The Parish of Clonturk

(i.e. The Meadow of the Swine)

The Parish of Clonturk is stated in the 17th century to have contained the townlands of Clonturk, Drishoge, Donnycarney, and Drumcondra.

It contains now the townlands of Ballybough (i.e. the poor town), Clonturk, Donnycarney (i.e. Caemach’s Church), Drishoge (i.e. the bramble), Drumcondra (i.e. Conradh’s ridge), Goosegreen, Marino, and Bichmond. **

Drumcondra, with Notice of Marino and its Vicinity.**

To-day religions houses are the most striking feature of the parish of Clonturk, which lies to the east of the parish of Glasnevin, and north of the parish of St. George, on the high road from Dublin to Drogheda, and when its history opens religious houses predominated as owners of the lands which it contains. All Hallows’ College, St. Patrick’s College, St. Mary’s College, and St. Joseph’s Asylum for the Blind, which now bring Drumcondra renown, bad their prototypes then in the Priories of All Saints and Holy Trinity and the Abbey of St. Mary, amongst which the lands were divided. **

From Mediaeval to Tudor Times.**

To the Priory of All Saints the lands in the modern townlands of Clonturk, Donnycarney, and Marino belonged. It owed them to its founder, Dermot Macmurrough, and it drew from them its chief supply of grain. Of life in them little is known. About 123.0, Thurstanus, son of Vincent of the Strand, Peter, Bishop of Ossory, and William de Romsey are mentioned as having an interest in the meadow of Clonturk, which was then conveyed to the priory; in 1240, John Latimer, the owner of Coolock, is found adding to the extent of the Donnycarney lands; about 1391, John Hunt and his wife Joan were enfeoffed in a carucate of land at Clonturk by John Symcocks, then the prior of All Saints; and in 1473 Nicholas Sheriff appears as resident at Clonturk.

To the Abbey of St. Mary the lands of Ballybough arid Drishoge, which adjoined such of the abbey’s possessions as are now comprised in St. George’s Parish, belonged. At the beginning of the 14th century these lands began to he much traversed on the construction at Ballybough of a bridge over the Tolka, one of many public works that mediaeval Dublin owed to the public spirit and munificence of a mayor called John Decer.

Soon after its construction this bridge was carried away by a great flood, but another was built, and “the record of the riding of the franchises of Dublin” relates that at the close of the 15th century the city fathers were went to ride on the city side of the Tolka until they came “by the gate of Ballybough” to this bridge, where they crossed the river and pursued their way along the foreshore to Clontarf.

In 1376 an inhabitant of Ballybough, John Stead, was made the subject of one of the attempts of the city authorities to exercise jurisdiction over the possessions of St. Mary’s Abbey; and in 1510 the city had officers at Ballybough, who were employed by the coroner to watch some criminals who had sought sanctuary in St. Mary’s Abbey.

To the Priory of the Holy Trinity the lands of Drumcondra, on which St. Joseph’s Asylum for the Blind now stands, belonged. These lands were in mediaeval times within the manor of Glasnevin, and service had to be rendered there by the Drumcondra tenants, as appears from a lease of the town of Drumcondra, with “the farms appertaining” and the tithes, made in 1483, to a husbandsman called John Heylot and his wife Katherine.

At the time of the dissolution of the religious houses in 1539 Clonturk was returned as containing 150 acres under crops, 17 acres under grass, and five acres under copse and underwood, with six messuages, six cottages, and a dove-house Donnycarney was returned as containing 120 acres under crops, 22 under grass, and two under copse, with a messuage, and five cottages; Ballybough, which was leased to William Leche and Agnes, the widow of Richard Young, was returned as 150 acres under crops, and five under grass, with two messuages ; and Drishoge, which was leased to William Walsh, was returned as containing 54 acres under crops, eight acres under grass, and 10 acres under copse.

It is evident that the lands were then very thinly inhabited, and probably they felt still the effects of the rebellion of Silken Thomas, during which an engagement had taken place between the insurgents and the forces of the Crown at Ballybough Bridge, resulting in a great slaughter of Englishmen there and at Clontart.

By the Crown, Clonturk and Donnycarney were granted, together with the other possessions of the Priory of All Saints, to the Corporation of Dublin, and they were leased by the Corporation to middlemen, including, in 1540, Nicholas Stanyhurst, and in 1558 John Chaloner.

