East of the Great North Road.

*CHAPTER VI.

East of the Great North Road.

Proceeding once more from Grattan or old Essex Bridge, there are many interesting memorials on the eastern or right hand side of the great northern highway. The district on both sides of Capel Street was the property of St. Mary’s Abbey. That on the eastern side, called Piphoe’s Park, was purchased in 1674 by several gentlemen, including Sir Humphrey Jervis and Sir Hugh Stafford, from whom Jervis Street and Stafford Street are named.

No.44, in the latter street, the house marked with the tablet, was the birthplace of Theobald Wolfe Tone, the United Irish leader. The site of a part of the well-known and imposing Hospital (originally the Charitable Infirmary, Ormond Quay), represents No.14 Jervis Street, the birthplace of the Volunteer Earl of Charlemont, and the residence of his step-father, Thomas Adderley, who superintended his education. Mr. Adderley of Innishannon was a promoter of the linen industry in Cork.

Swift’s Row is called after a nephew of Dean Swift who married a daughter of Sir Humphrey Jervis. Philip Francis, whose translation of Horace is still held in high esteem, was rector of St. Mary’s Church, built about 1690, in Mary Street. His son was the celebrated Sir Philip Francis. Lord Langford’s residence in Mary Street, afterwards the office of the Paving Board, is now Messrs. Bewley and Draper’s establishment.

The northern portion of old Liffey Street has been called Little Denmark Street since 1773*, *perhaps from Caroline Matilda, Queen of Denmark, sister of George III., who died in 1775. The Orphanage, formerly old St. Saviour’s Church of the Dominicans from 1764 to 1858, and an Almshouse, founded in 1755 by Tristram Fortick of Fortick’s Grove, afterwards Clonliffe House. are objects of interest in this street.

Simpson’s Hospital, founded in 1781. probably gave rise to the name of Simpson’s, now Sampson’s, Lane, not far off. The old name was Bunting Lane. The ground extending from this lane to Henry Street was not built upon until 1790, some years after the surrounding district. It was called the Bull Park.

The name of Great Britain Street dates, like that of the streets already named, from the beginning of the 18th century, but the road is much older than the name. There was a convent of Augustinian nuns in Great Britain Street in the 18th century. They afterwards removed to Mullinahack, near the Augustinian Church.

King’s Inns Street, so called from the adjoining King’s Inns since 1797, was previously named Turnagain Lane, apparently from the curve in the centre of the street. (Some other examples of odd street names in Dublin, most of them still existing, are The Appian Way, Roper’s Rest, Harmony Row, Misery Hill, Wormwood Gate (Gormund’s Gate), Thundercut Alley, Cheater’s (really Chaytor’s) Lane, Ship (Sheep) Street, Engine (formerly Indian) Alley, Cross Poddle, Thomas Court Bawn, Long Entry, Usher’s Island, Rapparee Alley (Glover’s Alley), Adam and Eve Lane, Salutation Alley, Marrowbone Lane, Elbow Lane, Fortuneteller’s Lane, Brock Lane and Badger’s Lane, Hoggen Green, Three Nun Alley, Minchin’s Mantle (site of Kildare Street), Artichoke Road (Shelbourne Road), Faithful Place, Crooked Staff (Ardee Street), Behind Street, Golden Bridge “Rialto” Bridge, Cross Stick Alley, Carman’s Hall and Cow Parlour.). But old Turnagain Lane long appears on the maps as made only to Loftus Lane, where one had to turn again. The rest of the present King’s Inns Street as far as Britain Street was then covered by fields.

Lower or Old Dominick Street dates from 1743, and is called after an owner of property here who died in that year, Christopher, the son of Dr. Christopher Dominick. The association of the street with the sons of St. Dominic dates from about half a century ago when the handsome Church of St. Saviour was built. Christopher Dominick’s daughter Elizabeth, a very wealthy heiress, married in 1752 St. George Usher, a member of the old Dublin family, who was created Baron St. George in 1773.

Lord St. George’s daughter and heiress, Emily Olivia, married in 1775 the second Duke of Leinster. The Dukes of Leinster have long had an office and residence in this street. Two members of the United Irish Society of very opposite character lived on opposite sides of this street. The house No. I, at the corner of Great Britain Street, was the residence of the honest and honourable Archibald Hamilton Rowan, whose name is associated with the history of Clongowes Wood College.

In a house in Dominick Street nearly opposite lived the now notorious Leonard M’Nally, whose dishonour was never discovered until after his death in 1820. No.20 was the residence of the influential John Beresford. He lived afterwards in Marlborough Street and later in rooms in the new Custom House, which he caused to be built at Eden Quay. His country residence was at Abbeville, St. Dolough’s. He was succeeded by Lord Ffrench as occupier of No. 20 in this street.

In the house, now No.36, a few doors from Bolton Street, the famous mathematician Sir William Rowan Hamilton was born. No.41, the Convent School of the Sisters of the Holy Faith, was for many years the town residence of the Earls of Howth. The third Earl allowed his mother-in-law, the Countess of Clanricarde, a Catholic lady, to live here. According to Fitzpatrick’s *Life of Father Burke, *she wished that the house should be made a Convent of the Dominican Fathers. But when she died very old in 1854 it was purchased by the Carmelite Fathers of Whitefriars Street, who conducted a school here for a long time in which many worthy and successful citizens received their education.

