History and Archaeology

The Environs of Dublin

By F. Elrington Ball, M.R.I.A.

The beauty of the surrounding country, combined with its maritime position, give to the metropolis of Ireland a charm possessed by few of the larger municipalities of the United Kingdom.

Within the comparatively narrow bounds of the county to which Dublin gives its name there is a variety of scenery such as is seldom found in similar limits; and the proximity of this scenery to the crowded streets has often caused the situation of the city to be an object of envy to the inhabitants of towns less fortunate in their environs.

In the bay, which affords entrance to the port of Dublin, the blue waters of the Irish Sea merge in the gorse which covers the promontory of Howth, and in the wooded slopes which rise above the suburbs of Clontarf and Merrion.

A few miles to the south there stretches along the coast from Dalkey Island to Bray Head the crescent-shaped shore of Killiney Bay, comparable, some persons have thought, to that of Naples; and to the north there lie the picturesque form of Ireland’s Eye, the silvery sands near Malahide estuary and the green islands of Lambay and Holmpatrick.

Inland the landscapes are no less attractive. To the west, near Lucan, the valley of the Liffey reveals a scene of sylvan richness, the hill of Athgoe, near Newcastle Lyons, a panorama of the Meath and Kildare lands, and the plain of the Phoenix Park wide prospects of the Dublin mountains.

To the north, again, the district known from Danish times as Fingal, is covered with fields of golden corn and verdant meadows; and to the south the mountain torrent of the Dodder rushes through heather-clad moorlands.

Owing to its extension during the last century, Dublin has lost some of its more immediate rural environment, and lands which a hundred years ago were devoted to grass and tillage are now covered by the chain of suburbs which surrounds the city.

Besides these suburbs, Clontarf, Drumcondra, Glasnevin, and Kilmainham to the north and west, and Rathmines and Pembroke to the south and east, there are along the sea-border, in the south-eastern direction, the populous urban districts of Blackrock, Kingstown, Dalkey, and Killiney, and inland from these the villa-covered lands of Foxrock, Stillorgan, and Dundrum.

But building has not been so continuous as to destroy the natural features of the country, and in some cases seems to intensify their effect. The handsome terraces and houses, and the massive churches with their pointed spires, make a pleasing foreground to the trees and hills which rise above them; and the busy existence of the residents throws into strong contrast the pastoral peacefulness which pervades the greater part of the county.

As one traverses more than two-thirds of the roads, the impression is of life in which agriculture is the only interest. Here and there the house of some one engaged in the occupations of the city meets the eye; but the villages are small, and the only considerable centres besides those already mentioned are the sea-side resorts of Howth, Malahide, Skerries, and Balbriggan, with the inland one of Lucan. Nowhere is the smoke of factories seen to darken the sky; and the only employment besides husbandry is such as the fisheries on the coast and the quarries in the mountains provide

As regards relics or past ages, the metropolitan county forms no exception to Ireland in general; and in all directions destruction, change, and decay have laid heavy hands upon objects of archaeological and antiquarian interest. The principal remains are those relating to primeval and early Christian times; and rock-monuments and primitive churches are to be seen in places denuded of every trace of inhabitants from those periods until the present. Of medieval architecture, domestic as well as ecclesiastical, the specimens are few and unimportant; and of the buildings of the Jacobean period, when in Ireland the transition took place from fortified dwellings to those designed for comfort and convenience, there is not a perfect example.

But the converse is found to be the case in dealing with the history of the county; and it is not until Dublin became, under the Anglo-Norman settlement, the seat of government, that material for the historian begins to accumulate.

In such literature as has been published with relation to earlier times, there are few references to the lands now included in County Dublin, which were then no more important than those of many of the territories into which Ireland was divided; and until more progress is made in the examination of Irish manuscripts it is not possible to write with authority on that portion of the county’s history.

Before the Christian era, the chief event of which there is record in connexion with the lands now embraced in the county is the construction of a dun on Dalkey Island. It has been attributed to the dim age which saw the commencement of Milesian rule in Ireland, and the place-name, which means thorn island, originated possibly in the prickly circumvallations of the fortress.

