Villas of the 18th Century.

Chapter VII.

Some Villas of the Eighteenth Century.

About a century and a half ago the area now comprised in the Pembroke Township was as rural as the most remote parts of the metropolitan county at the present time. The highways leading to Stillorgan and Blackrock, and a few cross-roads, little more than cart tracks, represented the thoroughfares by which the district is now intersected in all directions, and it would have required much prescience to foresee the extension of the villages of Donnybrook and Ringsend, and a few scattered country houses, into the innumerable streets, terraces, and villas of to-day. Starting from St. Stephen’s Green, at that time, there were to be seen only two or three houses where Lower Leeson Street now stands, and between the ground now occupied by the canal, which had then not yet been constructed, and the village of Donnybrook there was no more than a single house of importance.

This house was the one close to the canal near Leeson Street Bridge, now called Mespil House, and then known as the Hill, which had been built before that time by Sir Edward Barry, a celebrated physician of that period. He began to practise in Cork, where he acquired great renown, and in middle life came to Dublin, where he attained to a height of fame that was then unprecedented; but finally in later life settled in London, where his success is said not to have been equal to his reputation. The unique position which he held in this country seems to have been no less due to his scholarship and charm of manner than to his skill:

The God-like Barry high in learning soars,

His prudent skill the sick to health restores.

Amongst the friends whom Barry made in the exercise of his profession was Swift’s biographer, Lord Orrery, who found in Barry not only a physician but a companion capable of sharing his classical studies, and through the influence of that nobleman Barry obtained a seat in the Irish Parliament as member for Charleville. No more striking instance of the changed condition of the district could be required than the choice by Barry of the Hill as the site for his rural retreat. The house where he practised his profession was no further away than College Green, but this was town, the other then complete country. In a letter to Lord Orrery, Barry, in speaking of the progress of his little villa says, he has been so long a slave to the town that his garden and park will be Elysian fields to him where he will be able to freely breathe pure air, and in a later letter he refers to his rural occupation in making a canal and grass walk. [See “The Orrery Papers,” edited by the Countess of Cork and Orrery, passim.]

After Barry’s death the Hill, or as it had then begun to be called Barry House, became the residence of one of the justices of the Common Pleas, Robert Hellen. He came into public notice during the viceroyalty of Lord Townshend, and is referred to in the political skit “Baratariana” as “Don Helena, the civilian, a youth of fair fame and gentle endowments.” This reputation he retained through life, and his social virtues are said to have been of a most distinguished kind. His legal knowledge was no less profound, securing for him the degree of Doctor of Laws *honoris causa * from the University of Dublin, and his cultured taste was evidenced in one of the best libraries of the day and a rare collection of paintings and antiques.

Passing on in the 18th century through green fields to Donnybrook, the first cross-road was the one to Milltown, now known as Belmont Avenue, and then called Coldblow Lane. Building had begun in it, and from the grounds of one of the houses called Belmont “the view from Donnybrook” was taken. In the earlier part of the 18th century Coldblow had been the home of some members of the Roberts family, now represented by Captain Lewis Riall, of Old Conna Hill, who owns the land, and later on Sir William Fortick and the Honorable Denis George, sometime Recorder of Dublin and a Baron of the Exchequer, were amongst those who had seats there.

At Donnybrook taverns and tea houses with the signs of the *Dargle, *the Red *Cross, *and the *Rose, *tempted the country tourist, and the quaint old church which then stood in the village repaid inspection. On its walls hung the royal arms and military trophies, and leading off it was the burial-place of the Fitzwilliam family, in which there was a black marble tomb with the following inscription:-” Here lyeth the Body of the Right Honourable and Most Noble Lord Oliver, Earl of Tyrconnel, Lord Viscount Fitzwilliams of Meryonge, Baron of Thorncastle, who died at his House in Meryonge April 11th, 1667, and was buried the 12th day of the same month.”

The home of the Downes family had taken the place of Donnybrook Castle, and near the fair green there was a villa, still to be seen, called Ballinguile. This villa, which was then approached by an avenue bordered with elm trees, and was surrounded by gardens, was in the 18th century the home of two great lawyers. The first occupant was Robert Jocelyn, ancestor of the Earls of Roden, then a practising barrister, and afterwards Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and later on Lord Clare’s father, John Fitzgibbon, a leader of the Irish Bar of his day, used it as his country house, and there Lord Clare passed his childhood.

Crossing the Dodder, which was not yet spanned at that point by a bridge, although two unsuccessful attempts had been made to erect one, Simmonscourt was next reached, and a house, which had been sometime previously the residence of the second Earl of Granard, appeared. This nobleman, whose son gained distinction as a naval commander and a diplomatist, had seen when a young man much military service abroad, but had been one of those who remained faithful to King James, and passed the later part of his life in seclusion. [See “Memoirs of the Earls of Granard,” by Admiral the Hon. John Forbes, pp. 72-83.] To his integrity of character, with which were joined all the attributes of a fine gentleman and a handsome person, one of his descendants has borne record.

Between Simmonscourt and Merrion the tourist found Elm Park, where a house had just been built by one of the great actors whom Ireland produced in the 18th century, Spranger Barry. He is accounted one of the ablest actors the English stage has seen, and to gifts of mind nature had added a figure so perfect that it is said to have been the finished portrait of man. His principal appearances were on the London stage, but he was for some years owner of a theatre in Dublin, as well as part owner of one in Cork, and his house at Elm Park was built doubtless to enable him on his visits to this country to give lavish entertainments, in which he delighted, and which by their ostentation offended his most distinguished guests. [See “Dictionary of National Biography,” vol. iii., p. 327.]

At Merrion, near the ruins of the castle, there appeared another large house, the residence of Mr. Benjamin Lee, whose name has been kept alive by the philanthropy and public spirit of his descendant, Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness. Then crossing where Sidney Parade is now situated, the tourist found what were known as “Lord Merrion’s brick fields,” and where Sandymount stands “Brickfield Town.” To the north of this town on the shore where Prospect Terrace now lies, there was then the *Conniving House, *a well-known tavern of that time. It was famous for its fish and ale, and a great resort of the Trinity College students, who kept up under its thatched roof a continual flow of wit and song to the accompaniment of bagpipes and fiddle. Between “Brickfield Town” and Beggar’s Bush there lay “two salt marshes daily overflowed by the tide,” through which the Dodder meandered in a circuitous manner, coming down almost to the site of the Star of the Sea Church.

Following the Dodder’s present course, which was then represented by a mill-race, on which gunpowder mills and linen printing works were situated, Ball’s Bridge was reached, and Ball’s House found to be, still the principal residence of the neighbourhood. It was then occupied by one of the barons of the Exchequer, Richard Mountney, who is now more remembered as a *bon vivant *and classical scholar than as a luminary oi the legal profession; and had been previously the residence of the fourth Viscount Castlecomer, a descendant of the Earl of Strafford’s trusted friend, Christopher Wandesforde.

Between Ball’s Bridge and St. Stephen’s Green no house of great importance then intervened, and the tourist had only such dismal sights as the walls of Baggotrath Castle and the gallows, which stood near the site of Fitzwilliam Street, and gave to the highway the name of Gallows Road.

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