Subsequently the lands were divided, Clonturk being leased to the owners of Drumcondra, and Donnycarney to the recorder, James Stanyhurst. The recorder’s tenure was hut short; and in 1570 Donnycarney was leased direct to the occupier, Christopher Hetherington, who was bound, amongst other obligations, to supply the mayor every Christmas with “a good and sufficient brawn,” and to till the land “well and truly” in order that, “for lack of good and diligent tillage, the tithe shall not be diminished.”

The settlement of a branch of the ancient Meath family of Bathe on the lands of Drumcondra, in the middle of the 16th century, gave them pre-eminence in the parish, and for many generations the other lands occupied a secondary position. In connexion with Drumcondra the first member of the family mentioned is the chief baron, to whom there has been reference as an occupant of Drimnagh Castle.

For over 30 years James Bathe, who belonged to the house of Beshellstown, held that office, and during that time he served with equal acceptance Henry the Eighth and his three successors. Under Henry the Eighth he is seen acting as an agent of Thomas Cromwell, and urging on a recalcitrant colleague the obligation of submission to the Government; when Mary ascended the throne he was foremost in accepting her rule, at the time being in London; and before Elizabeth had been long on the throne be displayed much anxiety to increase the Crown revenues, and deplored that his want of knowledge of minerals was likely to be a hindrance.

As mentioned in connexion with Drimnagh Castle, he married the widow of one of its owners, Robert Barnewall, who died in 1535, and occupied it during the long minority of his stepson. While living in it, in the year 1550, the lands of Drumcondra were leased to him by the Dean and Chapter of Christ Church Cathedral, as successors of the Priory of the Holy Trinity; and after the surrender of Drimnagh Castle to his stepson, in 1553, he is described as of Drumcondra until his death, which occurred in 1570.

But an Elizabethan castle which was erected on the Drumcondra lands, where St. Joseph’s Asylum for the Blind now stands, was, according to a tablet preserved in St. Joseph’s Asylum, the work of the chief baron’s son, John Bathe, who held in turn the offices of solicitor- and attorney-general, and chancellor of the exchequer.

He was married twice first, to Elenor, daughter of Jenico, third Viscount Gormanstown, who is commemorated with him on the tablet; and, secondly, to Janet, daughter of Patrick Finglas, of Westphalstown.

In the acquisition of property he displayed remarkable ability. Within the immediate neighbourhood of Drumcondra he appears as tenant for the lands of Clonmel and the lord’s meadow in Glasnevin manor, and for the lands of Clonturk and Ballybough; and further a-field, at Balgriffin and Chapelizod, he obtained old possessions of his mother’s family, the Burnells.

Although holding office under Elizabeth, he has been claimed as a devoted son of the Roman Catholic Church; and his children professed in later life that faith. While living at Drumcondra both he and his father were the victims of dishonest persons; in his father’s case the loss was no more than a candlestick worth four shillings, but in his own case the loss included two coloured coverlets worth forty shillings, a feather-bed, a carpet and a coat worth ten shillings each, a tin bath and a couch worth five shillings each, and a linen coverlet worth three shillings.

After the death of John Bathe, which occurred in 1586, his castle at Drumcondra became the residence of a notable figure hi the history of Tyrone’s rebellion, Sir William Warren, who makes his appearance first as “the arch-traitor’s” confidant in the arrangements for his marriage to Mabel Bagenal, the Helen of the Elizabethan wars, as Mr. Bagwell has called her.

Warren’s occupation of the castle was due to his marriage to the widow of John Bathe. Whatever doubt there may be as to John Bathe’s religious principles, there can be none as to those of his second wife; and in his marriage to her Warren showed that he was not without sympathy with those who adhered to the Roman Catholic Church. He was the son of “an English possessioner,” known as the valiant Captain Humphrey Warren, who appears in Ireland under Edward the Sixth as an official in Munster, and afterwards under Mary and Elizabeth as an official in Ulster.

At the time of his death in 1561, Humphrey Warren was a member of the council, with a seat in parliament for Carrickfergus, and held also a military command, in which he gained much distinction. By his wife Mabel Clifford, who was a Kentish lady, and had in the course of her life three other husbands [An ancestor of the Earl of Meath, an ancestor of the Earl of Drogheda, and a kinsman of the Lord Mountjoy of that time.], Captain Humphrey Warren left two sons, Sir Henry Warrerr, who married a daughter of Archbishop Loftus, and Sir William Warren, who became an occupant of Drumcondra Castle.