But some further light is thrown on the condition of the district in pre-Christian times by a legendary tale, the scene of which is laid within the limits of the present county. This saga, one of the oldest and most important in Irish literature, has formed the subject of Sir Samuel Ferguson’s well-known poem of “Conary,” and has been also recently translated for English readers by an eminent Irish scholar. It describes the pillage and destruction by a predatory band from Britain of a palatial residence which stood close to the River Dodder, and not far from the sea.

On the owner, one Da Derga, was imposed the obligation of providing shelter and hospitality for all comers; and at the moment when the marauders descended upon the house no less a person than the king of Ireland was his guest. In the tale we see the king with an immense train of attendants advancing across the plain where Dublin now lies, by a great road which led from Tara, the seat of supreme royalty, to the south; and we are told how the marauders, who saw his approach from the Hill of Howth, steered their “thrice fifty vessels” for the Merrion shore, on which the ships were cast by a mighty wave with a shock that made Da Derga’s house tremble to its foundation.

Two place-names Booterstown and Bohernabreena, still remain to prove that in this tale there is fact as well as imagination. Booterstown, which means the town of the road, is the name of a district between Dublin and Kings-town, and indicates the line of the road from Tara along the coast; and Bohernabreena, which means the road of the court, is the name of a district in the mountains near the Dodder, and indicates the former existence along that river of a road on which an important dwelling stood.

The discovery near the famous village of Donnybrook, close to the Dodder, of a mound under which a number of persons killed by violence had been buried has led some persons to identify this place as the site of Da Derga’s house, and the skeletons as those of the inmates who fell in the massacre that occurred. But this is open to doubt, and the swords and other implements, which were found under the mound and are now in the National Museum, are attributed to a much later period.

At that time the northern half of County Dublin, which lay in Meath, then one of the provinces of Ireland, formed part of a territory called Bregia, and the southern half, which lay, as now, in Leinster, formed part of a territory called Cualann. In the portion of the county comprised in the former territory, few traces of the prehistoric age remain, a cromlech at Howth and another in the Phoenix Park being the chief relics.

But the whole range of the Dublin mountains and their immediate vicinity, in what was once the territory of Cualann, are rich in rock-monuments. At Mount Venus and Larchfield near Rathfarnham, at Kiltiernan, at Glendruid near Cabinteely, and at Shanganagh near Killiney, great cromlechs, some of them quite exceptional in *size, *are to be seen, and at Killiney there is a stone erection called the Druid’s Judgment Seat, which marks the site of three cromlechs enclosed in a stone-circle, near which, in the 18th century, a number of skeletons were found.

In the hilly country near Tallaght, Saggart, and Kiltiernan, raths, giants’ graves, stone-circles, cairns and pillar-stones abound.

Further to the west, near Crumlin, many cists have been found, one of which is exhibited in its original condition in the National Museum; and at Lucan there is an interesting sepulchral chamber.

On the districts now included in the County Dublin Christianity took an early and firm hold. St. Patrick, when he arrived on his evangelizing mission, is said to have sailed along the coast of the county, and to have touched at Malahide as well as at the island of Holmpatrick, on which his name is impressed; and it is not improbable that he proceeded inland, since the original designation of the church at Donnybrook, and of another in the northern part of the county, indicate that these sacred edifices owed their origin to him.

The dedications of the ancient churches in the county show that St. Patrick was followed by a number of holy men, through whose teaching and example” the truths of Christianity were disseminated; and the number of religious establishments in Celtic times of which trace is found is most remarkable.

In the country rising over Killiney Bay, at a place called Rathmichael, some portion of the cashel which surrounded a Celtic monastery, a ruined church, and the base of a round tower are to be seen; and it is possible to picture the establishment of which they formed part. In the centre stood the church, originally a small quadrangular edifice of Cyclopean masonry, with a low, square-headed doorway in the western end , and one or two narrow openings for light; and near its south-western corner rose the belfry and place of refuge for the ecclesiastics in time of distress, a tall, graceful tower, circular in shape, tapering upwards, from a base some fifty feet in circumference, and terminating in a conical roof of stone.

Round the church were scattered bee-hive huts, in which the monks lived; and the whole was enclosed by a wall some seven feet high, with an entrance through a covered gateway. Not far from Rathmichael, at a place called Tully, two high crosses and a ruined church mark the site of a similar monastery; and across the mountains, to the west, lay one of great renown, at Tallaght, and another at Clondalkin, where its tower - one of the few round towers still in a perfect condition-is a prominent object.