As the residence of Lady Clanricarde, this house figured prominently in the evidence at the great Tichborne Trial. The late Frank Thorpe Porter tells a story, in his *Recollections, *about Granby Lane, the wide lane between Dominick Street and Rutland Square. William Walker, who was Recorder of Dublin from 1795 to 1822, inflicted an unusually severe sentence on a man convicted of stealing oats in that lane. The Recorder said that he was determined to put down the practice of stealing oats ” *in that lane.” *The fact is, that the Recorder lived in No.11 Dominick Street and his own stable was situated in *“that lane.” *

At No. 12 Upper Dorset Street, Richard Brinsley Sheridan was born in 1751. His grandfather, Thomas Sheridan, a Protestant clergyman and native of Cavan, was struck off the list of chaplains to the Lord Lieutenant for preaching from the text :- ” Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof” on the 1st of August, the anniversary of the accession of the King (George I.) upon the death of Queen Anne. The day marked the disappearance of the Stuarts as sovereigns arid the adoption by the English of the present dynasty, the House of Hanover. It is said that Sheridan was not a Jacobite, but selected his text thus awkwardly through sheer inadvertence.

The name of Rutland Square dates from 1791 and comes from Charles Manners, fourth Duke of Rutland, the too jovial Lord Lieutenant who died in office in 1787, after a three years’ Viceroyalty. The adjoining Granby Row, an alder name, comes from the title of the Duke’s father, John Manners, Marquess of Granby, who did not live to succeed to the dukedom. He was one of the most famous soldiers of his time. Brave and popular, his name is well known as a cavalry commander in the Seven Years’ War.

The north side of Rutland Square is sometimes called Palace Row from the fine house in the centre, formerly the town residence of the Earls of Charlemont, now since 1871 the General Register Office. Palace Row is an old name, found in 1769. Cavendish Row, formerly Cavendish Street, is called after William Cavendish, the third Duke of Devonshire, who was Viceroy for the unusually long period of eight years, from 1737 to 1745. There has been no Viceroyalty since even approaching this in length until that of Earl Cadogan, who was Lord Lieutenant from 1895 to 1902.

The first stone of the Rotunda Hospital was laid in 1751, and the adjoining grounds were called the New Gardens (Fortunately this name was discarded in time before the word New became inappropriate as in the case of New Street, New Row and Newmarket, which are all old, particularly the first) s 1 and the Bowling Green before they received the name of Rutland Square. No. 6 Cavendish Row was the residence of Richard Kirwan, the famous chemist, a native of Galway. A great fire which consumed the block of houses where the Bethesda Church is situated, occurred on the 6th of January, 1839; and it is duly chronicled in the Annals of Dublin, that the same night was that of the “Big Wind,” as the great storm continues to be called in Ireland, although it has been equalled since on the 26th of February, 1903.

The lodge in the Square opposite the Presbyterian Church was a shelter for chairmen or bearers of sedan-chairs who had their stand where the cab and car stand is now. North Frederick Street dates from 1795, and probably takes its name from Frederick, Duke of York, son of George III., and many years Commander-in-Chief. Frederick Street was laid out in a district previously known for a long time as the Barley Fields. There were enough of the Barley Fields left in 1798 to hold meetings, for a popular meeting here was dispersed in that year.

Hardwicke Street should be mentioned as the first Dublin home of the Jesuits after the Restoration of the Society, and the seat of the first Dublin College of St. Francis Xavier, the predecessor of Belvidere. It is obvious that this street and the crescent, called Hardwicke Place, as also George’s Place, familiarly called “the Pocket” from its shape, were all made with reference to St. George’s Church. The Church was built in 1802, the parish having been formed in ‘793 by Statute of the Irish Parliament.

The dates of the formation of the several Protestant or State Church parishes are a sufficiently good indication of the ages of the different districts of the northern half of the city of Dublin. Thus, before 1697, there was only one parish on the north side, that of St. Michan, comprising the former Danish village of Oxmantown and the district of the Pill or mouth of the Bradoge. The Church was the very ancient structure still standing in Church Street, erected in 1095.

In 1697 by a Statute of the Irish Parliament two additional parishes were formed on the north side, that of St. Paul, of which the Church is still in North King Street, and that of St. Mary represented by the Church in Mary Street. The latter parish received its name from the Blessed Virgin as it comprised the site and former possessions of her famous Abbey. In 1750 the parish of St. Thomas was formed by Statute from the eastern district of St. Mary’s. The Church, built in 1758, is in Marlborough Street.

There was an odder St. Thomas’s Church near the Eden Quay end of the street. Lastly St. George’s parish was formed as above mentioned in 1793.

The Catholic Church, when it had been able to emerge from the persecution of the Penal Laws, made somewhat similar arrangements. It corresponded with the Protestant Church in allocating the patronage of the first two new parishes to the Blessed Virgin and St. Paul, but no further; for St. Thomas’s parish is co-extensive mainly with that of St. Laurence O’Toole, Archbishop of Dublin; and St. George’s district is occupied by several Catholic parishes, those of the Blessed Virgin, St. Agatha, St. Joseph and St. Columba.

