1774, and presumably rebuilt the premises six years later.

The name appears in the *Dublin Directory *for 1790, at Aungier Street. It was probably while residing there that Lundy Foot set up his carriage and applied to Curran for a motto. “Give me, my dear Curran,” he said, “something of a serious cast; because I am afraid the people will laugh at a tobacconist setting up a carriage, and, for the scholarship, let it be in Latin.” “I have just hit on it” said Curran, “it is only two words, and it will at once explain your profession, your elevation, and your contempt for their ridicule; and it has the advantage of being in two languages, Latin and English, just as the reader chooses. Put up ‘Quid rides’ upon your carriage.”

Passing on towards the river we turn to the left along **

ESSEX QUAY.

No. 13, **now a goldbeater’s, was the residence of **William Mossop **from 1784, and the birthplace of his son of the same name - both numismatists of high repute, of whom it is recorded that “notwithstanding the difficulties under which they laboured, they were the authors of some specimens of art that will not lose by comparison with those of the most skilful of that line in any country.”

“Although the medallion works of Mossop are not numerous,” says Mr. Gilbert, “they are interesting as the first works of the kind produced in Ireland, and a lasting evidence of a natural ability in this department of art.”

Among the finest productions of the elder Mossop are the medals of Swift, Charlemont, Sheridan, Grattan, and Moore, part of a series commenced in 1797. He died in 1804, at the age of fifty-three. The younger Mossop died in 1827, at the age of forty-nine.

An opening near **No. 13 **leads, opposite the Church 55. Michael and John, into **

LOWER EXCHANGE STREET. **

At **No.7, **the parochial house attached to the church, resided for over half a century the late **Rev. Charles P. Meehan **: at first in the attic storey; for the last twenty years or so in the rooms the front windows of which are in the third storey, to the right of the centre.

“Of late years,” writes Mr. W. J. Fitzpatrick, in an article contributed to the local press, “he came down, as he said, in the world, and obtained rooms for easy access by his friends… He covered his walls with wonderful mezzotints and life-like portraits, from the bearded Hugh O’Neill to the closely-shaven Clarence Mangan.”

“A compact figure,” says the same authority, “under the middle size, erect as a lath, a head well set on two neat shoulders, and a chin indicative of force of character.

There was something in his appearance that imperatively arrested attention. Idlers smiled as that wonderful little octogenarian passed, with a glass frequently set in one eye* – as petits-maitres *were wont to do ~ while thinkers regarded him with mingled respect and interest, as a link between the two great phases of Irish agitation.

The author of the Fate and Fortunes of Tyrone and Tyrconnell was for nearly a decade, as a young man, a resident in Rome and an accomplished Italian scholar. “Long after his return to Ireland,” says Mr. Fitzpatrick, “he confessed that he thought in Italian,” and quotes M’Carthy that he “was much fonder of Dante **than of Dan O’Connell.”

He was a chronic dyspeptic like Carlyle, forming with him a curious commentary on a recent pronouncement of certain statisticians as to the necessary connection of longevity and a good digestion.

His benevolence was great. It is well known that the unhappy Mangan owed his removal from his wretched lodging to the hospital where he died, to Father Meehan, and Mr. Donovan of The Nation reports a case in which he is said to have given the bed from under him. He was seventy-eight at the time of his death.

Passing along Fishamble Street, at the western end of Exchange Street, we reach the extremity of the recently formed **

LORD EDWARD STREET.

Lord Edward1.gif (11856 bytes)No. 3, **facing the eastern end of Christ Church, bears on its front, under the window of its second storey, a shield on which is carved the coat of arms of the Usher family, to which the Archbishop of that name belonged; doubtless inhabiting a house formerly standing on the site of the present one. The property is supposed to have remained with the family until the early part of the last century.

Its special interest, however, is as the birthplace of James Clarence Mangan in 1803, whose father carried on a business here with so little success that the family depended largely for support on young Clarence’s employment in the office of a scrivener, and subsequently as an attorney. (See York Street)

Mr. Wakeman, in his pamphlet, *Old Dublin, *says that the “Sham Squire,” Francis Higgins, “made his *debut *in Dublin as pot-boy to the then proprietor, Mr. Smith, grandfather on the mother’s side of James Clarence Mangan.”

Opposite the southern front of the church is **

CHRISTCHURCH PLACE.

Nos. 6 **and 7 are interesting as, according to Mr. Gilbert *(History of Dublin) *containing “in the lower stories … some of the old oaken beams of the ‘Cerbric House,’ which have by age acquired an almost incredible degree of hardness.”

