Great North Road and Fingal.

CHAPTER VII

The Great North Road and Fingal

Those who travel by the main roads on the north side of Dublin may remark that the country proper is more immediately accessible on this side of the city than on the south. Beyond Drumcondra the highway passes through the pretty village of Santry, built in 1840 by the Lady Domville of the day, on a Swiss model. It is an agreeable change from the usual form of a County Dublin village. Outside it is a house called Magenta Hall from the place in the north of Italy where Marshal McMahon and the French, with whom Napoleon III. was present, gained a victory over the Austrians on the 4th of June, 1859.

One of the many houses called Royal Oak is at Santry. It was evidently an inn. The road beside it, leading to Coolock, is called Santry Lane on old maps. Santry Court. beside the village, is one of the finest demesnes near Dublin with a Jacobean mansion. It was the residence of the Barry family, who, having become wealthy by commerce in Dublin, were created Lords Barry of Santry. Newtownbarry in Wexford was called after one of these Barrys. Many stories are current of the wild freaks of one member of this family.

The Domvilles succeeded to the estate through intermarriage with the Barrys and afterwards it passed to the Pocklingtons, an English family, who assumed the name of Domville. From them the present baronet is descended. Santry Court is now occupied by Captain Poe, who is related by marriage to the Domville family.

The highway, passing through the townland of Tubberbunny, or the Well of the Milk, crosses the Cuckoo Stream which, rising near Collinstown, flows through St. Dolough’s and into the sea at Portmarnock, as the Mayne River.

The Santry River, nearer to Dublin, flows through Raheny into the sea at Watermill Bridge.

The next village is Cloghran, which is on a height, and some miles farther the ancient town of Swords is reached. Swords was dedicated to St. Columbkill, and still possesses many remains of antiquity, as the Round Tower, residence of the Archbishops, and Glasmore Abbey where St. Cronan and his monks are said to have been massacred by the Danes more than a thousand years ago.

Richard Montgomery, the brave and capable soldier of the War of American Independence, was born near Swords. Swords recalls the north of Italy more forcibly ever than Magenta Hall near Santry; for it has a house called Mantua on the north-east and another called Cremona on the south-west. There is also Meudon but there is no Rabelais.

Swords had two members in the Irish Parliament and was altogether a more important place than Donabate, although the latter has now a station on the Great Northern Railway and occupies the proud position of capital of the peninsula of Portrane for Donabate is certainly bigger than Ballisk. This peninsula, enclosed between Rogerstown Creek and Malahide Creek (the latter formed by the confluence of the Ward and Broad Meadow Rivers) was formerly noted, it is said for the manufacture of poteen, but is now better known for its great Asylum and for the memorial tower on the coast to Mr, George Evans of Portrane House, erected by his widow, one of the Parnell family.

In 1771 the excise officers captured from smugglers at Portrane, seventy-five chests and twenty casks of tea, and one hundred and eleven casks of brandy, and eight hundred casks of tea and brandy in the “Island of Donabate” (probably Lambay or Portrane Peninsula) all in one seizure. The excisemen stored their capture in barns, and were besieged there for twenty-four hours by five hundred armed smugglers, and relieved at last by Captain Luske and his crew whose warship happened to be oft the coast. The sailors landed and defeated the smugglers.

Oft Portrane lies Lambay Island, 1,371 acres in extent, according to D’Alton, but 595 acres, 3 roods, on the Ordnance Map; it is however the largest on the east coast of Ireland. It has a tidal harbour, a castle built in the reign of Mary Tudor, a wood, something resembling a village, several high hills, a spring called Trinity Well, where there used to be a “pattern” on Trinity Sunday, and a glen rejoicing in the romantic name of Thorn Chase Valley. For centuries the property of the Talbots of Malahide, it has recently passed out of their possession, and, although there are some very tragic stories of poor prisoners who were “marooned” and starved to death on Lambay, it is more usual now for people to be kept off rather than on.

