The Phoenix Park

The Phoenix Park*

(i.e., Fionnuisge or clear water). *

With the exception of a cromlech near the village of Chapelizod, there is not any object of archaeological interest in the Phoenix Park. **

The Phoenix Park**

The Phoenix Park, celebrated for the variety and beauty of its scenery and for its vast extent, although approached directly from the streets of Dublin, which it adjoins on the west, lies entirely within the Metropolitan county. It is said to contain an area about seven miles in circumference, and its lands form portions of the parishes of St. James, Chapelizod, and Castleknock. Within its bounds are now to be found lodges for the Lord Lieutenant, the Chief Secretary, and the Under-Secretary, the Royal Military infirmary, the Barracks of the Ordnance Survey, the Hibernian Military School, the Magazine, and the Zoological Gardens.

It was not until the Restoration period of the seventeenth century that the construction of the Phoenix Park was undertaken, but the origin of the selection of the lands which the Park contains for the purpose of a royal enclosure dates from much earlier times.

It is to be found in the history of the lands which now form the’ eastern portion of the Park, and are comprised in the parish of St. James. These lands, or a great part of them, had been given not long after the Anglo-Norman invasion by the Tyrrells, the lords of Castleknock, to the Priory of St. John of Jerusalem at Kilmainham, and belonged to that establishment at the time of its dissolution by Henry VIII.

After the seizure of the possessions of the Priory by the Crown, its lands on the northern side of the Liffey appear divided; the south-western part, on which the Magazine is now situated, being retained in the Kilmainham demesne, and the north-eastern part, on which the Viceregal Lodge and the Zoological Gardens are now situated, being leased under the name of Newtown to a long succession of tenants.

During the remainder of the sixteenth and early years of the seventeenth century the Kilmainham Priory was utilized by the Chief Governors of Ireland as a country residence, and was valued by them especially on account of its wide pastures, which they found “a help towards housekeeping” as well as a source of pleasure.

But James I. had not ascended the throne many years when he was induced to promise Sir Richard Sutton, one of the auditors of the Imprests in England, a grant of such portion of the Kilmainham demesne as lay on the northern side of the River Liffey. In spite of the protests of the Irish Lord Deputy of that time, Sir Arthur Chichester, this promise was made good, and Sir Edward Fisher, as assignee of Sir Richard Sutton, was in 1611 leased some four hundred acres of the Kilmainham demesne, bounded on the south by the River Liffey and the high road to Chapelizod, on the east and north by the lands of Newtown and Ashtown, and on the west by the lands of Chapelizod, all of which lands are now included in the Phoenix Park.

The erection of a house on his newly acquired property was at once undertaken by Sir Edward Fisher, and with taste rare in his day he selected as the site the ground on which the Magazine now stands. The prospect which that site commands is unrivalled in the neighbourhood, and it seems not improbable that the name Phoenix, by which the house became known, although generally supposed to be a corruption of Irish words meaning clear water, may have been conferred on the house owing to its magnificent situation.

When making his protest against the grant to Sir Richard Sutton, the Lord Deputy had warned the King that before long the lands would have to be bought back by the Crown; and on the arrival of his successor, Sir Oliver St. John, afterwards Viscount Grandison, his words came true.

That Chief Governor found the Kilmainham Priory in a state of ruin, and longing for escape from the walls of Dublin Castle, his attention was attracted to the residence which had just been built on lands long enjoyed by his predecessors. His influence effected the reversal of a policy which Sir Arthur Chichester had been powerless to prevent, and in consideration of a sum of £2,500 Sir Edward Fisher surrendered in 1617 to the Crown the lands given to him only six years before, together with the house built by him, which assigned by the King for the use of his representative in country for the time being.

After some alterations and additions had been made in the original structure as well as to offices, afterwards known as the wash-house, near Kilmainham Bridge, Lord Grandison took up his abode at “His Majesty’s house near Kilmainham, called the Phoenix,” where we find him frequently transacting affairs of State and requiring the Privy Council to meet.

He was succeeded in the Phoenix by Lord Falkland, by whom the formation of a deer-park was designed, and a deer-keeper, one William Moore, actually appointed. During the interval that elapsed before the arrival of the Earl of Strafford the Phoenix was occupied for a time by Viscount Ranelagh, probably by permission of the Lords Justices, as we find him in the autumn of 1630 feasting one of them, the Earl of Cork, in his temporary dwelling.

