Tolka, Glasnevin, Naul Road.

CHAPTER III.

The Tolka, Glasnevin and the Naul Road.

A little beyond Westmoreland Bridge the highway forks left and right. This spot was the old Cross Guns. The left or western road passes the Cemetery, founded by O’Connell nearly eighty years ago. Prospect Cemetery now includes a large extent of ground on both sides of the Finglas Road, and it immediately adjoins both the Botanic Gardens and the River Tolka.

Besides the Mortuary Chapel, near the road, the most conspicuous monument is the O’Connell Tower which is 168.5 feet high. It was designed by Petrie, and is built of Dalkey granite. There is a story in Fitzpatrick’s History of Glasnevin Cemetery of an exciting adventure which befell Dr. Kirwan, the City Coroner, about half a century ago. He attempted to cross the cemetery after dark, and was attacked by the bloodhounds which were still kept there by the men who watched all, night. He had to stand against a tomb and defend himself until his cries brought the watchmen to his assistance.

The watchtowers on the Cemetery wall are a standing memorial of these early times. A field now belonging to the Cemetery and close to the River Tolka is marked “Bloody Acre” in ancient letters on the Ordnance Survey Maps and commemorates probably the Battle of the Wood of Tolka, fought between two Irish armies before the Norman Invasion. The maps of nearly a century ago mark a place called The Dollar opposite to the present Bengal Terrace. Farther from town on the same (west) side of the road was a house called Slut’s End, which is still the name of a townland here.

The River Tolka rises in the County of Meath, about nineteen English miles from its mouth, near the railway station of Batterstown, and close to the line. Its general course is at first south-east and afterwards east. It passes Fairyhouse Station, leaves the town of Dunboyne at some distance from its right bank, and, passing through the village of Clonee, enters the county of Dublin.

Having received an affluent, quaintly called the Pinkeen River, it passes Mulhuddart, near Our Lady’s Well (where there is a statue of the Blessed Virgin), Blanchardstown, Lord Holmpatrick’s demesne of Abbotstown with its ruined Church, Dunsinea, Ashtown, Scribblestown, Cardiff’s Bridge, Finglaswood House and Bridge, Finglas Bridge, the Botanic Garden, Glasnevin, Drumcondra, where there is another statue of the Blessed Virgin, Clonliffe, Ballybough and Annesley Bridge, North Strand, where it enters the sea.

A dam is now being built to confine the Tolka current to that arch of the Great Northern Railway, which immediately adjoins the East Wall or Wharf Road. Another branch of this stream has flowed hitherto through the middle arch, the central point of the railway embankment, where it where the sea, The valley of the Tolka, from Glasnevin to its source, exhibits some very pretty pieces of river scenery.

From Finglas Bridge the road crossing the Tolka goes on to Finglas (West of Finglas, on the Ratoath Road, is Cappagh or Cappoge, once the property of the Cadogan family, and now a Home for St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital, Temple Street) whose famous Maypole still reared itself aloft in the beginning of Victoria’s reign.

This village was the chief resort of the Dublin citizens on the 1st of May when May Day and Maypoles and May games were still popular. Finglas parish is dedicated to St. Canice and was a rural bishopric. Some years ago there was an old tavern sign in Finglas of Sir Thomas Picton who won the battle of Quatre Bras, and was killed at Waterloo two days afterwards.

The road passes on the right the Fort or ring-mound and old Castle’ of Dunsoghly, belonging formerly to the Plunketts, a picturesque ruin, from the roof of which a splendid view is obtained; and farther on, Kilsallaghan Castle, the scene of a spirited defence in 1641, when 500 Irish, commanded by Hugh McPhelim O’Byrne., who held it for the King, repulsed 5,000 Parliamentarians, under Sir Charles Coote, who lost 500 of his men and his ammunition and baggage.

From Finglas (where a long buried High Cross was disinterred in 1816 owing to the exertions of the Rev. Robert Walsh, the Protestant curate), the road runs almost due north-west of Dublin and straight as an arrow to Ashbourne and thence to Slane and to Derry.

The eastern or right-hand road beyond Westmoreland Bridge is intersected .by the Whitworth Road. This road, the Whitworth Hospital, now called, Drumcondra Hospital, Whitworth Place and Whitworth Hospital, Bridge and Row in the city, are memorials of Charles, Earl Whitworth who was Lord Lieutenant 1813-7, but more famous as Ambassador to Napoleon and France after the Peace of Amiens.

