Howth - Packet Station and after.

CHAPTER IX.**

As A Packet Station And After**

At the opening of the 19th century the provision of shelter for ships on the Dublin coast was urged on the twofold ground of the loss of shipping from the want of a refuge harbour near the port of Dublin, and of the necessity of obtaining a better station for the packet-boats. During the previous century immense sums had been expended on improving the port of Dublin by the construction of the north and south walls, but notwithstanding, until steam became available, ships were unable in bad weather to enter the Liffey.

As there was no** **other place of refuge nearer than Waterford to the south and Carlingford Lough to tile north, they were often forced to remain in the open Bay of Dublin, and as many as 20 are said to have been annually lost or seriously injured while lying there.

But the question of a new station for the packet-boats even more concerned the citizens of Dublin. At the Pjgeon House, which was then the station, the packet-boats had to wait on both wind and tide, and much uncertainty as to the time of departure was added to the length of a passage which averaged at that time 18 hours.

A number of persons who possessed or assumed knowledge of the subject were seized by a pamphletary fever, and projects for harbours and canals, which were expected at that period to revolutionize the world, were poured forth. The chief pamphleteers were the superintendent of the Howth lighthouse, Mr. Thomas Rogers, and a clergyman, the Honourable and Reverend William Dawson, a son of the first Viscount Portarlington.

Rogers was moved to write by the loss of ships; Dawson by the inconvenience of the existing packet-station. By both Howth was selected as the best site, but their plans were influenced by their respective objects, and were widely different.

The campaign was opened by Rogers in the year 1800, with a pamphlet, [“Remarks on a Road or Safe Anchorage between Ireland’s Eye and Howth, with a plan for a Harbour and a Canal from thence to Dublin for large ships, also a short description of Dalkey Sound,” by Thomas Rogers. Dubl., 1800. (Haliday Pamphlets, 792.)] in which he proposed the construction of a harbour on the northern side of Howth, with a canal capable of carrying ships thence to the Liffey.

The harbour, which was to be entered from the sea near its eastern point, and to be 700 feet wide was to extend from the town of Howth to the isthmus, a distance of 3,000 feet, and the canal, which was to start from the western end of the harbour, was to be cut through the isthmus and to follow a line along the Clontarf shore, and through the part of Dublin called the North Lotts, to the Liffey.

In his enthusiasm for his project Rogers could not see even the possibility of a difficulty. The cost, which on his own estimate would have been over £400,000, was treated as a bagatelle, and a suggestion that the harbour might fill with sand, which experience proved only too soon to be true, was brushed aside as a trivial matter that slight dredging would remedy.

At the same time he criticized a scheme for a harbour at Dalkey, and scouted it on account of the want of connexion with the Liffey, which the canal from Howth was to supply. Before the end of that year Rogers saw reason, however, to revise his project, and issued another pamphlet, [“Observations on a Road or Safe Anchorage at Ireland’s Eye, and a Proposed Plan for Docks to repair Ships of War,” by Thomas Rogers. Dubl., 1800. (Haliday Pamphlets,. 793.)] in which he proposed the enclosure of the entire space between the peninsula and Ireland’s Eye.

In this pamphlet he laboured to prove that the sand came from the land and not from the sea, and sought the approval of the naval authorities, by holding out as a bait the suitable site Ireland’s Eye afforded for docks in which men-of-war could be repaired.

Dawson followed soon with the cry: [This proposal is incorporated in a pamphlet published subsequently, *infra, *p.147, n. 2.] “The mail from London in Dublin, and the mail from Dublin in London, in the shortest possible time!” Opening with a reference to the Dalkey scheme, which he rejected on the ground of Dalkey being farther from Holyhead than other places, and of its sound being dangerous, he advocated a harbour at Howth to the east of the town, with a very short pier, from which vessels might start with the utmost ease.

He represented that by such an arrangement the packet-boats, which he estimated would cross the Channel in six hours, would suffer no delay from “tide, bar, rock, or sand-bank,” and would be able to put to sea even when the wind was most contrary.

As additional inducements for the adoption of his scheme, he threw out the prospect of the harbour being effectively guarded against all foes at a small cost, and of a glut of fish in the Dublin market when the -fishermen of Howth had the benefit of such protection for their boats as his pier would give.