While his great mansion near Naas was building, the Earl of Strafford was forced to make use of the Phoenix, but speaks contemptuously of a country seat where a partridge was unknown, and longed for a more exciting pastime than flying hawks after blackbirds, although he says” it provided excellent sport, and attracted as many as two hundred mounted spectators to the Park.

Preparations were made at the Phoenix for the reception of the Earl of Leicester on his appointment as Lord Lieutenant, but he never came to this country, and it is doubtful whether his successor, the Duke of Ormonde, was able to make use of the house during the troublous times that attended his first Viceroyalty.

The Phoenix passed into the hands of the authorities of the Parliament, in 1647, on the surrender of Dublin by Ormonde, but before his first encounter with the forces of the Commonwealth at Rathmines, Ormonde seized the house, which was delivered to him without any attempt at resistance, on the ground that it was a possession of small military importance. But it seems to have been afterwards garrisoned by a detachment of the Royalist Army, and not to have been regained after Ormonde’s defeat at Rathmines without some effort on the part of his victor, Colonel Michael Jones.

After the Commonwealth was established a grant of the Phoenix to Sir Jerome Sankey, a prominent officer in the army of the Parliament, was considered, but finally the Chief Governor, General Charles Fleetwood, took up his residence there, and was succeeded by Henry Cromwell.

Cromwell, who resided constantly at the Phoenix, added a large wing to the house, several stories in height, and, in what is described as his very stately dwelling, extended much hospitality not only to his own party but also to supporters of the Royal cause, who found at the Phoenix a welcome, and much freedom.

After the Restoration the Phoenix underwent further enlargement and improvement. At the close of the year 1661, the Duke of Ormonde, who had some time previously been appointed Lord Lieutenant for the second time, and hoped soon to come to Ireland, wrote to Lord Chancellor Eustace asking his advice as to whether he should stay at the Phoenix or Dublin Castle, the former, according’ to his recollection, was small, and would be inconvenient on account of its distance from Dublin; but, on the other hand, he thought it desirable to leave Dublin Castle empty for the summer in order that necessary repairs might be carried out.

As we have seen under Chapelizod, Eustace advised Ormonde’s coming to the Phoenix; and his brother Lord Justice, the Earl of Orrery, who was in temporary occupation of the house, was soon deep in plans for building a new hall and stable, which Ormonde considered indispensable.

It was decided that a wing should be built corresponding to the one erected by Henry Cromwell, and that it should contain a chapel as well as a hall. At first this wing was to be only one story high, but provision was to be made for its ultimate elevation to the same height as the other. In addition, plans were approved for a stable, which Orrery arranged should be near the house, on account of Ormonde’s love of horses, and frequent disablement from attacks of gout, and an expenditure of sixteen hundred pounds, under the direction of Dr. J. Westley, then the surveyor of public buildings, was authorised.

It was on Ormonde’s arrival in this country, in August, 1662, that the construction of the Phoenix Park was begun. To one coming direct from the palaces of England and the splendours of the Restoration court, the Phoenix and its demesne must have indeed seemed, as Ormonde says, narrow, and little suited to the dignity of the King’s representative.

In matters affecting his royal master’s honour, as in his opinion this did, Ormonde was jealous to a fault, and to remedy the imperfections of the Viceregal residence was one of his first objects. It was not usual at that period to count the cost until the accounts were to be paid, and as has been mentioned under Chapelizod, Ormonde had not landed in Ireland more than a few weeks when he had determined on a scheme for a deer-park, which ultimately involved enormous expense.

At first it was proposed that the Park should include the lands originally comprised in the demesne of the Kilmainham Priory, viz., the lands of Kilmainham, Island Bridge, and Inchicore, on the southern side of the Liffey, and the lands attached to the Phoenix House, and the townland of Newtown, on the northern side of the Liffey, with the addition of a portion of the lands of Chapelizod.

Afterwards the original design was extended, and the remainder of the lands of Chapelizod, together with those of Ashtown, on which the Under-Secretary’s Lodge now stands, in the parish of Castleknock, and several smaller holdings, were enclosed in the Park.