In a field near Whitworth Road, John Brie, a young barrister, a native of Kerry and an ardent supporter of O’Connell, was shot dead in a duel on the morning of St. Stephen’s Day, 1826, by William Hayes, a Cork Conservative. They had had an accidental political dispute on Christmas Eve about an election then in progress in Cork City. The quarrel took place at the General Post Office, to which the Cork mail had just conveyed Hayes and also the news of the election. Hayes died a few years ago in Cork, over ninety years of age.

Whitworth Road is still popularly called the Bishop’s Road, from the Right Rev. the Hon. Charles Lindsay, last Protestant Bishop of Kildare, who died in 1846. The road adjoined his property. Lindsay Road and Crawford Road (he was son of the Earl of Crawford) also commemorate this family, who are still proprietors in the neighbourhood. His sister, Lady Anne Barnard, was the author of Auld Robin Gray, one of the best known Scottish songs. Bishop Lindsay’s residence is now the Convent of the Sisters of the Holy Faith, Glasnevin.

Passing Crawford Road and lona Road, the new thoroughfare to Drumcondra, beside which ‘the beautiful new Church of St. Columba is built, we reach Cody’s Lane, afterwards corrupted into Corey Lane, and now called Botanic Avenue.

At the corner of this road, near the little wooden Church of the Seven Dolours, there stood until 1901 a circular building which was used as a school, and said to have been founded by Dean Swift. The form, suggested by the Dean, was exactly that of an inkbottle.

On the height beyond the Tolka at Bankfarm, the new Training College of the Commissioners of National Education has been built above the pond called the Roach Hole. The Botanic Garden on the left, formerly the residence of Tickell and the haunt of Addison, was founded by Dr. Wade in ‘795. It had a predecessor in 1732 at Ballybough Bridge, and in 1735 at Great Martin’s Lane, afterwards Mecklenburgh Street, until its transference to Glasnevin in 1795.

Delville is passed next, the residence of the Very Rev. Dr. Delany, Dean of Down, whose guest Swift frequently was. Glasnevin and Finglas were also the residence of Addison, Sheridan, Southern, the author of Oroonoko, Tickell and Parnell.

Going farther afield, this road passes a townland called Clonmel and another called Wad. The little stream named the Holly Brook, flowing under the road at Wad Bridge passes afterwards under Doyle’s Bridge at Puckstown, and Donnycarney Bridge on its course to the sea. Stormanstown is next reached, the birthplace of Mrs. Macauley, the foundress of the Sisters of Mercy, and next the Church of St. Pappan, Ballymun.

This little known saint. is commemorated on the same day as St. Ignatius Loyola, the Founder of the Society of Jesus, the 31st of July. Two townlands succeed, called Balbutcher and Balcurris. The prefix Bal instead of Bally (Baile) is very common in Fingal. Further on the district of Great Forest really deserved its name in former years.

Passing on we’ reach the Bridge of Knocksedan (the hill of the quicksand) over the Ward River and are in quite a picturesque district. The beautiful ancient Irish circular fort at Knocksedan forms quite a remarkable and conspicuous feature. To the right is Brackenstown House, built in the reign of Charles I, the residence in older times of the Viscounts Molesworth, afterwards of the Manders family and now of Mr. O’Callaghan.

To the left is Killeek or Killeigh, a cemetery still used with a ruined ancient church, This district belongs to the Staples family, baronets residing near Cookstown, Co. Tyrone. (Sir Thomas Staples, who died in 1865, was the last survivor of the Irish House of Commons, in which he had represented the borough of Knocktopher in Kilkenny.)

The road turning west from Ballymun passes Poppintree (from St. Pappan) : the Old Red Lion, once an inn, now a farmhouse; a house at the corner of the road to Dunsoghly Castle called Pass-if-you-can. a name which does not suggest strict temperance principles.

The village of St. Margaret’s with Church, School, Fair Green, and other rural appanages: and Chapelmidway, so called as being midway between St. Margaret’s and Kilsallaghan. The main road beyond Knocksedan runs almost due north through Ballyboghill (the town of the Staff of Jesus, St. Patrick’s celebrated crozier) and the picturesquely situated village of Naul to Drogheda.

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