Readers of this account who desire full and accurate information on the history of the development of the parishes of the Catholic Church in Dublin and all its sacred edifices, served by the secular and regular clergy, are referred to *The Catholic Chapels in Dublin in *1749, a very interesting pamphlet, edited and brought very fully up to date by the Most Rev. Dr. Donnelly, Bishop of Canea, and published by the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland.

St. George’s Church, opened in 1802, was built by Francis Johnston, first President of the Royal Hibernian Academy of Art and an eminent Irish architect of that day. He lived, as already mentioned, at 64 Eccles Street, afterwards the residence of Isaac Butt, and still adorned with sculptures on the outside. (Johnston designed also the Castle Chapel, the General Post Office and the extensions of the Viceregal Lodge.) The beautiful spire of this Church is a very conspicuous landmark on the north side of Dublin; although it is now rivalled in this respect by the fine new spire of St. Peter’s Church, Phibsborough, built by the Vincentian Fathers, which, however, stands upon much higher ground. St. George’s, measured from the top of the cross, is 200 feet from the ground, being sixty-six feet higher than the top of Nelson’s Pillar, which, besides, is on lower ground. St. George’s spire is generally seen from a distance along with that of the graceful Gothic Presbyterian Church in Rutland Square, built in 1864. The National Gallery, Merrion Square, contains a fine view of Dublin, taken in 1853 by J. Mahoney from the spire of St. George’s Church.

Dubliners who visit London are often struck by the resemblance of the spire of the Church of St. Martin, near Trafalgar Square, to that of St. George in Dublin. It is evident that Johnston modelled his work to some extent on St. Martin’s.

On the 10th of April, i8o6, the marriage took place in this Church of the Honourable Arthur Wellesley, famous a few years later as the Duke of Wellington, with the Honourable Catherine Pakenham, daughter of Lord Longford, who resided at 10 Rutland Square. Another account states that the marriage took place in the drawingroom of the house. At No.7 Hardwicke Place, the corner house of Hardwicke Street, the great actor, Gustavus Vaughan Brooke was born, and, under the shadow of the spire on the Church side of the street, a more famous name is to be remembered. Charles Stewart Parnell lived at No.14 Upper Temple Street from 1862 to 1867. The house is now part of St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital. From the age of sixteen to that of twenty-one, Parnell passed much of his time here with his mother, brothers and sisters. During much of that time he was a student of Magdalen College, Cam-bridge, and afterwards held a commission as lieutenant in the militia of his native County of Wicklow. In spite of this the family were more than suspected of sympathy with the Fenians and it was said that concealment was afforded in the house to Fenian fugitives from warrants. Mr. Barry O’Brien in his *Life of Parnell *describes the indignation of the future Irish leader when the police searched the house.

The name of Temple Street dates from 1773, and is perhaps referable to the Chapel of St. George, built, as already mentioned, by Sir John Eccles for his Protestant tenants in 1719, more than seventy years before the formation of St. George’s parish. The tower of “Little George’s ” looks even older than its age.

Bath Lane, not far off, is called after the baths opened here in 1820 by Sir Arthur Clarke, an eminent physician who lived at No.45 in the adjoining North Great George’s Street. He was a contemporary and friend of another medical knight, Sir Charles Morgan of Kildare Street, husband of the famous Irish novelist, Sydney (Owenson), Lady Morgan. Her sister was married to Sir Arthur Clarke A third medical knight, Sir James Murray, succeeded Sir Arthur Clarke in the medicated baths. He lived at 19 Upper Temple Street. The lane near this, running behind Belvidere House, appears on Rocque’s Map of Dublin, revised by Bernard Scale, 1787, as Statute Lane. It comprised the present Graham’s Court, but, unlike the latter, formed a thoroughfare from Temple Street to Frederick Street. At No. 141 Great Britain Street near this a well-known Irish priest and literary man was born, the late Father Charles Patrick Meehan.

North Great George’s Street, whose name dates from 1776, is apparently called from its proximity to St. George’s Chapel, but perhaps from George 111. who was then King. No.20 was famous for its literary *salon *held by Sir Samuel and Lady Ferguson, who is one of the Guinness family. Major Swan, deputy to Major Sirr, lived at No.22. They were Town Majors a non-military title.

The Earl of Kenmare resided at the present No.35 in this street. No.31 was the residence of Lady Catherine O’Toole, daughter of the Earl of Anglesea (Annesley) and wife of John O’Toole of Ballyfad, Co. Wexford, Count O’Toole and Lieutenant Colonel of the Irish Brigade. The Loreto Convent, founded in 1837, took the place of the residence of Dr. Richard Laurence, Protestant Bishop of Cashel, an Englishman. It had been previously the residence of Sir James Galbraith, an Ulster baronet who had been a solicitor. The name of Nicholas Archdale, Esq., (whose name was originally Montgomery), is marked on old maps at this spot, evidently as residing here. Sir John Eccles’s house, Mount Eceles, stood close by.