The whole of the Park was to be surrounded by a wall, and within a few months of Ormonde’s arrival, William Dodson, already mentioned in connection with Chapelizod, had begun its erection. No supervision was exercised over him, and during the years 1663 and 1664 he was advanced without question sums amounting to six thousand pounds.

Towards the close of the year 1664, the new walls were found to be broken in a dozen different places, and, although it was sought to attribute these disasters to the effect of storms of unusual severity, the Earl of Ossory, then acting as Lord Deputy in his father’s absence, began to entertain suspicions of Dodson’s integrity.

These suspicions were excited not only by the breaks in the wall, but also by Dodson’s failure to complete the work at the time promised, and his desire to postpone further operations until the spring.

A few months later an appalling report was sent to Ormonde, in which it was stated that owing to the bad stone used, and want of skill on the part of the workmen, the wall was daily falling down, and that the gaps, which had been filled with furze and:, thorns, amounted in length to no less than a hundred perches.

At this juncture Dodson, unfortunately for himself, made a proposal to keep the walls in repair for a hundred pounds a year, and some years later lost any credit that he then possessed on its being discovered that he had sub-let the prospective contract to his workmen for thirty pounds a year.

When the Duke of Ormonde surrendered the office of Lord Lieutenant, in 1669, the cost of the Phoenix Park amounted to over £31,000, and the total expenditure upon it ultimately exceeded £40,000. “The greatness of this charge and the ill-making of the wall” brought on Ormonde much adverse criticism, and to the clamours of ill-affected people” were added the just complaints of the former owners of the lands about delay in the payment of the purchase money.

During the Viceroyalty of the Earl of Essex the Park, the subject of so much care and solicitude on Ormonde’s part, was on the point of being wrested from its original purpose and given by Charles II. to a private owner, in the person of the Duchess of Cleveland. It was only by the combined efforts of Essex and Ormonde that this grant was stopped, and the intervention of Ormonde was again necessary a few years later to prevent the alienation of the Park to another royal favourite, although this time of the male sex.

The Park was then not only used by the Viceroy as a place of recreation

• without it Essex said he would have had to live like a prisoner - but it was also much frequented by the Irish nobility and gentry when resident in Dublin.

It had been laid out before that time, and was provided, in addition to roads, with what was known as a “bare,” to the construction of which part of the Vice-regal garden had been sacrificed, and with artificial water. It had also been stocked with deer, with partridges, and with pheasants.

To procure these no expense had been spared. Two officers had been sent to England to purchase and transport the deer, while another had been sent to North Wales to trap the partridges, and the Earl of Ossory himself had superintended the capture of the pheasants on his father’s estate near Arklow.

The preservation of the game in the Park was then entrusted to three keepers, one of whom was dignified with the superior office of ranger. They were men of high position, and delegated their duties to subordinates, who found their task no easy one on account of the defective walls, the ravages of vermin, and the depredations of poachers.

Writing in 1668, Colonel Edward Cooke, who was one of the keepers of the Park, as well as a Commissioner under the Act of Settlement, says that the deer were escaping less frequently than they had done previously owing to care in keeping the walls repaired, but that other kinds of game had suffered greatly. Foxes, which had abounded, were nearly exterminated, but kites and poachers, who were generally soldiers from the Dublin garrison, carried off all the partridges.

The Phoenix House, although then rated as containing, with the adjacent wash-house, thirty hearths, proved soon to be quite inadequate for the accommodation of the Duke of Ormonde’s household, and was deserted by him in favour of the larger mansion at Chapelizod, as related in the history of that place.

For a time the Phoenix House was considered a convenient lodgment for Ormonde’s rider, falconers, and bailiffs, but in the summer of 1664 he desired them to vacate it, and gave the middle story, with the exception of a small part of the gallery, to Colonel John Jeffreys.

Colonel Jeffreys, who was a Welshman, was then acting as a messenger between the Irish Parliament and the English Privy Council, and subsequently became constable of Dublin Castle. He was well known to officials in England, and stood high in their regard, as appears from a correspondence about his daughter, who married without her father’s sanction one of the Justices of the Common Pleas, Arthur Turner, and was left on her husband’s untimely death, two years after his appointment, without provision of any kind.

When Lord Robartes came to succeed the Duke of Ormonde as Lord Lieutenant, in 1669, it was suggested by the Duchess of Ormonde that Colonel Jeffreys should be asked to lend the Phoenix House, with his furniture, to her son, Lord Arran, while the transfer of the sword was effected; and some years later Colonel Jeffreys appears to have made room for Lord Berkeley, who succeeded Lord Robartes in the government of Ireland, and whom we find inditing a letter from the Phoenix.