A few years later, in 1805, the Government began to move, and both Rogers and Dawson started afresh the advocacy of their respective projects, and printed new editions of their pamphlets, with copious additions. Taking a hint from Dawson, Rogers dwelt now on the admirable situation of Howth from the military point of view, and expressed the opinion that the peninsula could be made as impregnable as Gibraltar. [Observations on the Reports laid before the Directors General of Inland Navigation in Ireland for the Improvement of Dublin Harbour,” by Thomas Rogers. Duhl., 1805. (Haliday Pamphlets, 878.)] On the other hand, Dawson borrowed from Rogers, and tried to convince his readers that his pier would provide a place of refuge. His proposals extended beyond Howth, but, so far as that place was concerned, they were summed up as a harbour with a battery on its western side, some signal-stations on the hills, and a fort on the isthmus, across which a fosse was to be made. [“Plan for a Complete Harbour at Howth-Town for the use of his Majesty’s Mail Packet-boats, Merchants’ Ships in Case of Storm, and Fishing Vessels to supply Dublin Market,” by the Hon. and Rev. William Dawson, Dubl., 1805. (Haliday Pamphlets, 875.)]

So early as the year 1800 the Government had received from a distinguished engineer, Sir Thomas Hyde Page, F. R. S., whom they had employed to make inquiries, a report in which he foreshadowed two harbours, one at Dalkey and another at Howth. [Reports relative to Dublin Harbour and Adjacent Coast, made in consequence of orders from the Marquess of Cornwallis, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in the year 1800” by Sir Thomas Hyde Page, Knt., F.R.S., Dubl., 1801. (Haliday Pamphlets, 813)]

The one at Dalkey, which was to be a refuge harbour, was estimated by him as likely to cost about £250,000. But in addition he contemplated a canal along the southern shore of Dublin bay, from Sandycove to the Liffey, for which a million pounds would be required. Such sums might well cause any government to pause; and when action was taken, the main consideration was to keep the expenditure within reasonable limits. A harbour at Howth sufficient for the packet-boats was alone proposed, and the first vote towards its cost was a modest one of £10,000.

Work was commenced in the autumn of 1807 near the town of Howth, but no final decision seems to have been then arrived at as to the best design, and in consequence of the uncertainty Rogers and Dawson renewed their efforts.

Rogers had obtained the support of a naval officer, Vice-Admiral George Bowen, and through Bowen’s influence he had gained the ear of the Government, who thought that various experiments as to the tides made by Rogers were of value.

In a letter, dated March 6, 1805, the Duke of Wellington, who was then Sir* *Arthur Wellesley, and the Chief Secretary for Ireland, wrote to Bowen that he had no doubt the public would derive advantage from Roger’s assertions, and Bowen’s interest in them, as soon as the Government’s immediate object, a harbour for packet-boats, was attained, and that he would himself lend his aid in accomplishing anything that had in view the defence and security of Ireland and the convenience and safety of the navigation of the channel.

At the moment, however, he was afraid that Rogers’s plans involved an expertise that could not be entertained, and would divert public attention from what was most important, a secure, easy, and quiet communication with Great Britain.

In the following year, 1809, Dawson put forth yet another pamphlet [”Plan for Three Harbours, one easterly from Howth-town, one due east from the island at Holyhead, and one about three hundred yards easterly of Dunleary Dry Pier; subjoined are Remarks on the Work, said to be for a harbour at the northern side of the ruined abbey at Howth-town, and Reasons against the Continuation of it any longer,” by the Hon. and Rev. W. Dawson, A.M. Dubl., 1809.] in which he recapitulated his proposals, and commented severely upon the operations which the Government were then carrying on at Howth.

He called the work a mockery of harbour-making, and, with a prescience that is not a little remarkable, he foretold that the harbour would be a sand-trap. The Government, he said, were trying to accomplish the impossible in making a harbour by excavation, arid, notwithstanding the employment of many men and much gunpowder for 18 months, the progress was imperceptible.

John Rennie, to whom the entire responsibility for the harbour has been attributed, had, it appears, not been given a free choice of site, arid had expressed a doubt as to the success of a harbour in the one selected. But Dawson remarked that it did not require a gentleman froom England to inform him that a quarry which could not be excavated, and a sand-pit which could not be dug, would not make a satisfactory harbour, and advised, in conclusion, the employment of a resident engineer, even if his pretensions were far less than those of Rennie.

But Dawson’s warnings were unheeded, and the Government persisted in their operations. The result was so signal a failure that almost immediately the supersedure of the harbour was determined, and the construction of Kingstown Harbour under-taken. About £350,000 had been spent. The area enclosed comprises fifty-two acres. The western pier measures in length 2,700 feet, and the eastern, on which there is a lighthouse, 2,280. The entrance is 300 wide. The stone used in the piers was mainly quarried on the peninsula, but for the foundations, stone was brought from Runcorn, and for facing the sides from tire southern side of Dublin county.