Behind North Great George’s Street is Johnson’s Court, where there is a house facing Great Britain Street, remarkable for its size and appearance in such a locality. Over the coping of the house at the corner of Great Britain Street and Cavendish Row, which preceded the National Bank, built there about twelve years ago, the inscription “Raphson’s Rents” appeared. Now only the letters RAP remain over No. 2 Cavendish Row, doubtless to the perplexity of all beholders. The trustees of the Rotunda Hospital purchased ground-rents here with £800 bequeathed by one Raphson.

Gardiner’s Row, dating from 1769, Gardiner Street, Upper, Middle and Lower from 1792 and Gardiner’s Place, dating from 1790, Mountjoy Square (finished in 1818) from the same year, Mountjoy Street and Blessington Street, already mentioned, Great Charles Street, 1795, and Florinda Place, 1795, all take their names from the family of Gardiner, of whom the father was Lord Mountjoy, and the son Earl of Blessington. The mother of Lord Mountjoy was Florinda, daughter of Robert Norman of Lagore, Co. Meath (the Spanish name Florinda is well known in the history of Don Roderick, the last of the Goths). Great Denmark Street, so named in 1787, was originally included in Gardiner’s Row. It derives its present name perhaps from Caroline Matilda, Queen of Denmark, sister of George III., who died in 1775 or from her son, afterwards Frederick VII., who became Regent in 1754.

(Luke Gardiner, son of the Right Hon. Charles Gardiner, was born in 1745**. **He was member for the county of Dublin in the Irish Parliament, and was honourably distinguished as an advocate of the relaxation of the Penal Laws in an age when many otherwise patriotic Irishmen, such as Charlemont, Charles Lucas and Speaker Foster, were opposed to such relaxation. Gardiner’s proposals for complete equality of the Catholics with other Irishmen were defeated. He was violently opposed by Fitzgibbon, afterwards Earl of Clare, whose father had once been a Catholic. He intended to grant an advantageous lease to the Poor Clares for their Convent in Hardwicke Street, but his premature death prevented this, and they migrated to Harold’s Cross. He was created Baron Mountjoy in 1789 and Viscount Mountjoy in 1795. He was connected with a family of Lords Mountjoy and Earls of Blessington, whose title had become extinct. They were Stewarts, an Ulster family of Scottish origin, and derived their title from Mountjoy in Co. Tyrone. The word is like, but unconnected with, the old French War-cry of “Montjoie St. Denis.” Lord Mountjoy was Colonel of the County Dublin Militia. He accompanied that regiment when it was sent to fight the Wexford insurgents and was killed at the Battle of New Ross on the 5th of June, 1798. His second wife, who was widowed by this event, was a member of a family who lived in Russell Place, in this part of Dublin, for nearly a century. Lord Mountjoy was succeeded in his title and great *estates *by his only son Charles (from whom Great Charles Street was apparently named) who was created Earl of Blessington in i8 £6, and died in 1829, when all the titles became extinct. His widow, whose maiden name was Margaret Power, a native of Tipperary, was the Countess of Blessington, whose name was so well known in the thirties and forties of the last century in London literary- and fashionable circles. Charles Gardiner, Earl of Blessington and Lord Mountjoy, is said to have had an income or £30,000 a year. The Gardiner property comprised the finest streets and best houses on the north side of Dublin.)

Belvidere House, Great Denmark Street, was built about 1775, but its academic predecessor in Hardwicke Street, in turn the Church and the School of the Jesuits, has quite a green old age for this locality. Before the suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773, we find its members ministering in the present parish of St. Michan, the Danish Bishop, and in that of SS. Michael and John. The old parish church of St. Michan’s in Mary’s Lane, abandoned in 1817 for Anne Street, was demolished some years ago in the course of some improvements promoted by the Corporation.

(At a still earlier period we find the Jesuits, as in recent years, taking care of the University education of Ireland, not in St. Stephen’s Green but in Back Lane. They owed this house to the generosity of Lady Kildare. She was Elizabeth, daughter of Christopher Nugent, Lord Delvin, and wife of Gerald, fourteenth Earl of Kildare. In 1631 Lancelot Bulkeley, Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, made a predatory incursion on the Jesuits’ University, and not only suppressed it, but transferred its property to Trinity College. The Jesuits and the Irish Catholics were persecuted together for many years after, and it must be always a consolation for Irishmen to reflect that, although some unworthy Catholics in other countries were responsible for causing the suppression of the great Society, faithful and persecuted Ireland had no feeling but sorrow and sympathy for the Jesuits, When Pius VII. restored the Jesuits, on the 7th of August, 1814, by the Bull “Sollicitudine Omnium Ecclesiarum,” the celebrated Father Peter Kenny founded Clongowes Wood College, in Castle Browne, County Kildare. He is said to have preferred this site, as he had spent the years of his boyhood near it, to one in the Diocese of Meath offered by Dr. Plunkett, the Bishop.)