Around the time of John Bathe’s death Sir William Warren was captain of a troop of horse, which reflected much credit on his judgment in the choice of men, horses, and equipment, and was employed by his brother’s father-in-law, Archbishop Loftus, to carry on negotiations with the leader of the Scots in Ulster, Sorley Boy MacDonnell, to whom his father had been known.

A few years later he was an applicant for the governorship of Carrickfergus but his application was not well received on the ground of his alleged devotion to Tyrone’s party, as well as on the ground that he was poor and needy, and inclined “to make his own commodity.” The next year, 1591, found him, however, master of Drumcondra Castle, and thither one summer’s day in that year the fair Mabel Bagenal came with him from her brother-in-law’s house at Turvey to marry the Earl of Tyrone. To the castle they were soon followed by the bridegroom, who had been a guest at Turvey, and in the castle at four o’clock in tire afternoon, in the presence of “ten English gentlemen of good sort,” the knot was tied by the Bishop of Meath. For five days the castle was the scene of “very honourable solemnities,” and then the happy pair departed for Tyrone’s home, where rumour said Warren was no stranger, and sometimes accompanied Tyrone to Mass.

From that time Warren followed the moods of the government in the treatment of “thewicked rebel,” one day trying to bring him to terms by persuasion, and the next by force of arms. In carrying out the latter policy he did not escape suspicion of disloyalty, and in the summer of 1596, after long negotiations with Tyrone, he was summoned from a sick bed in Drumcondra Castle before the Council, and received by the members with reproachful speeches and threats of being “laid by the heels.”

During the short reign of the Earl of Essex, from whom he received his knighthood, he was in constant request, and his castle at Drumcondra was the scene of one of Essex’s greatest achievements in conferring the accolade, no less than 11 of the company emerging with that honour fresh upon them. But no sooner had Essex departed from the Irish shores, than Warren is found assuring Sir Robert Cecil that he would rather have the least bit of his love than the entire of that of the ”Earl of Excess.”

With Cecil’s aid he obtained then the object of his ambition, the governorship of Carrickfergus, which Cecil believed that he would fill with much advantage to the Crown at a time when Tyrone was expected to return to paths of loyalty; but, as Warren’s death took place in 1602, he had little opportunity of showing his capacity. To what cause his premature death was to be attributed is not known, but possibly irritation which he displayed in intercourse with Archbishop Loftus, or a wound which he received at the battle of Benburb, may have had connexion with it.

Apart from the suspicion which his friendship with Tyrone brought upon Warren, his position was compromised by his wife’s stepson, William Bathe, the eldest surviving son of the chancellor of the exchequer, entering the Jesuit Order. At tire time of his father’s death William Bathe was just of age. In the previous year, 1584, when he is said to have been a student at Oxford, he had published a work on music, and subsequently he presented to Queen Elizabeth a harp, of which he was himself the designer.

At that time the sword was held in Ireland by Sir John Perrott, and to his favour William Bathe is said to have owed his introduction at Court. In the summer of 1587 and autumn of 1589, when the queen made grants to him of crown lands, he was probably in attendance on her, hut in the winter of 1591 his departure for Spain on, as was supposed then, a political rather than a religious mission, terminated such intercourse as there may have been. Any subsequent visits made by him to the queen’s dominions were, of course, secret; but he was probably in Ireland in the winter of 1599, when he executed a conveyance of his inheritance to his brother, and again in 1601, when he was chosen to accompany the Pope’s nuncio to this country, and joined with him in writing an account of its condition. **

From the Stuart to the Hanoverian Succession**

John Bathe, to whom William Bathe surrendered at the close of Elizabeth’s reign his inheritance, was the chancellor of the exchequer s second surviving son by his first wife, and at the time of the surrender to him he was 33 years of age. He was then residing at Balgriffin, and continued for many years to do so.

Meantime, Drumcondra Castle was occupied by his step-mother, Lady Warren. She was reputed to he very hostile to the English government, and was said to have often entertained at Drumcondra the Earl of Tyrone, who was in communication with her after his flight through one of her sons. In 1614 she married as a third husband Sir Terence O’Dempsey, who was created afterwards Viscount Clanmalier, but she died three years later.

After her death her stepson, John Bathe, is described as of Drumcondra Castle, and resided there probably until his death, which occurred in 1634. He was twice married first to a daughter of a legal worthy, Thomas Dillon, chief justice of Connaught, and secondly to the daughter of a civic worthy, Alderman Patrick Gough, who had been previously married to one of her paternal kinsmen.