Besides the Phoenix House two other residences of considerable size, which the Government had acquired with the lands, then lay within the Park. One of these, a castle, stood on the ground now occupied by the Under-Secretary’s Lodge, and some portion of it is still to be found incorporated in the modern structure. It had been purchased with the lands of Ashtown.

These lands, which formed part of the manor of Castleknock, had been held before the dissolution of the religious houses by the Hospital of St. John without Newgate, already noticed as owner of the adjacent lands of Palmerston. Of the occupation of the members of the Priory trace remains, not alone in deeds, but also in a tradition which has given the name of the monks’ trees to a grove near their old dwelling.

At the time of the formation of the Park the Ashtown lands were in possession of one John Connell, and besides the castle contained two thatched houses and an orchard. After their purchase by the Government, in 1664, Sir William Flower, an ancestor of the Viscounts Ashbrook, who was the second keeper, with Colonel Edward Cooke, of the Park, was directed to possess himself of Ashtown castle as his lodging, but possibly assigned it to a trusty servant, to whom he was permitted to transfer his duty of walking the Park, and preventing the spoil and embezzlement of the vert or venison.

The third residence at that time within the Park was a house which stood on the lands of Newtown. This house lay not far from the present Dublin entrance, and was in unpleasant proximity to a ghastly object - the gallows for executions within the county-which as already mentioned stood on the ground now occupied by Parkgate Street. The house first appears, in 1646, as the home of Henry Jones, a relation of the Dopping family, and a devoted admirer of Queen Elizabeth, whose arms were engraved on a much-cherished cocoa-nut set in silver ; and towards the close of the Commonwealth it was occupied by Captain Roger Bamber, whom we find subsequently in charge of the Duke of Ormonde’s hawks.

After the formation of the Park this house was assigned to Marcus Trevor, Viscount Dungannon, who was appointed ranger of the Park and keeper of the Newtown portion, and some years later it was utilized for the purposes of an entrance which was then made from Dublin. Near this entrance there were a dairy and dog-house, where one Plumer, in the Duke of Ormonde’s time, looked after a large kennel, and probably it was when these buildings were erected that the gallows was moved, as already stated, to a more retired position near Kilmainham.

Some years after the formation of the Park a proposal was under consideration to change its name to Kingsborough Park, and to provide it with an additional officer in the person of the Earl of Ossory, who was to be called Lieutenant of the Park and Master of the Game. He was to have the Chapelizod house as his residence, with its lands, as his charge, and they were henceforth to be called Kingsborough Lodge and Walk.

It was also provided under this scheme that the Newtown, Kilmainham, and Ashtown portions of the Park, with the residences provided for their keepers, should from that time be known respectively as Dungannon’s Walk and Lodge, Cooke’s Walk and Lodge, and Flower’s Walk and Lodge.

But the proposal was never carried out, and Lord Dungannon continued the chief officer in charge of the Park until his death. He was succeeded as ranger by a succession of persons, who seem to have been chosen more as royal or viceregal favourites than as persons with knowledge and fitness to discharge the duties, and it is probable that the care of the Park in their time devolved altogether on subordinate officials.

The establishment of the Royal Hospital, in 1680, involved a great reduction in the portion of the Park on the southern side of the Liffey, and it was then decided that the Park should be brought within its present limits, with the high road to Chapelizod as its southern boundary. The exclusion of the road was most desirable, as its passage through the Park had resulted in the loss of many deer, and the construction of a new boundary wall was greatly facilitated by an offer to build it in exchange for little more than the strip of land between the road and the river.

This offer came from Sir John Temple, the eminent Solicitor-General of Ireland, who was then using the road each day to approach his residence at Palmerston, and the Government gladly accepted an arrangement which made but small call on the Treasury.

Although the erection of walls is not generally undertaken by lawyers, Temple proved a much more efficient contractor than Dodson, and finished the wall to the complete satisfaction of everyone concerned. This curtailment of the Park left no excuse for the Kilmainham keepership, but so agreeable a sinecure was not allowed to die, and a new charge was carved out instead of it under the name of the Castleknock Walk.