A very short time after the foundation of Clongowes. Father Kenny opened the Church in Hardwicke Street. The building has a singular history. Before Hardwicke Street, Frederick Street, Blessington Street or Eccles Street were yet dreamed of, or any other thoroughfare in the district, except the present Dorset Street, the old house stood there as it stands to day. We hear of it first in the middle of the 18th century as the residence of Major Faviere, apparently a gentleman of Huguenot origin. In 1752 the Poor Clares, a part of the community of North King Street, came here, and, as they had both a convent and a chapel, curious observers may still see, by passing through Hardwicke Lane in the rere, another building, as large as that in Hardwicke Street. The Poor Clares migrated to their present home in Harold’s Cross in 1803, and, about that time Beresford Street, now Hardwicke Street, was built, the houses being constructed in line with the old building. Before that time the old house is to be seen on maps, marked “Nunnery,” and opening, by an avenue through a garden, on the country road called Drumcondra Lane, now Upper Dorset Street, the only thoroughfare in the neighbourhood.

Beresford Street after a year or two received the name of Hardwicke Street from Philip Yorke, Earl of Hardwicke, Lord Lieutenant 1801-6. The Poor Clares’ Convent Chapel became a chapel of ease to St. Mary’s Cathedral parish, Liffey Street, served by the Rev. Bernard McMahon, until in 1816 it became the church of the Jesuits. In 1829, the year of Emancipation, the first stone of the present beautiful Church of St. Francis Xavier was laid in Upper Gardiner Street, and it was opened in 1832. Then the house in Harwicke Street became the College of St. Francis Xavier as it had previously been his Church. The name of the Saint is commemorated in a little avenue off the North Strand, as is that of St. Ignatius in a road off Dorset Street, both names being obvious tributes to the Jesuit “sphere of influence.”

The advertisements of the School and its Course are to be found in the earlier editions of the *Irish Catholic Directory *and they seem a little old-fashioned to us of the present day. From the same authority for 1842 we learn that the new College of St. Francis Xavier was opened in Belvidere House on the 16th of September, 1841. In connection with the history of the house, we may recall the facts that the earldom of Belvidere, created in 1756, was held but by two peers, father and son, when it became extinct in 1814 on the death of the latter. His widow, Jane, daughter of the Rev. James Mackay of Phibsborough, married Mr. Abraham Boyd, K.C., and died in 1836; and the names of the Countess of Belvidere and her son, Mr. G. A. Boyd, are those returned as occupiers of the house in the Directories before the foundation of the College in 1841.

(Rochfort, the family name of the Lords Belvidere, still exists in Rochfortbridge, County Westmeath, which was called after them, and in the Rochfort-Boyd family which has inherited much of their property in that county. But another large portion, with Belvidere House, near Belvidere Lake or Lough Ennel, belongs to the Marlay family. In a volume of Poetry published recently, a striking poem may be found commemorating the legend of the *Headless Coach of/ Belvidere, *still current in Westmeath.)

In the Belvidere School district the name is preserved in Belvidere Place and Belvidere Road, both leading from Mountjoy Square to another school of St. Francis Xavier. There are also the little Belvidere Avenue, called until 1875 North East Anne Street, a complex name; Belvidere House, now St. Patrick’s Training College, formerly the residence of the Coghills, baronets, now residing in County Cork; and Belfield Park, Drumcondra, called from the Belvidere minor title, Viscount Belfield; and for some years the residence of the late A. M. Sullivan.

Belvidere House is the best preserved of the splendid old Dublin houses of the Georgian period. At that time the fine new houses built in this part of Dublin were taxed according to the length of their frontage. It was built about 1775 by George Rochfort, second Earl of Belvedere, at a cost of £24,000. The first Lord Belvedere purchased the site in 1765 from Nicholas Archdale who held a lease from the Eccles family of Mount Eccies. Mount Eccles stood almost on the site of the present Loreto Convent in North Great George’s Street, and Mr. Archdale resided there about the time when Belvidere House was built. He was originally Nicholas Montgomery, but assumed the surname of Archdale upon his marriage with a lady of that family. The grand organ which had belonged to the Belvedere family is still preserved in the College in a case of fine San Domingo mahogany. The ornamentation by Lord Belvedere’s Venetian artists was restored by the Jesuit Fathers a quarter of a century ago. The plaster reliefs on the walls and ceilings, the Bossi marble chimney pieces, and the three rooms whose decoration was dedicated to Apollo, Venus and Diana respectively are now in as good condition as they were a century ago, and afford, as has been said, the best surviving example of 18th century splendour in Dublin house decoration.

The success of Belvedere College as an educational institution is known to everybody. Many of the most distinguished Irishmen of the last eighty years were educated here, and some who still survive are not the least famous. The house No.5 Great Denmark Street, next to Belvidere House and formerly the town residence of the Earls of Fingal, has been attached to the College since 1880. The extensive new buildings of the College, including the boys’ chapel, class-rooms and science laboratories, were erected in 1884. The large gates in Great Denmark Street bear the arms of St. Iguatius.

An anecdote may well be inserted here of a famous Irish writer who went to school in Great Denmark Street. Charles Lever was born in Amiens Street and lived afterwards in Talbot Street, both on this side of Dublin. He went to a school at No.2 Great Denmark Street, kept by the Rev. George Newenham Wright, who brought out a *Guide to Dublin in 1821. The boys of Wright’s School, having a dispute with those of another school in Grenville Street (then very fashionable), agreed to settle it by a pitched battle in Mountjoy Fields, on a part of which the Church of St. Francis Xavier, Upper Gardiner Street, now stands. So elaborate was the fight that the Denmark Street boys actually laid a mine. When the mine was fired many on both sides were injured and the leaders found themselves in custody. The guardians of the peace brought them to the long extinct Marlborough Street Police Office, where Lever, chosen as spokesman and apologist, so pleased the magistrate by the wit *and cleverness of his explanation as to secure the discharge of all concerned.