Not many years after steam-boats became available, on a bright Sunday afternoon, August 12, 1821, George the Fourth entered Howth Harbour on the “Lightning” Steam-Packet, commanded by Captain Skinner. He was seated on deck, on a sofa, in a dark frock-coat and travelling-cap, [His dress was described as a blue surtout coat and blue pantaloons, with a black handkerchief and a blue cloth-cap with a gold band. (” Dublin Evening Post,” Aug. 14, 1821.)] and, according to one of the reports, he was received with “rapturous demonstrations of duty, affection, and gratitude” from the pier, to which he responded by waving his cap over his head and returning the cheers.

A carriage was in waiting at the head of the pier, but great difficulty was found in clearing a passage to it. In the confusion his Majesty shook hands with persons wholly strangers to him, as well as with those whom he knew, and finally drove of, as the report states, in an exhausted condition, exclaiming, “I thank you from my heart; God bless you all, God bless you all.”

The citizens of Dublin were attracted to Howth in the first. decades of the 19th century by the harbour works, which far exceeded in magnitude anything previously undertaken in Ireland, and an Englishman, who visited Howth in 1813, saw them dining in great numbers on the grass, or, as it was then termed, “the sod.”

But, in 1838, John D’Alton writes of those excursions as a thing of the past, and attributes their cessation to the introduction of turnpikes. Visitors began to stay later on at Howth in greater numbers, and for their accommodation the Royal Motel, and subsequently the St. Lawrence Hotel, were built.

A tavern near the Baily Lighthouse was frequented by a social circle called the Mystics, and a race-course, which was laid out round Corr Castle, brought the votaries of the turf to the peninsula. In the early part of the century Ireland’s Eye was used by Lord Howth as a breeding-ground for foxes, and was evidently a place little regarded.

During the construction of the harbour a faction-fight took place amongst the labourers. It assumed a dangerous aspect, and was not quelled without the aid of a detachment of soldier. Owing to the influx of sand, John D’Alton records that, in 1838, the harbour was only able to shelter four wherries and five smacks, and says that no boat-builder or rope-maker, or even carpenter or blacksmith, was to be found near the port.

But there is reason to believe that he took too unfavourable a view of the situation, and soon afterwards the harbour attracted in summer fishing-boats from other places, and herrings to the value of over thirty thousand pounds were sent off in one summer to England.

Two tragedies mark the century. The first was the loss of the “Victoria,” a steam-boat belonging to the City of Dublin Steam-Packet Company, which went on the rocks near the Naze of Howth during a snow-storm of exceptional severity, on February 15, 1853, carrying to their doom many passenger, and the second was a murder on Ireland’s Eye, which attracted wide attention, and was the subject of a learned scientific paper. [”The True Height of the Tide at Ireland’s Eye on the evening of the 6th September, 1852, the day of the murder of Mrs Kirwan,” by the Rev. Samuel Haughton, ‘Proc. Royal Irish Academy,” vii, 511.]

But the most striking outcome of the last hundred years has been the great increase in the population, and the extensive building by which it has been accompanied. During the first half of the 19th century the Castle was modernized, a large addition made to its south-eastern wing**, **and a new entrance constructed from the main road. These improvements gave an impetus to building on the peninsula. Sutton House was rebuilt, and came into notice as the residence of Mr. Justice Jackson, [The Hon.. Joseph Devonsher Jackson, a Justice of the Common Pleas, 1846-58.] and afterwards of the Rev. William Lawrenson, then rector of Howth, and subsequently passed into the possession of Mr. Andrew Jameson, who has built a modern house near its site.

It is impossible to enumerate all the houses that have been since erected but amongst them there may be mentioned Carrig Breac, long the home of the illustrious physician, William Stokes, and his gifted daughter

Margaret; Drumleck, formerly the residence of Mr. William McDougall, by whom it was built: Earlscliffe, now owned by the Provost of Trinity College; [The Rev. John Pentland Mahaffy, C.V.O.] Kilrock, formerly the residence of Lord Justice Fitzgibbon; [The Right Hon. Gerald Fitzibbon, Lord Justice of Appeal, 1878-1909] St. Fintan’s, the property of the Hawkins family.