During the rebellion Drumcondra as well as Finglas was occupied by the forces under Luke Netterville. At the close of the month of January, 1642, a patrol from Dublin was induced, by a man whom they met, to cross the Tolka in the hope of capturing at Drumcondra a small body of insurgents, but found themselves confronted by about 500 men, from whom they escaped with difficulty and a few days later reinforcements were said to be flocking to Drumcondra from Drogheda.

The inhabitants suffered all the horrors of war. Francis Eccles, with his wife Tabitha, was forced to flee into Dublin, where he died from the hardships that he had undergone, and John Bathe’s widow, who was residing in a house near Clonturk Church, was obliged to send her cattle to Balgriffin to save them from being raided.

At that time Drumcondra, Drishoge, and Ballybough were the property of John Bathe’s eldest son by his first marriage, James Bathe, who married a daughter of Sir William Warren. The premises at Drumcondra were returned as a castle, with a slated stone-house, a barn and gate-house, also slated, and three thatched houses, and were valued at £500, more than the value placed on Dunsoghly Castle and on the Drishoge lands there was a fair brick-house “with a slate roof, which was valued at £140 pounds.

The lands were mainly arable, out of 400 only 80 being described as meadow or pasture. The lands of Clonturk belonged to John Bathe’s eldest son by his second marriage, Robert Bathe, who was then residing at Balgriffin. On these there was the house occupied by his mother, which is described as “a fair slated stone-house,” with offices, and was valued at £200, and their extent was returned as 200 acres, all but a fourth being arable. At Donnycarney the Hetheringtons appear to have been still in occupation when the rebellion broke out, one of them, Richard Hetherington, having married about that time a sister of James Bathe ; but complicity in the rebellion no doubt terminated soon afterwards their tenure. The lands comprised 100 acres under crops and 50 under grass, and on them there was a new slated house, built of brick, which 100 years later was superseded by the erection of Marino House, and several other houses and cottages.’

Within a year from the outbreak of the rebellion Robert Bathe’s mother died. Her will is mainly occupied by directions for her funeral, which she was, however, afraid it might not be possible in those difficult times to carry out with all the pomp that she desired. Her sons, sons-in-law, and daughters-in-law, the last in prospective as well as in existence, were to be clothed in mourning suits, and 30 poor children and 40 poor women were to be provided with mourning gowns, stockings, bands and hats. As her bequests show, dress was a vanity from which she was not free, and special care is taken by her in the disposal of her golden hatband, her pearl hatband, and her hatband with gilt buttons. To Walter Enos she leaves silver to make a chalice, together with the vestments, stole, and alb that he daily used, and she mentions John Long, who was also evidently a clergyman, as her special friend.

During the Commonwealth the castle at Drumcondra declined in importance, and Donnycarney came more into notice. Before the Parliament had long established its power in Dublin the Corporation began to worship the rising sun, in the person of the governor of the city, Colonel Michael Jones, and decided in the autumn of 1648 to confer on him the freedom of the city, and to entertain him at a banquet, on account of “the love and affection” which the citizens were said to feel for him. Emboldened by these marks of their favour, Jones looked for a more substantial reward, and proposed that the lands of Donnycarney might he leased to him.

The suggestion was adopted, and the lands were granted to him at a rent of five rounds, subject to his sending to the mayor a fortnight before Christmas ”a good brawn,” eight days before that feast twelve barrels of wheat, and before the end of March six barrels of malt, ”heaped and well conditioned,” and 18 barrels of oatmeal.

To this lease was soon added one of the lands of Clonturk, on condition that the city was secured against any claims from the Bathes, and on Jones’s death in the winter of 1649 these leases came into the possession of his sister, Mary Elliott, who in making her will six years later mentioned them with “her flaxen wheel” and other chattels.

At that time Donnycarney House had become the residence of William Basil, who for the first nine years of the Commonwealth was attorney-general, and for the last two years chief justice of the chief place in Ireland. He belonged to an English family, of which more than one member had received legal training at Lincoln’s Inn, but he was connected by property with the north of Ireland, and married as a first wife a sister of the first Lord Kingston, and as a second a sister of the third Lord Charlemont.