No. 1 Great Denmark Street was the residence of Lord Tullamore, afterwards Earl of Charleville. No.3 was the town house of the well-known Earl of Norbury the judge, who has been already mentioned at Cabra. No.4 was the mansion of the Creighton family, Earls of Erne, whose memory is perpetuated in the names of Creighton Street and Erne Street on the south side of Dublin, on property acquired by them through marriage with the heiress of Sir John Rogerson, after whom the quay is named. No.7, next door to Belvidere College, was the residence of Sir Robert King, Bart. No.8 was the residence of Lady Hannah Stratford, sister to the Earl of Aldborough who built Aldborough House.

(In the last quarterof the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th, there were many noble residents of streets on the north side of Dublin. Amongst them may be mentioned Viscount Mountgarrett in Great Britain Street (the house is now part of the Rotunda Hospital), also Lady Alice Hume at the corner of Dominick Street and Viscount Duncannon at Nos. 204 and 205; in Lower Dominick Street, the Hon. Henry King at No.10, I I Sir Hercules Langrishe, 16 Lord Ely, 20 Lord Ffrench and 41 the Earl of Howth; in Dorset Street, Lord Dartrey; in 2 Gardiner’s Row, Lord Ashtown; 4, the Earl of Arran; 5, the Earl of Ross, and 6 the Earl of Carrick and afterwards Mr. Luke White; at 2* *Lower Gardiner Street, Viscount Molesworth; at No.3 Henrietta Street, the Earl of Kingston; 6, Lord Thomond; 9, Lord O’Neill; 10, The Earl of Blessington and Viscount Mountjoy; II, the Earl of Shannon; in Marlborough Street the Marquess of Waterford at Tyrone House; in the present No. 82 (the Cathedral Presbytery), and afterwards in the present Nos. 86 and 87 Viscount Avonmore; in 35 North Great George’s Street, the Earl of Kenmare; in Gloucester Street, the Marquess of Downshire; at 10 Upper Sackville Street, the Earl of Drogheda; 12, the Earl of Glandore ; at 15 Lord Sunderlin; at 18 The Marquess of Sligo; at 19 Lord Netterville; at 24 Viscount Pery (part of Lord Pery’s house is now the offices of the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland); on the western side of the street, called Gardiner’s Mall, the Earl of Leitrim lived at No.40; at 42 Lord Gosford; at 45 Lord Clarina; 56 Lord Bangor; 57 the Earl of Belmore; and 58 Lord Cremorne. In Rutland Square, Lord Wicklow lived at No.4; at 10 Lord Longford; II Lord Ormonde; 17 the Earl of Bective; 18 Lord Franham; 24 Lord Westmeath; 31 Lord Darnley; the large house, 34, Thomas Adderley, stepfather of Lord Charlemont, and principally responsible for the education of the Volunteer Earl, who lived at No.22; at 39 Lord Enniskillen; 41 Lord Erne, and 44 Lord Dillon. In 14 Temple Street, Lord Lismore in the house in which Charles Stewart Parnell resided from 1862 to 1867; and in 15 the Earl of Bellamont. Both of these houses are now part of St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital.)

Grenville Street, 1792, and Buckingham Street, 1790, are called after George Grenville Temple, Marquess of Buckingham, who was Lord Lieutenant, 1782-3 and 1787-9. But Temple Street can hardly have received its name from him, as the name is found in 1773, and he was not associated with Ireland until nine years later.

At No.44 Mountjoy Square (South) Dr. Daniel Murray, Archbishop of Dublin, lived for twenty-five years previous to his death on the 26th of February, 1852. (Another great Irishman, Thomas Moore, the poet, died on the same day.) No.53 (formerly 74) Upper Gardiner Street was for some years the residence of Denis Florence McCarthy, the poet. It stands at the corner of Sherrard Street, dating from 1795 and called after Mr. Thomas Sherrard, Secretary of the Commissioners of Wide Streets.

No. 3 Lower Sherrard Street was the residence of the Rev. James Wills, well known for his services to Irish literature, and father of William Gorman Wills, the dramatist. The Jesuit Fathers of St. Francis Xavier’s Church inhabited the present No.38 Upper Gardiner Street for a few years before the residence beside the Church was built.

The Church of St. Francis Xavier in Upper Gardiner Street is in the classical style and richly decorated. The fine Ionic portico is much admired. The first stone was laid by Father Charles Aylmer, S.J., on the 2nd of July, 1829, the year of Emancipation, and it was opened on the 3rd of May, 1832, replacing the Church in Hardwicke Street where the celebrated Father Peter Kenny had long preached and ministered.

St. Francis Xavier’s in Gardiner Street was designed by Father Bartholomew Esmonde, S.J., and erected by the architect Joseph B. Keane, who also built St. Laurence O’Toole’s Church, Seville Place. The erection of Gardiner Street Church cost £25,000.