William, who succeeded, on his father’s death in 1501, as the second Earl of Howth, was then nearly 50 years of age. He was twice married. His first wife, whom he married in 1777, was Mary, daughter of Thomas, 15th Baron of Athenry and first Earl of Louth, who died 1793 ; and his second wife was Margaret, daughter of William Burke, of Keelogues, in the county of Galway, who survived him. By his first wife he had four daughters: Harriet, who married, in 1801, Arthur French St. George; Isabella, who married, in 1803, William, third Earl of Annesley ; Matilda, who married Major William Burke, of Queensborough; and Mary, who married Clifford Trotter. By his second wife he had Thomas, who succeeded him, ,and two daughters: Catherine, who married, in 1828, Viscount Dungarvan; and Elizabeth, who married, in 1831, Sir Edward Richard Borough. The second Earl of Howth died on April 4, 1822, and some clue to his character may be found in his will, made a month before, on March l2, in which he enjoins that his body should be interred privately. He was, however, not forgetful of public dirties, and is mentioned is foremost in terminating the faction-fight, and in greeting George the Fourth on his arrival.

Thomas, who succeeded as third Earl of Howth, and who at the time of his father’s death had not attained his majority, occupied for a great portion of the 19th century a position of the utmost distinction and prominence in Ireland. When little more than 30 years of age, in 1535, he was installed as a Knight of St. Patrick, and for nearly a quarter of a century, from 1851 to his death, he filled the office of Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of the County of Dublin, honours to which that of Vice-Admiral of Leinster was added.

But it is as a sportsman that the third Earl of Howth enjoyed most celebrity. His death was said to have left a gap that would never be filled, and to have revived recollections of glorious days in the history of the Irish turf. His love of horses was life-long, and in his early years he was recognized as one of the best and most determined riders in the United Kingdom.

A German prince, who visited Howth in 1829, found the castle stables and kennels full of noble hunters and notable hounds, and relates how be followed Lord Howth throughout a stag-hunt; of which not many saw the end. Pavo in the “Morning Post” applauded Lord Howth for the example which he set on the turf, and said that a better judge of a horse or of racing never breathed. He pictured him as a fine horseman, with a powerful, although light, figure. In England, as well as in Ireland, Lord Howth’s colours, white body with black sleeves and cap, were often successful.

In 1842 he carried off, with St. *Lawrence, *the Stand Cup at Liverpool, and in 1848, with *Peep-o’-Bay Boy, *the Chester Cup. The Warwickshire Hunt Stakes fell to him with Cromaboo, and the March Stakes at Goodwood with *Beatrice *and *Wolf-dog, *while from Foinnualla [The name probably was , no doubt, intended to be Fionnualla] he bred *Kingstown, Mince-pie, *and *Ackworth, *which gained for other owners classic honours. In Ireland, at the opening meeting of Baldoyle Race-Course, which he established, be won the first race with *Lambay, *and carried off also the stakes in three other races.

The third Earl of Howth was twice married. His first wife, whom he married in 1826, was Lady Emily de Burgh, daughter of John Thomas, 13th Earl of Clanricarde, who died in 1842, and his second wife, whom he married in 1851, was Henrietta Digby, only child of Peter Barfoot, of Landenstown, who survived him. By his first wife he had William Ulick Tristram, his successor, and four daughters, Emily, who married, in 1859, Thomas Gaisford, of Offington; Catherine Elizabeth, who married, in 1850, James Joseph Wheble, of Bulmershe Court; Mary, who died unmarried ; and Margaret, who married, in 1861, Sir Charles Compton Domvile, the second baronet of his line. By his second wife the third Earl of Howth had Thomas Kenelm Digby, an officer in the Fifth Dragoon Guards, who died in 1891, and two daughters, Henrietta Eliza, who married, in 1881, Captain Benjamin Lee Guinness; and Geraldine Digby. After a long illness the third Earl of Howth died at Mentone, on February 6, 1874, and his body was interred on the 17th, in the tomb of his ancestors, amid a remarkable demonstration of respect.

William Ulick Tristram, the fourth Earl of Howth, who succeeded his father when nearly 50 years of age, was the recipient of many honours, including the Order of St. Patrick, a barony of the United Kingdom, and the Vice-Admiralty of Leinster. In early life he had been an officer in the Seventh Hussars, and for many years he was Lieutenant-Colonel of the County Dublin Militia. From 1868 to 1874 he represented Galway in the House of Commons.

On the turf, more particularly at Punchestown, he was a familiar figure, and was well known in English and Irish hunting circles. From 1856 to 1861 he was master of the Kilkenny Hunt, and subsequently he was master of the hounds at Pan. He died on March 9, 1909, at Bournemouth, and was buried at Howth in the tomb of his ancestors.

The fourth Earl of Howth had never married, and on his death the barony and earldom of Howth lapsed. The estates passed by his will to his nephew Julian Gaisford of Offington, who assumed by royal licence the arms and name of St. Lawrence.

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