On the northern side of Dublin, Celtic monasteries are known to have existed at Glasnevin and Finglas, as well as at Swords and Lusk, where round towers are to be seen; and monks were also established on the islands of Ireland’s Eye, Lambay, and Holmpatrick, where they found freedom, away from distraction and interruption, for literary work and meditation

Of the churches of that period the most striking example is one at Killiney, which is now enclosed on every side by villas of the most modern kind, but which stood originally on a bare cliff overhanging the sea; and others may be seen not far from it, on Dalkey Island, at Kill-of-the-Grange, and at Kiltiernan, as well as on the northern side of Dublin, at a place called Donabate.

The invasions of the Northmen, inspired as they were by hatred of Christianity as well as thirst for plunder, fell with terrible severity on the Celtic monasteries, and in the possession of a round tower lay the only hope of safety for the unhappy inmates.

First, the island monasteries were burned, and then those on the mainland, such as Lusk and Clondalkin. The Scandinavian settlements which succeeded the invasions specially affected the northern portion of the present county, which became known as Fingal, the territory of the white strangers, and from these settlers Howth, Ireland’s Eye, Lambay, Holmpatrick, and a village called Baldoyle obtained their present names.

In the southern part of the county a large tract near Rathmichael belonged to the sons of Thorkil, and the place-names Dalkey and Clondalkin are in their present form of Danish origin. On the great battle between the Irish and the Danes, in 1014, which is known as the Battle of Clontarf; but which extended over ground now covered by the northern half of the City of Dublin, it is impossible to dwell here; and we must pass on to the arrival of the Anglo-Norman invaders, when the local historian begins to find firm ground.

So far as the lands in the county of Dublin are concerned, the Anglo-Norman conquest was complete-a conquest in reality, and not, as elsewhere in Ireland, only one in name. The partition of the lands which ensued is clearly defined in the ancient records, and before the close of the 12th century we find Anglo-Norman magnates established in every part of the area now comprised in the county.

To the south of Dublin the principal settler was Walter de Rideleford, Lord of Bray, one of the most brave and noble of Strongbow’s followers, who was given lands near Donnybrook, as well as near the place from which he took his feudal title; and, further inland, Milo le Bret of Rathfarnham and Hugh de Barnewall of Drimnagh upheld Anglo-Norman rule.

To the north of Dublin, ancestors of the St. Lawrences of Howth and of the Talbots of Malahide shared with a number of other invaders the spoils which fell to the victors; and to the west, Hugh de Tyrell, Lord of Castleknock, the site of whose castle may be seen near the Phoenix Park, was unrivalled in the extent of his possessions.

In what is now the south-western corner of the county, the Crown reserved certain lands which became known as the royal manors of Newcastle, Saggart, Crumlin, and Esker; and in the same direction an estate was given to the Irish chieftain MacGillamocholmog, who held sway over the territory of Cualann when the Anglo-Normans arrived.

Ecclesiastical owners occupied in the Anglo-Norman settlement a no less important position than lay proprietors. The property which the Church possessed at the time of the invasion was left to its sacred uses; and it was largely increased by grants from such Anglo-Normans as acquired lands.

The Celtic monasteries disappeared; but the possessions of those at Tallaght, Clondalkin, Finglas, Swords, and Lusk were given to augment the revenue of the See of Dublin, and the possessions of the others to various religious establishments.

New monasteries and nunneries were founded. At Grace Dieu, in the northern portion of the county, there was a house for Canonesses of the Order of St. Augustine; at Clontarf, a house of the Knights Templars; at Kilmainham, a house of the Knights Hospitallers; and near Lucan, at St. Catherine’s, a house of the Congregation of St. Victor.

But the largest ecclesiastical owners within the limits of the county were the great Dublin religious houses. A tract, extending from the sea at Killiney to the Dublin mountains, as well as the lands of Glasnevin and Grangegorman to the north of the city, belonged to the Augustinian Priory of the Holy Trinity, afterwards merged in Christ Church Cathedral.

The district now covered by Kingstown and the adjacent Monkstown was owned by the Cistercian Abbey of St. Mary.

Two estates - both known as Palmerstown - from one of which Queen Victoria’s well known Prime Minister derived his title, belonged to the Hospital of St. John the Baptist, which had been founded by a pilgrim to the Holy Land.