Cardinal Cullen lived at No.3 Belvidere Place in the beginning of his Episcopate. Belvidere Place dates from 1795 and Fitzgibbon Street from 1794. The latter is called after John Fitzgibbon, Earl of Clare. Portland Street and Portland Place date from 1811 and are called after the third Duke of Portland, who was Prime Minister 1807-9, and had been Lord Lieutenant in 1782.

Russell Place and Russell Street are called after John Russell who built them in 1792. The Christian Brothers, School, North Richmond Street, dates from 1828, and the street from about the same time. Daniel O’Connell laid the foundation stone of the school on St. Columba’s Day, the 9th of June, 1828. The 5th of July following was polling-day in the Clare election, the result of which ensured the achievement of Catholic Emancipation.

Gerald Griffin, the famous Irish poet and novelist, became a member of the Order of the Christian Brothers and taught for some time in this school. Many very eminent men have been pupils of O’Connell’s School which has become quite famous for its unfailing success in the Intermediate Examinations.

Richmond Place adjoining dates from 1818, and takes its name, like Richmond Bridewell, Asylum, Penitentiary, Barracks and Hospital, from Charles, fourth Duke of Richmond.

(Lennox Street* *takes its name also from this family. Charles Lennox, the first Duke, was a son of Charles II. The fourth Duke, a general in the army, was Lord Lieutenant from 1807 to 1813. Two years later he was present at Waterloo. It was he and his wife who gave the historic ball in Brussels on the evening of Thursday, the 15th of June, 1815. The troops marched out of the city to the front on that night, and the battle of Les Quatre Bras took place on the next day. Two days later the greater battle was fought. Wellington came to this ball, and it is mentioned in all histories of the campaign. Our readers will remember the splendid stanzas of *Childe Harold *in which Byron commemorates the ball and the battle. It is also introduced very effectively by Thackeray into *Vanity Fair. *The fourth Duke of Richmond, whose wife gave the ball, was an honest and capable man both as soldier and administrator. He died Governor-General of Canada in 1819.)

Wellesley Place, off Russell Street, is named after Richard Colley Wellesley, Marquess Wellesley, also famous as a soldier. He was twice Lord Lieutenant, had been Governor General of India and was eldest brother of the Duke of Wellington. A large old house stood, until a few years ago, in Lower Dorset Street, a little to the north of the Circular Road. Near it was the Big Tree which disappeared many years before the house.

Clonliffe Bridge, connecting Jones’s Road with Russell Street, is of somewhat later date than any other Royal Canal bridge in Dublin. Unlike all the rest, it bears no stone indicating its name and date, and has an iron railing instead of a stone parapet; but Russell Street at first ran towards the water’s edge.

The juxtaposition of Fitzroy Avenue and Buccleuch Villas, Jones’s Road. which is merely accidental, recalls the marriage in 1663 of James Fitzroy, Duke of Monmouth with Anne Scott, Countess, afterwards Duchess, of Buccleuch in her own right. She is the Duchess introduced in *The Lay of the Last Minstrel. *But Fitzroy Avenue here was called after a street of the same name in Belfast. The name Edgar Villas on this road is from the first owner of the property

Jones’s Road represents a former foot-path through the fields leading to the gate of Clonliffe House, still standing on the College grounds, the residence a century ago of Frederick Edward Jones, the manager of the principal theatre in Dublin. Clonliffe Road, in its present long straight form, is not much more than a century old. It was preceded by a narrow winding lane called Fortick’s Lane, from Tristram Fortick, then residing in Clonliffe House which was called Fortick’s Grove. It was Jones who restored the Irish name to the house and estate. Clonliffe is translated “meadow of herbs” by Dr. Joyce, but “plain of the Liffey” by Cardinal Moran, who thinks the district once extended as far as the Liffey. It was a part of the great possessions of St. Mary’s Abbey. It is at present divided into three townlands. Clonliffe South lies between the Royal Canal and North Circular Road. Clonliffe West between the Tolka and the Canal to the west of Drumcondra Road, and Clonliffe East to the east of that highway, extending as far as Ballybough Bridge. Drumcondra has usurped the place of Clonliffe as the name of the district. The true Drumcondra is beyond the Tolka.

(The road leading to Drumcondra, called Drumcondra Road, gradually came to be confounded with that district itself. Similarly, in the northern suburbs of Dublin, Ballybough Road, Glasnevin Road, Phibsborough Road and Cabra Road, originally roads leading to those localities, are now considered the most important parts of the localities. All the townlands of Cabra are quite a long distance beyond the last houses of Cabra Road.)

“Buck” Jones, the most celebrated possessor of Clonliffe House, was a native of Meath. During his occupation of the house, one or two noteworthy incidents took plac there. A barrister named Comerford, a guest of Jones, had a presentiment that he would be drowned in the Canal when returning to town from Clonliffe. Notwithstanding this he continued to go home by the path from the gate to the water’s edge which preceded Jones’s Road, instead of going round by either of the next two canal bridges which existed then as now. He was drowned.

