Phoenix Park. The Tyrells.

CHAPTER II.

The Phoenix Park and the Barony of the Tyrells (Castleknock)

The Phoenix Park, one of the chief beauties of Dublin north of the Liffey, is 1,752 acres 3 roods and 21 perches in extent, and about seven miles in circumference. It originally included not only the Conyngham Road and the land between that and the river but also the large tract to the south of the Liffey which had belonged to the Royal Hospital since its erection in 1684 from the plans of Sir Christopher Wren. Some additional land farther west, also south of the river and the Conyngham Road, has recently been acquired for the Park. The Park, as we know it, has been confined within the present wall since 1671. The wall was made for the sake of the deer which were here even then. The date shows that the Park, like the Royal Hospital and St. Stephen’s Green, was practically begun in the reign of Charles II., one of the most flourishing periods in the history of the development of the city of Dublin. The man to whom we owe the Park and the other improvements of “that epoch, was James Butler, the celebrated first Duke of Ormonde, who spent his long life in the faithful service of the two Charleses, father and son. His ideas on the development of the city of Dublin were most liberal and magnificent.

The nucleus of the Park, as designed by Ormonde, was formed by the lands of the Knights Hospitallers of Kilmainham, which had reverted to the Crown on the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. This was reinforced by extensive purchases” of land to the north and west of the monastic lands.

The name of the Phoenix Park arises, as is well known, from a misconception. The real name is Fionn Uisge or clear water, the Irish name for a chalybeate spa in the Park which was once quite famous. When in the height of its fame the Duchess of Richmond enclosed it in a small building of Portland stone. There seems to be a strange misunderstanding as to the situation of this spa. While a modern authority asserts that it is near the Phoenix Column, D’Alton describes it as “contiguous to” the Zoological Gardens. From his detailed and minute description the reader comes to the conclusion that the “shady glen “which he describes as its locality, must have been the spot between the Viceregal and the Zoological Garden Ponds where there is still a spring, although it is now covered over. This would seem to be established by the following passage: “Adjacent to the spa is a building, formerly used as an engine-house for supplying the, Military Infirmary with water, that necessity having however ceased, the edifice is converted into a ranger’s lodge. “This building is obviously the picturesque cottage of the Park Constable, with’ the overhanging roof, at the northern extremity of the Zoological Gardens. D’Alton can hardly have been mistaken as to the situation of the spa of Fionn Uisge, as, when he wrote, it still enjoyed some vogue.

Warburton, Whitelaw and Walsh who wrote *The History of the City of Dublin *twenty years before D’alton’s book appeared, and Wakeman, who wrote in recent years, concur in stating that the Fionn Uisge was situated at the end of the present Zoological Gardens. The late Caesar Litton Falkiner accepted the Irish etymology, but thought very reasonably that the Fionn Uisge should have been near the Phoenix House, that is in the neighbourhood of the present Magazine Fort. D’Alton refers to “the old Manor-house of Fionnuiske,” but places the Fionn Uisge spring at the end of the Zoological Gardens.

The mistake in the name of the Park is of old date. Early in the 17th century (1619) we hear of the Manor House of the Phoenix, which stood on the top of Thomas’s Hill, where the Magazine Fort stands now. Mr. Elrington Ball thinks the Phoenix House was perhaps called so as a phoenix of houses from its commanding position and splendid outlook *(History of the County o/ Dublin, *Part IV., page i8o). This house became the summer residence of the Viceroys in the reign of James r., and continued to be so used until it was superseded towards the end of the same century by a house in Chapelizod. Henry Cromwell resided in the Phoenix House for some time. It is also recorded that in 1671 “the Phoenix and Newtown lands,” formerly in the possession of Christopher Fagan of Feltrim and Alderman Daniel Hutchinson, were purchased on the royal mandate for £3,000 by the Duke of Ormonde in trust for Charles II. The new Park is referred to as “the Phoenix Park” in a record of 1675, and again in 1741. In 1711, during Queen Anne’s reign, it is described as “the Queen’s garden at the Phoenix.”