Shortly before the Restoration the inhabitants of full age on the Donnycarney lands were returned as eight of English and six of Irish descent, Basil and one Peter Vaughan being the only persons of position and after the Restoration Donnycarney House, which was still occupied by Basil, appears as rated in 1664 for eight and in 1667 for 15 hearths.

Before the Restoration Drumcondra, which included possibly Clonturk and Drishoge, had a population of over 100 persons of full age, 27 being English and 86 Irish, the chief resident being John Smyth; and after the Restoration there are returned under the denomination of Drumcondra seven houses with one hearth each, besides the castle, which contained eight, and was occupied by Nicholas Gernon. At the latter time the house on the Clonturk lands, which had been occupied by John Bathe’s widow, was in the possession of Peter Bathe, a son of her step-son James Bathe, and was rated for seven hearths ; and besides it there were some 12 other houses on the Clonturk lands, several of these being rated for two or three hearths each.

At Ballybough the principal resident then was Andrew Cave, whose house was rated for three hearths, and besides it there were some five houses rated for one hearth.

But in the first decade after the Restoration Drishoge became the most prominent place in the parish as the site of a house to which the name of Belvedere was afterwards attached. It was rated for 11 hearths, a house occupied by John Griffin which it superseded having been rated for three, and it was the residence of one of the most notable of the Irish judges of that day, Sir Robert Booth, who at the time of his death was chief justice of the king’s bench. In regard to wealth as well as to ability, he had with perhaps one exception no rival on the Irish bench.

He had been born heir to the Salford estate, now in the possession of Sir Josslyn Gore-Booth, and after his early education at the grammar school in Manchester he was entered as a fellow-commoner at Cambridge. In the opening years of the Commonwealth he was called to the bar, and a few mouths after the Restoration, when he appears to have been residing in Dublin, he was promoted at the age of 34 to the Irish bench as a justice of the common pleas.

While holding that office he visited England more than once, taking with him no less than six horses, and on one of these visits he received from Charles the Second the honour of knighthood. Ten years after the Restoration he was promoted to the chief seat in the common pleas, and he would have been transferred a few years later to the chief seat in the king’s bench but for opinions which he had imbibed from a clergyman of puritanical views, whom his mother had married as a second husband.

Under the terror of the Popish plot his opinions became, however, an asset in his favour, and on the chief justiceship of the king’s bench becoming again vacant, he was appointed to it. His reputation was then so high that his transfer to the English bench was considered not improbable, but his health had necessitated two years’ absence from work, and very soon after his elevation to the king’s bench, in the year 1681, his death occurred.

At Belvedere Sir Robert Booth, who left four daughters and no son, was succeeded by Sir John Coghill, judge of the prerogative court, and one of the masters in chancery. He was the head of an old Yorkshire family, seated at Coghill Hall, near Knareshorough, and had come to Ireland after the Restoration in the train of his compatriot, Archbishop Bramhall. His father, as well as more remote members of his family, had received legal training, and after some years’ study at Oxford and in Gray’s Inn, he had himself been called to the bar just before he came to Ireland.

After his arrival in Ireland Sir John Coghill, who received his knighthood from Lord Clarendon, married one of the Cramer family, who were allied to the Stearnes, and he left on his death, in 1699, several children, who will be subsequently noticed.

Before the Revolution Drumcondra had become a favourite outlet of Dublin, and a year before the battle of the Boyne a brewery belonging to the widow of one Giles Martin was carrying on a trade that necessitated the employment of seven horses.

Afterwards the attractions of Drumcondra are mentioned by John Dunton as interfering with the assiduity of a bookseller known as Nat Gunn, who had recommended himself to Dunton by bidding generously at his auctions and by declaring himself an enemy “to Popery and slavery.” At Drumcondra, as well as in Dublin, Gunn was probably famous, as he was evidently a great character, personifying, it is said, the art of stenography, in which, as well as in book-binding, he was skilled.

After the Revolution the castle at Drumcondra appears as the residence of Captain Chichester Phillips, who represented the borough of Askeaton in the Irish parliament. He held the castle under a lease of it given in 1677 to Giles Martin by James the Second, to whom the Drumcondra lands had been granted after the Restoration, and during the sale of the forfeited estates in 1703 he purchased the fee.

The premises were then described as a castle with a dwelling-house, which was of brick, a stable, coach-house, and malt-house, another house of brick, and five cabins. Attached to these there were a garden and a yard surrounded by a wall, and lands estimated to contain 260 acres.