The official residences in the Park in the opening years of the eighteenth century were the Phoenix House, Ashtown Castle or Lodge, a lodge for the keeper of the Newtown Walk, and a lodge for the keeper of the Castleknock Walk.

The Phoenix House was occupied by members of the Viceregal household, and Ashtown Castle by Sir Charles Fielding, the keeper of the Ashtown Walk, who was succeeded on his death, in 1722, by the Right Hon. Benjamin Parry.

The ranger and keeper of the Newtown Walk, whose lodge seems to have stood on the ground now occupied by the Zoological Gardens, was Sir Thomas Smith, an English baronet, who appears however to have resided in this country, and the keeper of the Castleknock Walk was Sir Alexander Cairnes, a baronet and banker in London, who figures in Swift’s Journal to Stella as a Scot and a fanatic.

Besides these houses there was on the lands of Newtown, near the wall of the Park, another in the occupation of the Surgeon-General of the Army in Ireland, Thomas Proby. It stood near the dog-kennel, and as his canine neighbours caused him much annoyance, Proby was given a lease of the site on condition that he built a new kennel elsewhere and kept the Viceregal household supplied with ice, presumably from the pond now enclosed in the People’s Gardens.

Swift, in his diatribe against Lord Wharton, includes an overbearing attempt to deprive Proby of this lease, and says that Proby was a man universally and deservedly beloved by the Irish people. He was a native of Dublin, born soon after the Restoration in the old Inns, whose site the Four Courts occupy, and carried on his professional labours in a house on Ormond’s Quay. While still a young man he gained much fame by an operation which attracted the attention of all Dublin from the Viceroy, Lord Capel, downwards, and at the time of the foundation of Dr. Steevens’ Hospital he was a foremost practitioner.

To that institution he was devotedly attached, and in its chapel he desired to be buried. Proby was married to a clever lady, remarkable as an early collector of coins and china, “whose plaguy wisdom” Swift was afraid might infect Stella, and left, on his death in 1729, a son, an officer in the army, and a daughter, whose husband, John Nichols, was a member of Proby’s profession and succeeded him in his office, and also in occupation of his house at Newtown.

As a fashionable place of recreation the Park then enjoyed great renown. It is said to have far exceeded in beauty the London parks of that period by one who knew them well, the accomplished Mrs. Delany ; and on seeing the Park for the first time on her visit to Dublin in 1731, that lady breaks into rapturous praise of its attractions.

Its large extent, its fine turf, and its agreeable prospects are in turn mentioned, and to crown all a ring in the midst of a delightful wood, “the resort of the beaux and belles in fair weather,” is described. This wood, which was intersected with glades, appears to have been swept away by the Earl of Chesterfield in the course of the improvements which he carried out during his Viceroyalty, and in addition to planting the Park with elms he laid out the site of the wood like a garden with plots and walks, and erected in the centre of what had been the ring the well-known Phoenix monument.

A few years after Mrs. Delany’s visit to the Park the Phoenix House was pulled down, and on its site was built the Magazine, whose erection gave opportunity to Swift for a last sarcasm. To the Park as a military outpost and exercise ground the authorities of that period seem to have devoted much attention. The construction of an arsenal within the Park’s bounds had been contemplated twenty years before the Magazine was built, and the scheme was only abandoned on account of “the extraordinary charge” it would have involved.

Besides the Magazine a fortification known as the Star fort was actually made in proximity to its site, and a building for the purpose of firing salutes was also erected about the same time where the Wellington monument now stands. It was a review that occasioned Mrs. Delany’s first visit to the Park, and she tells, just as one would of a review to-day, how the Dublin garrison, consisting of a regiment of horse and two of foot, paraded before the wife of the Lord Lieutenant and all “the beau monde” of Dublin, who attended in full state.

In the absence of the Lord Lieutenant one of the Lords Justices sometimes supplied his place on these occasions, as, for instance, the Earl of Kildare who, while acting as one of the Chief Governors in 1757, held, with the assistance of the Earl of Rothes and a galaxy of general officers, a review of exceptional brilliancy.

The disappearance of the Phoenix House left the Park without any great residence, but before long two important houses, which are still standing, were erected. One of these was the house now known as the Mountjoy Barracks, the headquarters in Ireland of the Ordnance Survey. It was built in the portion of the Park comprised in the Castleknock Walk, and is first mentioned as the country residence of the Right Hon. Luke Gardiner, who succeeded to the Castleknock keepership in 1728.