It was not, however, until the 29th of March 1747 that the mistake as to the origin of the name was perpetuated by the erection, during the Earl of Chesterfield’s Viceroyalty, of the well-known Phoenix Column on the Main Road between the present Viceregal and Chief Secretary’s Lodges. Lord Chesterfield, who ‘loved the classics, utilized the legend of the wonderful bird, whose name is supposed to have been derived from its bright colour, resembling the scarlet Phoenician dye. The fabulous Phoenix was an Arabian bird, but used to appear in Egypt. The classical fable went on to say that there was only one phoenix in the world at a time, that it lived 500 years and then burned itself to death, and that a new phoenix for the succeeding period sprang from its ashes. The new phoenix rising from the flames surmounts Lord Chesterfield’s fluted Corinthian column, which is thirty feet high and bears inscriptions stating that Lord Chesterfield erected the column and beautified the Park for the delight of the citizens. On the side next the Chief Secretary’s Lodge there is a coat of arms with the motto *Exitus acta probat, *which may be translated The event tests what has been done. The Phoenix was once surrounded by a large circle called the Ring. Many uneducated citizens of Dublin call the Phoenix the “Eagle Monument,” and the mistake is very natural. The presence of flames seems to be the principal distinction between the phoenix and the eagle as represented by sculptors.

Notwithstanding Lord Chesterfield’s obscuration of this old Irish name the Park in general was greatly indebted to him. He planted the magnificent avenue of elms which suffered such havoc from the great storm on the night of the 26th of February, 1903. He planted many of the other woods and clumps of trees in the Park, and “had it adorned,” as the inscription on the Column says in many ways. But above all it was he who conferred the lasting benefit of throwing open this splendid Park to. the citizens of Dublin and the public in general.

(It cannot be forgotten besides, that, in the first half of the 18th century; Lord Chesterfield stands almost alone as the only prominent Englishman who showed some sympathy or kindness to the oppressed Catholic majority of the Irish people. There are some whimsical manifestations of this kindness to be found in the amusing account of his Viceroyalty in Mitchel’s *History of Ireland. *Although it is true, as Mitchel says, that he was sent here to conciliate the Catholics lest they ‘night join in the highland Jacobite insurrection of Prince Charles Edward in 1745, yet it is obvious from his expressions that the policy of allowing the Catholics to exercise their religion openly. in spite of the Penal Laws, was in accordance with his personal opinion. Chesterfield said Ireland was ground down by “deputies of deputies of deputies.” Notwithstanding the well-known faults of his character his Irish Viceroyalty remains one of the best parts of his life, and a kind of oasis in the desert of persecution. The only other prominent Englishman of that age who sympathized with the Irish Catholics, was, strangely enough, Dr. Samuel Johnson, a man of very different character, with whom Chesterfield was at memorable variance.)

The Park. is entered by eight large gates, those of the City, the Circular Road, Cabra, Ashtown, Castleknock, Knockmaroon, Chapelizod and Island Bridge. There are also the gate at White’s Avenue and turnstiles at Blackhorse Lane, Chapelizod and Island Bridge. There are some private entrances in the western portion, remote from the city, as at Farmleigh and Mount Sackville Convent. There is also an entrance from the Marlborough Cavalry Barrack.

There are still over one thousand acres of the Park open to the public. The remainder of its area is occupied by various Government establishments. The most considerable of these is the Viceregal Lodge. This was built in 1751 for the private residence of Nathaniel Clements, chief ranger of the Park in the middle of the 18th century. Charles Gardiner, father of the first Lord Mountjoy, and Lord George Sackville held minor rangerships about the same time. The house was purchased, from Clements’s son, Robert, afterwards first Earl of Leitrim, in 1782 as a residence for the Viceroys. The Earl of Hardwicke added the wings in 1802, the Duke of ‘Richmond the north portico and gate lodges in i8o8 and Earl Whitworth the north front. It has been used as a residence by George IV., Victoria and Edward VII. during their visits to Ireland. The grounds are spacious and beautiful, and include The Private Secretary’s Lodge.

The western part of the grounds is called The Wilderness. The Chief Secretary’s Lodge was built by Sir John (Lord) de Blaquiere, a self-seeking placeman, who, for his self-imposed well-paid duties here, was nicknamed “the King’s Cowboy,” and has also fine and extensive grounds adjoining it, and the Under Secretary’s, formerly Ashtown Castle, to the north of the Main Road, must be mentioned in an account of the Phoenix Park as the residence of the famous Thomas Drummond who suppressed a considerable Park nuisance of his time, the Sunday drinking booths.