The structure which formerly occupied the site of these two houses, and which were demolished about 1780, was, on the same authority, for nearly a century one of the chief coffee houses in Dublin-Dick’s **Coffee House, **located on the drawing-room floor’. The principal auctions of books, land, and property, were generally held at Dick’s

• the nickname of Richard Pue, the proprietor-the patrons of which, in 1740, are noticed as follows in the “humble petition of Tom Geraghty to all the worthy’ gentlemen who frequent Pue’s Coffee House :

“Ye citizens, gentlemen, lawyers, and squires

Who summer and winter surround our great fires,

Ye quidnuncs who frequently come into Pue’s

To live upon politics, coffee, and news -

Pue was a printer, and published his “Occurrences” here - originally a Tory paper. Edmund Burke records, 1747: -” As I sat in a shop under Dick’s Coffee House, the back house which joined it fell and buried Pue, the coffee house keeper and his wife, in the ruins. In the same letter he tells how he had a long chase through the streets after his hat and wig, which had blown off.

At the end of High Street, which is a continuation of Christchurch Place, is the **

CORNMARKET.

No. 22 - the **present aspect of which seems to indicate the probability of its speedy demolition - is described by some as having been in the possession of one Gannon in 1798, by others as the property of Moore, who also had a house at 119 Thomas Street, now rebuilt. In either case it was one of **Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s **places of concealment while in fear of arrest.

When in Moore’s house Lord Edward passed as the French tutor of Miss Moore, who had been educated at Tours, and they spoke only in French. Madden describes her as “a person of great intelligence and enthusiasm in Lord Edward’s cause,” and “constantly employed during the time he remained in her father’s house, carrying communications to and from Lord, Edward’s friends.”

On May 16 “a carpenter who was friendly to Moore, being employed at the Castle, overheard a conversation indicating an immediate search of Moore’s premises “for pikes and traitors,” and at once informed Moore, who having “a commissariat for 500 men on the premises, fled from Dublin.

That evening, on pretence of going for a stroll, Lord Edward left the house No. 119 with Miss Moore on his arm, intending, as Mr. Fitzpatrick has shown, to take refuge at Magan’s, on Usher’s Quay, Miss Moore having, unsuspicious of the perfidy of that worthy, previously arranged matters with him. the party was attacked by Major Sirr and his men, but Lord Edward escaped capture.

Turning off from the Cornmarket, on the north side, in Upper Budge Street, and passing through it, we reach **

LOWER BRIDGE STREET.

Lr. Bridge St.gif (4689 bytes)No. 9 (pictured, left) is notable as the house to which Oliver Bond, **a native of the North of Ireland, removed, as a wholesale woollen draper, from Pill Lane, in 1785, and the rendezvous of the members of the Society of United Irishmen in Dublin. Madden, in his *United Irishmen, *speaks of him as “one of the most opulent and respectable merchants in Dublin.”

In Gilbert’s *History *we read: “In 1797 he was exceedingly active in administering the oath to the United Irishmen for the promotion of the objects of the association, whose meetings were generally held at 10 a.m. at his house, where Thomas Reynolds, the informer, was sworn in early in the year 1797.”

As a result of his subsequent treachery “a warrant was issued against the suspected members of the society, and committed for execution to William Swan, Justice of the Peace; who, on the night of the 11th of January, having privately reconnoitered Bond’s house, proceeded hither at 11 on the following morning accompanied by 12 sergeants in coloured clothes…

Bond was secured with-out any resistance,” also, Madden states, 14 others of his associates, delegates from various societies, the occasion being a provincial meeting which was held, according to the statement of Swan, in “a back room that appeared to be an addition td the house,” and on an upper storey, as that worthy says that he “bounced up-stairs.”

Bond was condemned at his trial to a ghastly form of execution, but received a conditional pardon. He died, however, of an apoplectic attack in Newgate.

Returning along Lower Budge Street, Wormwood Gate leads, by New Row, into **

THOMAS STREET.