Captain Phillips was a grandson of Sir Thomas Phillips, who was prominent in the plantation of Londonderry, and was father of a clergyman whom Swift befriended. Swift’s interest in the young man was on account of his mother, who as a Miss Handcock was nearly related to Swift’s friends the Rochforts. From a reference in Swift’s correspondence it is evident that Captain Phillips had been somewhat prodigal.

During the summer of 1712 Donnycarney House was visited several times by the great George Berkeley, then a junior fellow of Trinity College, in order that he might see the children of his friend Sir John Perceval, afterwards first Earl of Egmont, who were staying in it during their parents’ absence in the south of Ireland.

In writing to his friend, Berkeley speaks of his walk from Trinity College to Donnycarney as a lonely one, and alludes to the surroundings of Donnycarney as beautiful. He mentions a gallery in the house, in which he walked up and down with “the esquire,” a boy of 15 months, and refers to the garden and avenue, where he took also a walk with the same “brisk young gentleman.” **

In Georgian Times**

At the time of the accession of George the First, Belvedere was the residence of Sir John Coghill’s eldest son, Marmaduke Coghill, who was, like his father, a civilian, and had succeeded him as judge of the prerogative court. At the same time as the fee of Drumcondra, the chief interest in Belvedere was sold amongst the forfeited estates. The premises were then described as a brick house slated, a stable with a loft, also slated, and a malt house tiled. They had a fine entrance from “the great road to Drogheda,” and an orchard and kitchen-garden. With them there were sold another slated house with a stable and garden, and a cabin.

In his day Marmaduke Coghill occupied a most prominent place in the life of Dublin, and was remarkable for his early display of ability. At the age of 14 he entered Dublin University; at the age of 18 he graduated as a bachelor of laws; at the age of 19 he was returned to parliament; and at the age of 26 he became judge of the prerogative court.

For nearly half a century he occupied a seat in the Irish parliament: from 1692 to 1713 as a representative of the borough of Armagh, and from 1713 to his death, in 1739, as a representative of Dublin University; and during the last ten years of his life he held government office, first as a commissioner of the revenue, and afterwards as chancellor of the exchequer, with a seat in the privy council.

In politics he was a Tory and a supporter of the Irish interest, but owing to his judicial mind and breadth of view he was courted by men of all shades of opinion. His own aversion to the position was the only bar to his unanimous election to the speakership, nay even to the office of a lord justice, and his peculiar qualities were shown in a still more striking way by his counting bishops of both Irish and English birth amongst his friends; indeed, Primate Lindsay, a ritualist of an extreme type, is said to have been the only member of the episcopal bench by whom he was not loved. In some lines entitled ” A Wonderful Man ” his character is thus described

I sing a subject sung by no men,

A common man, and yet uncommon;

No lawyer, advocate, or proctor,

And yet he’s all, and is a doctor

Common to landsmen, and to seamen,

Common to churchmen, and to laymen;

The common and the sure resort,

Both of the country and the court,

Common to rich and poor, nay more, he

Is common both to Whig and Tory.

From his father Marmaduke Coghill had inherited a lease from the Corporation of the Clonturk lands, and erected on or near the site of the one occupied by Peter Bathe a house which was afterwards known as Drumcondra House, and is now incorporated in the buildings of All Hallows College. For many years its gardens were Coghill’s chief pleasure. Throughout his life he appears to have been a martyr to gout, to which his pursy frame must have made him an easy victim, and at times he was completely incapacitated by it from business.

Four years before his death lie speaks of losing the use of his limbs, and soon afterwards he made his will. In it he mentions, besides more important property, many personal belongings, his pictures, his coach and chariot, his gold snuff box and diamond rings, his gold case and stand from the East Indies, and his silver basin and ewer, with wash-ball, sponge, and powder boxes.

At that time the Strand, which stretched from the mouth of the Tolka to Clontarf was, especially in winter, the great resort of the fashionable world in Dublin, and there the leading people rode, drove, and walked. While riding “with his two servants, one before and the other behind him,” Swift had an altercation on this strand with Lord Blayney, who was driving a pair of “high mettled horses” in a chaise, and in a statement which he drew up Swift represented that it was the only place near Dublin where be could ride with comfort in winter. The number on foot, who made the strand “a place of parade,” was very great, and contemporary verses on the Liffey speak of visiting

The Strand to view the conquests you have won,

Where oft those eyes supply the absent sun.