Other enclosed portions of the Park are: Mountjoy Barrack, built by Luke Gardiner, Park ranger, and inhabited by him and by his son and grandson, Charles Gardiner and Luke, first Lord Mountjoy; afterwards a cavalry and an infantry barrack, and now the head-quarters of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland; the beautiful Gardens of the Royal Zoological Society, now greatly improved and deservedly most popular; the Royal Hibernian Military School, founded in 1769 and still nourishing; the Military Infirmary adjoining the People’s Garden; the Magazine Fort, begun by the Earl of Wharton, and the subject of a well-known epigram by Swift; the Depot and Barrack of the Royal Irish Constabulary; the Bailiff’s Lodge near the Park Racecourse, various smaller cottages for the deerkeepers and gardeners, and three Park Constables’ cottages, one already mentioned adjoining the Zoological Gardens, another near Mountjoy Barrack, and’ a third on the little hill of Knockmary, overhanging Chapelizod. Beside the last is a cromlech, which was dug up at this spot in 1838 and set up here.

(Sir William Wilde supposed this Cromlech to be a monument’ of the Firbolgs. who inhabited Ireland two thousand years ago. A smaller Cromlech discovered in a sandpit at Chapelizod, has been set up in the Zoological Gardens.)

Besides these enclosures there are large parts of the level and open portions of the Park near Dublin allotted to polo, cricket, football and hurling. The control of the Phoenix Park is vested in the Board of Public Works.

Towards the close of the 18th century, and about the time of the purchase of the Viceregal Lodge for the Lord Lieutenant, most of the Park rangerships were discontinued, and the residences of the rangers assigned to the chief officials of the Government. This step was taken at the instance of William Eden, afterwards Lord Auckland, Chief Secretary. Sir John de Blaquiere’s house became the Chief Secretary’s Lodge, Ashtown Castle the Under Secretary’s and Lord Mountjoy’s house a barrack. The Under Secretary continued to be Ranger of the Phoenix Park until 1840, when this office was abolished on the death of Thomas Drummond, the last who held both offices.

The extensive plain called the Fifteen Acres, a complete misnomer, has always been appropriated to reviews and military exercises. It was formerly the duelling ground of Dublin. There were military camps in the Park in 1788 and 1797. The space between the Hibernian School and Chapelizod is marked Camp Ground on maps. A few years ago a conspicuous little hill, on which some old thorn-trees grew, adjoining a small pond, was situated in the middle of this open plain of the Fifteen Acres. It was once an Artillery Butt. It was removed, no doubt on account of its inconvenience during reviews and manoeuvres.

The plain called The White Fields is near Ashtown Gate. The smaller plain of the Nine Acres, with the slope called Trooper’s Hill, lies north of the Main Road, next to the Zoological Gardens. The ground now’ occupied by the Phoenix Cricket Club, still marked Star Fort on the Ordnance Survey Maps, appears on older maps as covered by a veritable star-shaped fort.

The obelisk in honour of Wellington, constructed on the site of the Salute Battery, is 205 feet high and built of granite. Each of its four sides bears inscribed the names of his victories in India, France, Spain and Portugal respectively. His last and greatest battle in Belgium is reserved for a lower portion of the monument. It had been originally proposed to remove the statue of George II from the centre of St. Stephen’s Green, and erect the Wellington Monument there, but the Corporation refused the site, holding that a King should not make way for a subject. There are two other monuments in the Park, the fine equestrian statue of Lord Gough, erected in 1880, and that of the seventh Earl of Carlisle in the People’s Garden, to whose influence during his last Viceroyalty the creation of the People’s Garden is due.

The roads of the Park are well known to Dublin pedestrians, equestrians, drivers, motorists and cyclists. The finest as a road is the splendid main road from Dublin to Castleknock, which was laid out by Lord Chesterfield, and was known for a long period to the citizens of Dublin by its appropriate name of Chesterfield Road.

A different attraction, however, attaches to the winding road which begins at the Gough statue. Overhanging the Chapelizod public road, it passes the Fort and the Hibernian School, and leads to the Furry Glen, the prettiest portion of the Park. This road affords a splendid prospect of the valley of the Liffey, the plain beyond and the Dublin Mountains.

The corresponding north road behind the Viceregal Lodge is of a more retired character. Seclusion is to be found in the roads to the far west of the Park, near Mountjoy Barracks. The road leading from the Phoenix to Chapelizod across the Fifteen Acres resembles some of the roads on the Curragh of Kildare; and the other road leading from the same point to Island Bridge is very pretty, traversing the valley of a little stream which it crosses at the White Bridge. This bridge gives name to the hill north of the Tort.