And Baldoyle, near Howth, and Drumcondra were owned by the Priory of All Hallows, whose site Trinity College now occupies.

By the Anglo-Normans the system of land tenure then existing in England was introduced. The estates were constituted into manors, and the lands were worked as in England by the owners, by free tenants, and by servile occupiers known as betaghs, who were drawn from the old inhabitants.

A great number of the latter retreated, however, to the fastnesses of the Wicklow mountains, whence, after a time, they began to make raids on the property of the colonists, carrying off their cattle, and devastating and burning their lands.

In the beginning of the 14th century, during the incursions of the Scots under Edward Bruce, the situation reached its climax. The betaghs employed in the low lands rose in rebellion, joined their brethren in the mountains, and regular warfare began between the colonists and the O’Byrnes and O’Tooles, as* *their neighbours were called.

Every effort was made by the colonists to stem the advance of these tribes, and the southern border of the county became the battlefield. A garrison was stationed at Bray, where the river offered a natural obstacle, and a barrier, afterwards united to that which surrounded the English Pale, was carried from the river under the mountains round by Tallaght and Saggart towards the County Kildare. its custody was committed to the Archbolds, the Harolds, and the Walshes, clans sprung from sturdy English and Welsh yeomen, who had been planted on the marches; and for a time good watch and ward were kept by these guardians, who became, however, subsequently as troublesome to English rulers as the tribes whom it was their duty to hold in check.

A brief survey of the principal buildings in the county of Dublin in the 14th century may help to illustrate its condition. Starting from the city along the sea to the south there was to be found at Monkstown a castle, the country adjunct of St. Mary’s Abbey, and a little way off on the coast at Bullock a smaller fortified edifice protecting the fishery rights of the Abbey at that point.

Dalkey next appeared. It was then a walled-in medieval town, containing seven castles and a church of considerable size, and was a place of much importance as the port of Dublin, not only for passengers, but also for merchandise, and as a trading centre where weekly markets and frequent fairs were held.

To the west, at Kill-of-the-Grange, lay the home-farm of the Priory of the Holy Trinity, with its manor-house and extensive farm buildings, of life on which an interesting picture is presented in the Account Roll of the Priory, edited by the present Deputy-Keeper of the Records of Ireland.1 Passing across the mountains, a large castle, the principal country residence of the Archbishop of Dublin, was to be found at Tallaght, and a small town with a handsome Gothic church in his manor of Clondalkin.

In the south-western corner of the county was the king’s town of Newcastle, strongly fortified, and containing, like Dalkey, a number of castles, whose inhabitants have left a fine 14th-century window in the church as an indication of their wealth and taste; and near Dublin lay the king’s smaller town of Crumlin, close to which flowed the ancient water-supply of the city.

Not far off from the latter place was Drimnagh, the seat of the Barnewalls, which survives as an inhabited dwelling to the 20th century, and is the most typical specimen of the architecture of the English Pale to be seen near Dublin.

Crossing to the north of the city by the Hospitallers’ great priory at Kilmainham and by the Tyrells’ fortress at Castleknock, which dominated the western part of the county, Swords was reached. Under the fostering care of the archbishops of Dublin, the ruins of whose castle may still be seen, this Celtic settlement had developed into a medieval town, rivalling Dalkey and Newcastle, and the parish had become so valuable as to be distinguished as the golden one.

To the west of Swords lay at Dunsoghly a large castle, the seat of a branch of the Plunket family; to the north there were at Baldungan a fortress built by the Knights Templars, and at Balrothery, another owned by the Barnewalls; and to the east lay the castles of Malahide and Howth, still to be traced in the present structures.

Under the Tudor sovereigns, owing to the increasing prosperity of the English Pale, additions were in many cases made to the existing castles, and the new dwellings which were erected, although still fortified buildings, were designed on more commodious and stately lines.

Amongst the residences in the county at that period one of the first in importance was the castle of Merrion, which was then made their chief abode by the Earl of Pembroke’s ancestors, the Fitzwilliams, who had been previously seated at Baggotrath, now part of the Pembroke Township, and at Dundrum; but all trace of this castle has long disappeared, and its site on the Blackrock Road is now covered by the buildings of an asylum for the blind.