Nos. 151 **(below, right) and *152 ***(below, left) formed the residence of **Nicholas Murphy, **and the scene of the capture of **Lord Edward Fitzgerald **on May 18, 1798. Madden, in his United Irishmen, gives Murphy’s own account of the occurrence; how “about the hour of 10 or 11 at night, on the 18th, Lord Edward told me he was very ill with a cold, and it was easy to perceive it…

Thomas St 1&2.gif (6533 bytes)At this time he appeared quite tranquil and went up to the room intended for him - the back room in the attic storey. In the morning he came down to breakfast and appeared better than the night before ;” - how, his apprehensions excited by news of a search at Moore’s house, from which Lord Edward had just been removed, we “had him conveyed out of the house and concealed in a valley on the roof of one of the warehouses;” how, emerging from his concealment for dinner at four o’clock, he went to bed shortly after, and at seven o’clock, Murphy being there at the time, his room was entered by “Major Sirr and a person following him in a soldier’s jacket and with a sword in his hand. I put myself before him and asked his business. He looked over me, and saw Lord Edward in the bed. He pushed by me quickly, and Lord Edward seeing him, sprung up instantly like a tiger, and drew a dagger which lie carried about him, and wounded Major Sirr slightly, I believe. Major Sirr had a pistol in his waistcoat pocket which he fired without effect…

I was immediately taken away to the yard.” Madden, commenting on a statement of the Duke of Portland, that Lord Edward, who was armed with a case of pistols and a dagger, stood on his defence, shot Mr. Ryan in the stomach arid wounded Mr. Swan with the dagger in two places, says “Lord Edward was armed solely with a dagger; he had not time nor opportunity to get at his pistols when he was assailed by Swan in the first rush, and Ryan immediately after. Ryan was not shot, he was stabbed in the stomach, and received various wounds inflicted by the same weapon, in all fourteen.”

The rest of the Duke of Portland’s account is assumed to be correct; that “Major Sirr, on entering the room, and observing Lord Edward with the dagger uplifted in his hand, fired at him, and wounded him in the arm of the hand that held the weapon, upon which he was secured.”

Sixteen days later Lord Edward died in Newgate in a raving delirium. “What a noble fellow was Lord Edward Fitzgerald,” said Byron, ” and what a romantic and singular history his was. If it were not too near our own time, it would make the finest subject in the world for an historical novel.”

The attainder on Lord Edward was reversed a year and a half after his death, and Lord Liverpool declared that the reversal originated not so much in the royal clemency as in a sense of the injustice of the attainder itself.

Poor Murphy came badly off. After being imprisoned for over a year he found himself liable for the rent and taxes of his house, which had been made a barrack for the soldiers; and laments the loss of a “large silver gravy spoon, a plated tea-pot, and plated goblet;” the “destruction of six dozen as fine wine as could be found - claret, port, and sherry - I purchased it in the wood;” and that “when they got tired drinking their wine they were selling it in the morning at sixpence per bottle and buying whisky with the money. ” He declared his losses, “in the unfortunate business,” amounted to upwards of two thousand pounds.

The appearance of the lower part of No. 152 is much changed. It probably corresponded with No. 151 on the other side of the gateway, which in every respect retains. its former appearance. No. 151 and the building over the gateway formed with 152 one establishment as late as 1883; “Lord Edward’s room” is shown in the “second floor back” of No.151 by its present occupants. **

No. 22**, now remodelled as a public library, is one of the houses rendered interesting by the story of the closing scenes in the life of **Lord Edward Fitzgerald **and one of his places of concealment prior to the intended rising of ‘98. It was occupied by Thomas Cormick, a feather merchant. “Between this and the residence of Mr. Moore, a few doors distant,” says’ Thomas Moore *(Life of Lord Edward) *“he contrived to pass his time safe from detection till about the first week in May” and “at this time a resolution was finally taken to prepare for a general rising before the end of the month.”

Elsewhere he is referred to as playing at billiards here with Mr. Lawless, and on one occasion visiting his wife in woman’s clothes. The alarm excited in Lady Fitzgerald’s mind by the risks he ran of discovery brought on a premature confinement.

Returning a short distance we pass down Bridgefoot Street to Queen’s Bridge. On the right is **

USHER’S QUAY. **

At **No. 20 **lived one to whom as to the Sham Squire, Francis Higgins, the term “notoriety “-and that in its most odious sense - not *celebrity, *may be applied. **

Francis Magan, whose culpability as the betrayer of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, in **conjunction with the “Sham Squire,” though not absolutely proven, is assumed by Mr. Fitzpatrick (on the strength of information received from the representatives of the family of Mr. Moore, of Thomas Street) with so much apparent reason.

He describes Magan as “a queer combination of pride and bashfulness, dignity and decorum, nervousness and inflexibility,” and considers that “he obviously did not like to go straight to the Castle and sell Lord Edward’s blood openly,” though “there is good reason to believe that he confided all the information he obtained to Higgins.”

We return by the river-side along the continuation of Usher’s Quay, known as **Moira House, **now transformed into the Mendicity Mendicity Institution.gif (6965 bytes)Institution (pictured, left), with its upper storey removed, its magnificent internal decorations abolished, and its handsome gardens covered with offices, was, in the middle of the last century, the residence of the Rawdon family, when a row of large trees extended from Arran Bridge to within about two hundred feet of Bloody Bridge along the southern shore of Usher’s Island.