The Park is adorned by several sheets of water. There is a small pond in the Viceregal Grounds and also the fine pond, known to skaters, one of the largest in the county of Dublin. This is separated only by a road and a narrow space from the splendid pond which forms one of the greatest attractions of the beautiful Zoological Gardens. To the south of the road between these two miniature lakes and within the boundaries of the Zoological Gardens is the spa well, now covered, which is undoubtedly the original Fionn Uisge of D’Alton from which the Park is properly named, although there is a widely diffused opinion nowadays, supported by the authority of at least one popular writer on Dublin topography, that the famous chalybeate spring is situated near the Phoenix Column. (Dr. Joyce also *(Irish Names of Places, *p 39) places the Fionn Uisge spring near the Phoenix Column.)

Other ponds ate the Citadel Pond, between the Phoenix and Civil Service Cricket Grounds; with some smaller ponds not far off; the pretty ornamental pond of the People’s Garden; Quarry Lake, with its island, near Mountjoy Barrack; and, last and most beautiful, the pond of the Furry Glen. Connected with the Furry Glen rivulet is Baker’s Well near Knockmaroon Gate.

The principal woods in the portion of the Park open to the public are Bishop’s Wood, now a part of the People’s Garden; the Black Wood, of thorn trees, south of the Main Road; Pump Wood, near the last named thorn-wood; the Ash Wood and Butcher’s Wood to the north and south respectively of Castleknock Gate, near which is a plain called the Stretch, and Oldtown Wood between the Chief Secretary’s Lodge and Mountjoy Barrack. Another thickly-wooded spot is Half Mile Hollow between the Fifteen Acres and the Park wall.

Leaving the Park by Ashtown Gate, the Royal Canal is reached in a very short time, at the point where it adjoins Astown House. The names of the Royal Canal bridges in this western part of the county - Longford, Ranelagh, Talbot, Granard, Kirkpatrick, Kennan, Callaghan, Pakenham and Collins’s Bridges - are in most cases from those of original Directors of the Royal” Canal Company the Earl of Longford, Lord Ranelagh, the Earl of Granard, Alexander Kirkpatrick, The Hon. Thomas Pakenham, and John Collins. Longford Bridge is at Ashtown, Talbot Bridge on the high road to Navan and Enniskillen, Callaghan Bridge, formerly Carhampton Bridge, is at Clonsilla Railway Station, and Collins’s Bridge at Lucan Station. The “Deep Sinking,” where the Canal is made between very high banks, is near Clonsilla, and was the scene of a disaster more than sixty years ago, when a passenger boat went down and many emigrants from Longford perished. The parish and village of Blanchardstown, on the Canal, are dedicated to St. Brigid.

Not far from Mulhuddart, a village beyond Blanchardstown, are Hollywoodrath and Cruiserath, both called after old Norman families. Porterstown between Clonsilla and the Liffey where there is a Catholic Church, was the birthplace of Dr. Troy, Archbishop of Dublin. The Strawberry Beds are a series of lofty banks overhanging the Liffey Valley. Owing to their southerly aspect they have been long successfully used for the cultivation of strawberries. They have been for many years a favourite resort of the citizens of Dublin. On this bank is a townland with the odd name of. Astagob. At the south-west angle of Luttrellstown, on the river, is a mill the successor of the Devil’s Mill, which was built by him according to the humorous account in Samuel Lover’s *Stories of Ireland.. *But D’Alton says the devil long prevented the building of a mill here; since one was built, however, “the demon is now considered barred by a long interval of acquiescence,” he tells us in his grand Johnsonian way.

(D’Alton’s style, in one of its most extreme flights, is to be seen in his description of Ballyfermot, south of Chapelizod, where he is denouncing a practice not yet extinct in 1838 - when he wrote :-” the graveyard exhibits traces of exhumation most revolting to the feelings, and which must powerfully recommend to. the selection of surviving relatives, the solemn repose and security of those sepulchral vaults, where sacrilegious insults cannot be perpetrated, those subterranean chambers that extend themselves within the echoes of holy harmony, and are sealed down from garish intrusion by the superincumbent temple of the Deity.”)

A road off the Main Road of the Phoenix Park leads to a gate of the Park and a quiet road called White’s Avenue. This avenue runs between a house with the classic name of Mount Hybla (Leigh Hunt wrote a poem *A Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla) *on the right, and Lord Iveagh’s fine demesne of Farmleigh on the left.