Another castle which came into prominence in the 16th century as the home of Sir Thomas Luttrell, a judicial personage of much eminence, was that of Luttrelistown, which lies in a superb demesne on the banks of the Liffey near Lucan; and at Rathfarnham Queen Elizabeth’s Irish Chancellor, Archbishop Loftus, erected a mansion, which remains, according to the prediction of one of his contemporaries, a monument to the greatness and grandeur of its builder.

Other servants of the Crown who settled in the county found fitting homes in the houses vacated by the religious establishments on their dissolution, as, for instance, at Monkstown, Sir John Travers, one of the military rulers for whom the condition of Ireland then provided employment; at St. Catherine’s, Sir Nicholas White, a statesman whom Queen Elizabeth often summoned to her court; and at Grace Dieu, Sir Patrick Barnewall, one of Henry the Eighth’s most trusted law officers.

With the accession of the Stuarts an advance began towards dwellings of the modern kind; and while the 17th century was still young, the viceroy was provided with a country retreat in a Jacobean house called the Phoenix, whose site, now occupied by the Magazine for the Dublin Garrison, formed the nucleus of Dublin’s royal park.

About the same time a distinguished soldier, Sir Henry Power, on whom the viscounty of Valencia was first conferred, made use of brick in the construction of a fine residence, subsequently purchased for the viceroys, close by the Phoenix in the village of Chapelizod; and his wife’s family, the Buckleys, followed his example in the erection near Tallaght of a house called Old Bawn, which has only recently been dismantled. (A remarkable chimney-piece from this house, representing the building of the Walls of Jerusalem, may be seen in the National Museum, Dublin.)

During the Earl of Strafford’s short but energetic rule in Ireland his friend Sir George Radcliffe was induced to expend what was, in those days, the enormous amount of £7000 on a mansion at Rathmines, the very existence of which is now forgotten; and near Swords, where a house called Drinham still possesses many characteristics of that period, the Chief Baron occupied “a dainty, pleasant, high-built wood house” called Brazeel; and the Speaker of the House of Commons “a gallant, pleasant seat,” now known as Brackenstown.

As a result of the Rebellion and of the long war which succeeded, terminating in the county of Dublin in the battle between the forces of the King and the Parliament at Rathmines, many fortified buildings, which had survived from medieval times, disappeared.

The Archbishop of Dublin’s castle at Tallaght and the Fitzwilliams’ castle at Baggotrath were amongst those demolished; and Dalkey (which had sunk into insignificance, owing to the use of Ringsend as the port of Dublin), Newcastle, and Swords became villages such as they are to-day. After the Restoration, the construction of the Phoenix Park, under the direction of Charles the Second’s illustrious viceroy, the Duke of Ormonde, was imitated by several of the leading proprietors in laying out great demesnes.

The gardens of Howth Castle are believed to date from that period; and towards the close of the 17th century the Earl of Carysfort’s ancestors, the Allens, began to empark a vast extent of country round Stillorgan, where they built a great mansion.

Shortly before the accession of George the First, the Fitzwilliams’ castle at Merrion gave place to the house which their descendant, the Earl of Pembroke, now owns; and the broad avenues and noble plantings of Mount Merrion Park, which commands the most enchanting prospect of the bay of Dublin, were designed.

Under the Hanoverian dynasty, building in the county advanced with rapid strides. On the south side of Dublin, at Tallaght, a palace was substituted for the medieval seat of the Archbishop of Dublin; at Rathfarnham, Archbishop Loftus’ descendants, the Earls of Ely, transformed the castle into a modern house, whose walls Angelica Kauffman adorned, and to which a graceful classic gateway affords entrance; and at Cabinteely Earl Nugent erected a handsome residence.

To the west at Lucan the husband of the far-famed Mrs. Vesey, the friend of Johnson; and a central figure in the blue-stocking circle, built a mansion in the Grecian style, which testifies to his architectural skill.

And on the north side of the city, Santry Court as the seat successively of the Barrys and the Domviles, Brackenstown as the seat of the Molesworths, Rush as the seat of the Echlins, and Abbeyville as the seat of the influential John Beresford, were added to the great residences of the county.

To the Victorian age the rise of suburban Dublin is to be attributed, which had its beginning in the construction of Kingstown Harbour; but to country seats the reign of our late Queen saw no notable addition.

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