The baronetcy of Moira was an inheritance of the Rawdons in recompense for services rendered to the Stuart cause, and the fourth baronet became Earl of Moira in l762, and embellished the interior of Moira House in a style of great splendour.

“Floubert,” says Gilbert, “commander of the French troops, landed by Thurot at Carrickfergus in** **1760, passed some days at Moira House” after recovering from his wounds later in the same year.

John Wesley tells us that he visited Lady Moira in 1775 and “was surprised to observe though not a more grand, yet a far more elegant room than any he had seen in England.” This was an octagonal room with a window, the sides of which were inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

“In 1777 Charles James Fox was introduced to Henry Grattan at Moira House, which was the scene of constant and magnificent entertainments till the death of the first Earl of Moira in 1793.”

Francis, his successor, who gained distinction in the British army in America, became so obnoxious to the Government in 1798, owing to the protest against the cruelties by which the insurrection of the populace was precipitated, that, fearing an attack on his property in the North he transmitted to England his family library, which was one of the most valuable collections in the Empire.

When Lord Edward Fitzgerald was concealing himself from arrest, the Lady Pamela was received here by the Dowager Countess of Moira, and she was here on the evening of her husband’s arrest.

Gilbert quotes a letter of Lady Louisa Conolly, from Castletown, on this event: “As soon as Edward’s wound was dressed he desired the private secretary at the Castle to write for him to Lady Edward, and to tell her what had happened. The Secretary carried the note himself. Lady Edward was at Moira House, and a servant of Lady Mountcashell’s came soon after to forbid Lady Edward’s servant saying anything to her about it that night. The next morning Miss Napier told Lady Edward, and she bore it better than she expected; but Mr. Napier, who went to town, brought us word that her head seemed still deranged, and that no judgement could yet to formed about her.

. . She continued to reside at Moira House till obliged by an order of the Privy Council to retire to England, where she became the. guest of the Duke of Richmond.” Moira House was maintained as a family mansion for some years after the death of the Countess in 1808, and passed into the hands of the Governor of the Institute for the Suppression of Mendicity in 1826.

We now cross the river to **

ARRAN QUAY.

12 Arran Quay.gif (8884 bytes)No. 12 **(pictured, left) is among the most memorable of Dublin houses as the birthplace of **Edmund Burke **in 1728-9. His father, an attorney, removed afterwards to Ormond Quay, and here and at Ormond Quay the young Edmund’s life, when not engaged in his studies in College - where, it is said, no irregularities were laid to his charge - was passed, though not with enjoyment.

In Prior’s *Life of Burke *a letter is quoted from his friend Dennis, who writes :-” My dear friend Burke leads a very unhappy life from his father’s temper …He must not stir out at night by anymeans, and if he stays at home there is some new subject of abuse. There is but one bright spark in the family, and they’d willingly destroy it. ”

When, after going to London, however, he produced his *Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, *“his father,” says M’Cormick (Memoirs) “who had always a favourable, though not a sufficiently enlarged idea of young Edmund’s abilities was so enraptured at this extraordinary proof of them that he immediately sent him £100 to extricate him from some pecuniary embarrassments.

This mark of paternal affection will be found more worthy of notice if we consider the scantiness of the father’s income, which entirely depended on his practice as an attorney, and was barely sufficient for the decent support of the rest of his family.”

“Very little is known,” says Prior, “of Edmund Burke’s early years except his being of a delicate constitution, tending, as was believed, to consumption.” When his companions were at play, “he was commonly seen reclining at ease, perusing a book.”

To this Richard Burke alluded when, being found in a reverie shortly after an extraordinary display of power in the House of Commons by his brother, and questioned by Malone as to its cause: “I have been wondering,” said he, “how Ned has contrived to monopolise all the talent of the family; but then again, I remember, when we were at play he was always at work.”

In 1747 a club was formed in Dublin - the germ of the Historical Society. “In the records of the society,” says Sir Joseph Napier (Edmund Burke – A Lecture)) “we can trace Burke from week to week, busy in speech, diligent in composition - now an essay on society, afterwards on painting; at times speaking in an historic character; again the critic of Milton.”

Burke died in 1792, aged sixty-eight or sixty-nine.

No.32 was the place of business of Charles Haliday, merchant, antiquarian, and author of the Scandinavian Kingdom of Dublin. He was for many years on the Committee of the Royal Irish Academy. He died in 1866, aged 77.

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