To that position he was appointed at the request of its former holder Sir Alexander Cairnes. Although little is now known of him, Gardiner, who held for many years the office of Deputy Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, was in his day a man of great weight in this country, and is spoken of by Mrs. Delany as the famous Luke Gardiner. He appears to have been the engineer of his own fortunes, but rapidly acquired wealth and influence.

In recommending him for a Privy Councillorship Archbishop Boulter speaks of him as a thorough man of business, and contemporary opinion held him to be the best financier Ireland had known. He married a granddaughter of the first Viscount Mountjoy of the Stuart creation, when she was little more than a child, and his son, the Right Hon. Charles Gardiner, who succeeded him on his death in 1755 as keeper of the Castleknock Walk and occupant of the Lodge, inherited much of the property of the Stuart family.

The latter was succeeded in the Park by his son, Luke Gardiner, who, having served as one of the knights of the shire for the County Dublin, was created a peer as Baron and Viscount Mountjoy, and was killed in 1798 while gallantly leading some troops against the insurgents in the County Wexford.

During his time a theatre, which was admired alike for its exquisite design and style of decoration, was added to the Castleknock Lodge. In this theatre in the year 1778 the tragedy of “Macbeth” and the farce of “The Citizen” were acted with great applause before the Viceroy and an assemblage of the first people in Ireland-the principal parts being taken by Gardiner and his wife, who were no less celebrated for their good looks than for their talent as actors; Robert Jephson, the dramatist, who has been already noticed as a resident at Seapoint; and Sir Alexander Schomberg, the Commander of the Royal yacht.

The second residence erected after the disappearance of the Phoenix House was one which is now incorporated in the Viceregal Lodge. It was built by the Right Hon. Nathaniel Clements, ancestor of the Earls of Leitrim, who served with Gardiner in the Treasury and succeeded to his office. In 1750 Clements was appointed ranger of the Park and keeper of the Newtown Walk, and followed the example of his colleague in building a country house for himself within the limits of his charge. It is described as originally a plain brick building, with offices projecting on each side and connected with it by circular sweeps, and its gardens and grounds seem to have been then its chief attraction.

Clements was a man of ability who could hold his own against that consummate diplomatist and statesman, Archbishop Stone, and was privileged to approach the great Duke of Newcastle on friendly terms; but he is now better known on account of the magnificence of his establishment and of the Parisian luxury in which he indulged.

To his reputation in the latter respect his wife contributed to a large degree, and, according to Mrs. Delany, “she was finer then the finest lady in England

• dress, furniture, house, equipage, excelling all, and Mr. Clements was - her husband.”

At his house in the Park, which he occupied until his death in 1777, we find Clements annually celebrating the birthday of George the Third with a great display of fireworks and illuminations, and distributing, when want visited the country, whole carcasses of beef with regal profusion to his poorer neighbours.

The Hibernian Military School was also erected during this period in the portion of the Park near Chapelizod. The foundation stone of the school was laid with much ceremony by the Lords Justices in 1766, and the foundation stone of the chapel in 1771. It had been originally intended that the school should occupy a lower site, but on the advice of Proby’s son-in-law, John Nichols, who was consulted on the ground that he had been a resident in the Park nearly all his life, the present position was selected.

Nichols was then first surgeon to Steevens’ Hospital and to the Hospital for Incurables, as well as Surgeon-General of the Irish Army; but before a year had elapsed in 1767, his death is announced as taking place at his house in the Park.

About that time Ashtown Castle was modernised and became the residence of the Right Hon. Robert Cunningham, who was afterwards created Lord Rossmore, with special remainder to his wife’s relations, the Westenras. He was granted the use of Ashtown Castle by Lord George Sackville, who then held the office of Keeper of the Ashtown Walk, and towards the close of the eighteenth century he was given a pension of no less than three hundred a year in consideration of the money spent by him as Deputy-Keeper in building additions to Ashtown Lodge and in improving and enclosing its grounds.

Notwithstanding the residence of the high officials who have been mentioned within its limits, the Phoenix Park was in their time greatly neglected, and is said to have been treated more as a common than as a Royal enclosure.