The tower at Farmleigh, where there is a clock which chimes the quarters, is a conspicuous object across the Phoenix Park and for miles around. White’s Avenue terminate at the gate of St. Vincent’s College. founded by the Vincentian Fathers in 1835, and still in a most flourishing condition. Castleknock College numbers amongst its past pupils several very eminent names in Church and State. The old castle here was the property of Hugh Tyrrell, one of the most powerful barons of the Pale. The Tyrrells long exercised almost regal sway over this western portion of the County of Dublin

All this part of the valley of the Liffey is most beautiful, abounding in woodland and river scenery of the finest description. Its central point is Lucan which is, however, beyond the scope of this work as it lies for the most part south of the Liffey.. Lucan has become very popular of late years, and this was inevitable, when its spa, fine hotel and beautiful surroundings were brought within easy reach of Dublin by the Lucan Electric Railway, which begins at the City Gate of the Phoenix Park and crosses the river at Chapelizod. The famous Patrick Sarsfield, who came of an old Dublin family, was connected with this district as an owner of property, and by title as Earl of Lucan (He was Viscount Tully and Baron Rosberry, both in Kildare.)

Luttrellstown is one of the most splendid demesnes even in this county of splendid demesnes. The original house was built by Sir Thomas Luttrell, a 16th century judge, and his family resided here for many generations. But the political conduct of some members of this family was so distasteful to the majority of the Irish nation, that even the family name became unpopular. (Henry Luttrell, who betrayed the Irish Jacobite cause in 1691, was murdered in 1717, shot in his sedan chair outside his house in Stafford Street. He, had just returned from Lucas’s Coffeehouse, where the City Hall now stands.) and the name of the demesne was altered about a century ago to, Woodlands. In 1891 the old name was resumed. The alteration to Woodlands was made by Luke White, the ancestor of the present owner, Lord Annaly. He was a native of the Isle of Man who became very wealthy in Dublin The woods of this demesne are said to have been inhabited formerly by that rare Irish quadruped the marten. Near Luttrelstown is an old house and mill called New Holland from the then popular name for Australia.

On the extreme western border of the county, where it joins the county of Kildare, there are a ruined Chapel and holy well at a place still called St. Catherine’s, once a religious house of the Congregation of St. Victor. (The great Abbey of St. Thomas Court in Dublin also belonged to this Order. It was situated in Thomas Street which is named from it, and was dedicated to St. Thomas a Becket, the martyred Archbishop of Canterbury.)

Chapelizod, of which the greater portion lies north of the Liffey, derives its name from Isolde, one of the most famous heroines of the world’s greatest romance. She is celebrated in the Arthurian legends and in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. Isolde’s Hill is believed to be the height now called Thomas’s Hill where the Magazine Fort stands, and Isolde’s Well is probably connected with the little stream flowing through the valley to the east of the Fort.

The Parish Church of Chapelizod, dedicated to the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, is one of the first buildings of Chapelizod passed when coming from Dublin. The tower of the Protestant Church is very old. Chapelizod is the scene of Lefanu’s story, The House by the Churchyard, and the birthplace of Lord Northcliffe (Mr. Alfred Harmsworth).

Between Farmleigh and the river is the convent of St. Joseph, founded in 1864 at Mount Sackville. It commands a splendid view of the Liffey Valley. Chapelizod was for many years the summer residence of the Irish Viceroys before the present Viceregal Lodge was acquired. In the village is the Drummond Institution, founded in 1864 by the will of Alderman John Drummond of Trinity Street, Dublin. It is for the daughters of soldiers and corresponds to the Hibernian School in the Park adjoining. The old building called the King’s House, which stood near the bridge, was purchased by Charles II. from Sir Maurice Eustace as the Viceregal residence and was inhabited for a few days by William III.

The River Liffey is at this point the headquarters of the Dublin University Boat Club, whose attractive annual regatta is held in June, when this beautiful district is at its best. The premises of the Dublin Rowing Club are on the northern bank of the river. The necessary boundary of the activities of these Clubs is the weir at Island Bridge.

The present bridge is called Sarah Bridge, from the wife of a Viceroy of the end of the 18th century, Sarah, Countess of Westmoreland, who died at the Viceregal Lodge in 1793. The old name, Island Bridge, is from its quasi-insulated position between the rivers Liffey and Camac, or according to other accounts from its being built near an island in the river.

The tide affects the Liffey up to the weir, and the river, greatly improved of late, flows on to the harbour and the sea. Dublin naturally owes its origin to its position at the mouth of the Liffey, and its name to the very black pool (Dubh Linn), not far from Grattan Bridge, where the adventurous Scandinavians, who were its real founders, anchored their ships. (There is a Dublin in Wales and one in Canada. There is a county of Dublin in Queensland, and there are twenty-four Dublins in the United States.

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