North Dublin contains townlands bearing the following names :Puckstown, Tankardstown, Nutstown,, Saucerstown, Kitchenstown, Folkstown, Warblestown, Rallekaystown, Buzzardstown, Hazardstown, Winnings’ Folly, Bohammer, Snugborough, Salmon, Matt, Astagob, Stockhole, Tubberbunnyr, Coldwinters, Shallon, Stockens, Stang, Slutstown, Dellabrown, Strifeland, Swansnest, Westereve, Boggyheary, Brazil, Rahulk, Coldblow, Beau, Bridetree, Popeshall, Yellowalls, Bay, Court, Littlepace, Coolfores, Snug, Goose Acre, Merryfal1s, Balbutcher, Turnapin, Cherryhounds Miltonsfields, Crowscastle, Goddamendy, Pluckhimin, Skidoo and Skephubble.

Besides these townlands the following names of places are found in Fingal - Isaac’s Bower, Mabel’s Well, The Cross of the Cage, Lampsoon Head, Chink Well, Mullin Intake, The Priest’s Chamber (a sea cave at Donabate), Windwill, Fanning’s Walls, Ford of Fyne, Naptown, Juan’s Well, Rux House, Sack Lane, Kit’s Green, Cintra (from the Convention), Hand Park, Harp Ear, The Lord of Kerry and Lubber’ s Wood.

Enterprising cyclists may, if they choose, take the road from Swords to Balbriggan. It passes through Ballough and by the hill called the Man of War, which is about equally far north with the Nag’s Head on the Naul Road, or the village of Garristown. Farther on it passes near the Bog of the Ring, which would seem a freak of Fingalliian nomenclature if there were not many other names as 944.1 The road passes through the village and barony of Balrothery to Balbriggan, famous for its hosiery, where there is a very fine strand, and thence to the Delvin River, the boundary of the County of Dublin, and of the ancient district of Fingal which stretches southwards to the Tolka.

But if the cyclist takes the right-hand turn at Coldwinters beyond Swords he finds himself in the true home of the Fingallians, the coast district, including Rush and Lusk, Loughshinny and Skerries. The Fingallians are said to be different in features, voice and manner from the other people of Leinster and this difference may be ascribed to their Scandinavian origin. They are good farmers, sailors and fishermen and have many good qualities.

A recent lady writer extols their cleanliness and excellent housewifery. The villages of North County Dublin are said to be cleaner than those in the south of the county. Lusk has a very fine specimen of a Round Tower. But some may prefer to visit the smuggler’s cave at Rush, the resort of the eighteenth-century smuggler, Jack Connor, called Jack the Bachelor, who lies buried in Rush churchyard.

Luke Ryan, who commanded the Black Prince privateer under French auspices during the American War of Independence, was a native of Rush. One episode of his daring career was his trial on four different occasions for piracy. He was sentenced to be executed and gibbeted, but the sentence was never carried out. In Rush churchyard is the tomb of Sir Robert Echlin, Bart., of Kenure. D’Alton quotes the lines on this tomb, but does not seem to know that they are from two of Pope’s best Epitaphs, apparently appropriated by the person who erected the monument.

Here lies an honest man without pretence,

Blessed with plain reason, and with common sense,

Calmly he looked on either life, and here

Saw nothing to regret or there to fear:

From nature’s temperate feast rose satisfied,

Thanked Heaven that he had lived, and that - he died.

The first two lines are slightly altered from the first two lines of Pope’s Epitaph on Mrs. Corbet. The last four are the last four of Pope’s Epitaph on Elijah Fenton, his brother poet and collaborator in translating Homer’s Odyssey.

Outside Rush is Kenure Park, the residence of Sir Roger Palmer, Bart., who is a Lieutenant-General retired and one or the few survivors of the Balaklava charge. He is lineally descended from Miss Ambrose, Lord Chesterfield’s “dangerous Papist.”

The other fine demesnes in this part of the county are Hacketstown, Milverton, Ardgillan and Hampton (These demesnes belong, the first to Lord Holmpatrick, the other three respectively to the families of Woods, Taylor, and Hamilton).

Baldungan Castle, an interesting ruin, belonged to the Knights Templars, and - afterwards to the De Berminghams and the Howth family. The Church here is of the Norman period. Balrothery Castle belonged to the Barnewalls.

The neat town of Skerries, a fishing village a few years ago, is now well known as a summer resort. Beyond the group of islands from which it is called, and far out at sea lies the wild rock with the lighthouse called Rockabill, or, on older maps, the Rock of Bill. Rockabill would be an ideal scene for a picture of a storm.

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