So much had this become the case that during the Viceroyalty of the Earl of Harcourt, in 1774, a movement was set on foot to contest the right of the Crown to exercise any control over its property.

This claim gave convenient excuse for the establishment of another sinecure office in connection with the Park, and on the ground that it would prevent “any inconveniences which might arise from a supposed acquiescence in the present clamorous usurpation,” the office of Bailiff, hitherto held by a subordinate, was conferred on Sir John Blaquiere, then Chief Secretary for Ireland, with liberty to enclose portion of the Park for a residence for himself.

Blaquiere, who was Lord Harcourt’s friend as well as secretary, is a notable example of the acquisitive official, and it is said that in four short years of office he managed to secure an income for life of £6,000 a year, besides the Order of the Bath, and promises which resulted in a peerage.

His appointment as bailiff was not his least agreeable acquisition. It is true that he had to act as defendant in a lawsuit, and although successful to endure no little ridicule, but as a reward, in addition to being given a good salary and various perquisites, the small Lodge enjoyed by his predecessor was enlarged for him into the excellent house now known as the Chief Secretary’s Lodge, and some forty acres of land were substituted in his favour for a small garden.

The Viceregal residence at Chapelizod, as we have seen in the history of that place, had been surrendered on account of the Lords Lieutenants being only resident in this country while the Irish Parliament was in session; but later on in the eighteenth century, when they remained in Ireland during their whole term of office, the Viceroys found that a country house was a necessity, and that they were obliged to supply the place of their discarded dwelling by taking such houses as could be obtained temporarily in the neighbourhood of Dublin.

This arrangement was attended with much inconvenience, and in order to obviate it, in the year 1782, Mr. Clement’s house, since known as the Viceregal Lodge, was purchased from his representatives for £10,000 by the Government, for the use of the Lord Lieutenant for the time being. It had, however, only intermittent popularity during the remainder of the eighteenth century as a Viceregal residence.

At one time it was proposed. to get rid of it altogether as a handsome gift to Henry Grattan, and the Viceroys seem never to have lost an opportunity of escaping from it to Mr. Lee’s villa at Seapoint, or other more attractive dwelling.

To its unpopularity the neglected state of the Park, which Sir John Blaquiere’s appointment had done nothing to remedy, contributed, and the fact that the death of the Duke of Rutland in 1787 took place at the Lodge also for a time threw a shade over it.

But the most important reason for its unpopularity was probably the fact that no attempt was made to fit it in an adequate manner for its new occupants, and it was not until after the Union that it was enlarged to its present size by the addition of wings, and embellished by the construction of the well-known south front with its Ionic columns designed by Francis Johnston.

The purchase of the Viceregal Lodge was followed by the extinction of the other private interests in the Park. This course seems to have been adopted largely on the initiative of William Eden, afterwards Lord, Auckland, who then held the office of Chief Secretary. On his arrival in this country Eden had obtained for himself the use of the Under-Secretary’s house, then known as Ashtown Lodge, and henceforth exerted himself as strenuously to improve the condition of the Park as Sir John Blaquiere had done to promote his own interests.

Under the care of that worthy the Park was made the scene of orgies almost approaching those of Donnybrook Fair, the turf was overstocked, and the roads never repaired. Eden arrived at the conclusion that to terminate this state of things Blaquiere’s control must be brought to an end, and proposed that he should be bought out and his Lodge granted to the Chief Secretary for the time being as an official residence.

This was done, and at the same time Ashtown Lodge was assigned in a similar way to the Under Secretary. The Castleknock Lodge was about the same time purchased from Lord Mountjoy, who then lost his first wife and probably no longer cared to reside in it, and was used as a cavalry barracks until the staff of the Ordnance Survey took up their quarters in it.

Some difficulty was found in gaining possession of the latter lodge from Lord Arran, who was in temporary occupation of it, but finally this was achieved, and the only private interest left was in the Newtown Lodge on the site of the Zoological Gardens, which was then in the occupation of the Bishop of Limerick, of whom mention has been made under Old Connaught, and subsequently of a Mrs. Talbot.

The only additional building erected in the Park before the close of the eighteenth century was the Royal Military Infirmary, the foundation stone of which was laid in 1786 by the Duke of Rutland, and the further changes which have been effected by the laying out of the Zoological Gardens and the erection of various memorials belong to the history of the nineteenth century, and are outside the scope of the present work.

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