Another tragic incident, characteristic of the times in Ireland, but resembling what we read sometimes of the Western States, occurred on the 6th of November, 1806. Jones, an active magistrate, attempted to capture Larry Clinch, a highwayman who had attacked, robbed and burnt an Ulster mail-coach at Santry. It is said that Jones refused the offer of Clinch’s wife to betray her husband to him. But Jones received warning that the robber and his men intended to attack Clonliffe House. He secured a guard of the Tipperary Militia under an officer, Lieutenant Hamerton. The attack took place in due course, and after the exchange of many shots, the robbers were worsted, two of them being killed. Their dead bodies were exposed; but, as their friends feared to claim them, they were buried at the Ballybough end of Clonliffe Road. This is the foundation of a ghost story which has always prevailed in the locality.

But the pretty poem of *The Ghost’s Promendade *by the late Thomas Caulfield Irwin, is quite a different and a much older story. The romantic and tragic episode narrated in the poem probably never had a “local habitation and a name,” save in the brain of the poet, although he lays the scene in Clonliffe House. Irwin’s picture of Clonliffe Road will surprise those who know it in its present condition.

There was a long old road anear the town

Skirted with trees

One end joined a great highway, one led down

To open. shores *and *seas.

There was no house upon it saving one,

Built years ago.

Dark foliage thickly blinded from the sun

Its casements low.

After Jones’s time Clonlifte House became an auxiliary Feinaglian School to Aldborough House of which we shall speak further on. It was then from 1845 to 1857 a barrack of the Revenue Police, a force long extinct.

On the feast of the Finding of the Holy Cross, the 3rd of May, 1860, Archbishop, afterwards Cardinal Cullen, laid the first stone of Holy Cross College. The foundation had been begun in Clonliffe House on the 14th of September, 1859. This fine building, with its beautiful chapel, built some sixteen years later, completely dwarfs the old house. The present Archbishop of Dublin built his residence on the College grounds about nineteen years ago. The Swords road was cut through the hill at this point in 1817. One of the last turnpikes in Dublin still existed about sixty years ago on the northern highway, almost opposite the point where St. Alphonsus Road now intersects it. The adjoining lane was called Turnpike Lane long after the unpopular obstruction disappeared.

Richmond Road and Avenue north of the Tolka are not called after the Duke of Richmond already mentioned, but take their names from the adjoining townland of Richmond, the name of which is to be found long before the time of his Viceroyalty. Bernay Lodge on this road is called after a town in Normandy, and Bushfield, in Philipsburgh Avenue adjoining, was formerly named Cutaldo. (Ekowe Terrace is called after a place in South Africa, where the British were besieged during the Zulu War in 1879) The townland north of Richmond i, called Goosegreen, probably after Goose Green south-east of London, near Peckham Rye, and the road running through it from Richmond is called Goosegreen Avenue, but the southern extremity was named Gracepark Road a few years ago.

Drumcondra was the scene of the historic marriage of Hugh O’Neill and Mabel Bagenal. This district contains so many religious institutions, that it has acquired the name of “the Holy Land.” But the townland of Puckstown, where it is connected with the high road by the short turn called the Yellow Lane, takes its name from an ancient Irish spirit who has scarcely the note of sanctity. The Black Bull Inn was in Puckstown. It stood on the right of the high road, a little to the Dublin side of the Yellow Lane.

The churchyard adjoining Drumcondra Protestant Church contains the graves of Furlong, Gandon and Grose. The first, a native of Scarawalsh, Co. Wextord, was apprenticed when young to a Dublin grocer, where, no doubt, he saw such incidents as he describes in his poem of *The Drunkard, *which opens:-

Along Drumcondra Road I strolled,

The smoky town was just in sight.

The tale is as true today as it was a century ago. This promising poet died young in 1827, and did not live to see Catholic Emancipation, in the struggle for which he had borne an active part. James Gandon was architect of some of the finest buildings in Dublin, including the Four Courts, the Irish Parliament House, the Custom House, the King’s Inn and Carlisle Bridge. Francis Grose, the eminent antiquary, was a friend of Gandon. Church Lane, where this churchyard is situated, has a row of cottages long called Belvidere Place, evidently from Belvidere House adjoining, now St. Patrick’s Training College. On maps of more than a century ago there is a house marked on Drumcondra Road, opposite Belvidere House, called Fitzpatrick’s Lodge.

The road parallel to the highway on the east, reaching a spot once called Cold Harbour, terminates at Beaumont, now a Convalescent Home of the Mater Misericordiae Hospital, but formerly the residence of two Arthur Guinnesses, father and son, the great grandfather and the grandfather of Lords Ardilaun and Iveagh. The elder Arthur was the founder of the famous firm.

The little stream, called the Naniken River, which rises near Beaumont, flows into the sea at St. Anne’s. The Missionary College of All Hallows, founded in 1842, is in the townland of Drumcondra, which belonged, like Baldoyle, to the ancient Priory of All Hallows, which stood where Trinity College stands now. Drumcondra and Baldoyle were granted, at the dissolution of the monasteries, to the Corporation of Dublin.

The last occupier of Drumcondra House before All Hallows College was founded there was Sir Guy Campbell, Bart., a distinguished soldier, who was married to Pamela, daughter of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Mr. George Wyndham is a grand son of Sir Guy and Lady Campbell.

To Chapter 7. To North Dublin Index. Home.