It is difficult to picture the neighbourhood of the strand, so different is it to-day, but some idea of the thin population of the district may be gathered from the fact that in the winter of 1735 Ballybough Bridge was the scene of a conflict between smugglers and revenue officers, and 10 years later Drumcondra was the place chosen for the execution of four robbers, who were brought to the gallows directly after their sentence in the court of the king’s bench.

The only indication of industry was the existence of a bleach-green near Belvedere, which probably owed its origin to Marmaduke Coghill, and, as possibly an outcome of it, a factory for printing linen by copperplate was established at Drumcondra in the middle of the century. It was then visited by Mrs. Delany, who was much impressed by the work, and purchased chintz curtains with a design of boys climbing an oak-tree, after some celebrated artist, which was so beautifully executed as to resemble etching.

As occupant of Belvedere, Marmaduke Coghill was succeeded by one of the few great advocates of that time, Henry Singleton, then prime serjeant-at-law, and afterwards successively chief justice of the common pleas and master of the rolls. Unlike that of Coghill, the career of Singleton was in no way phenomenal, and with the public he was not too popular.

There’s Prime Serjeant Grand.

Who puts all to a stand,

With his jostle and shove to arise, sir,

He lays down the law,

With as haughty a paw,

As if he were judge of assize, sir.

But for many years before his elevation to the bench his reputation in his profession, in parliament, and in private life was very high, and had it not been for the fact that he was born in Ireland he would probably have attained to the woolsack.

He belonged to a family identified with Drogheda, of which he was recorder, and for more than 35 years a representative in parliament. In addition to being an Irishman he had the impediment to promotion of being a Tory, and it was not until the arrival of Lord Carteret as lord lieutenant that government favour began to shine on Singleton, who was then a man of middle age.

By Carteret the office of prime serjeant was conferred upon him. His appointment was, no doubt, chiefly due to his helping the government by a singularly able speech in a financial debate, but also in some degree to the fact that he was a great favourite with Carteret on account of his social qualities.

Two years before his death, in 1737, Marmaduke Coghill made a formal lease of Belvedere to Henry Singleton, who was then in occupation of the house. They were close friends, and when Henry Boyle, afterwards Earl of Shannon, was elected to the speaker’s chair, Coghill was active in support of Singleton, who was Boyle’s most dangerous rival, and took pains to refute the notion that he was proud and haughty.

Together with Belvedere, Coghill conveyed to Singleton a bowling green and premises known then as “John Fitzpatrick’s house and garden.” More than 10 years later, in 1750, Singleton was busy making additions to the house and alterations in the gardens. Mrs. Delany was called in to bless the, but did the reverse in private, and speaks of the absurd style of a new room, and the folly of uprooting full-grown elms and large evergreens to make room for twigs. She threw the blame on a conceited connoisseur, to whom Singleton had given full dominion, but she condescended to come to Singleton’s aid and to adorn a cave, containing “a cold bath,” with her shell work.

At that time Singleton was chief justice of the common pleas, a position to which public opinion had forced his appointment on a vacancy in the year 1740, notwithstanding his Irish birth; but a few years later, in 1754, he exchanged it for the mastership of the rolls, then a sinecure.’

Marmaduke Coghill had never married, having, according to popular report, frightened the fair sex by expressing the alarming opinion that a man was entitled to beat his wife in moderation, and on his death in 1789 Drumcondra House passed to an unmarried sister older than himself, who had resided with him. Afterwards Miss Mary Coghill distinguished herself by erecting the present parish church of Clonturk, and by placing in it a statue of her brother. The statue was the work of Peter Scheemakers, who executed many of the monuments of that period in Westminster Abbey, and represents Coghill seated, in the robes of a chancellor of the exchequer. On his right hand there is a figure of Minerva and on the left of Religion, and underneath them are the arms of the Coghill family and a long inscription.

[Marmaduke Coghill, eldest son of Sir John Coghill, of Coghill Hall, in the county of York, Knight, was born in Dublin on the 28th day of December, 1673; in 1687 he was admitted a fellow-commoner in Trinity College, Dublin; in 1691 he took his degree of doctor of civil law; in 1692 he was elected Representative for the borough of Armagh, and in every succeeding parliament was unanimously chosen to represent the University of Dublin; in 1699 he succeeded his father as judge of His Majesty’s Court of Prerogative; in 1729 he was sworn of His Majesty’s most honourable Privy Council, and appointed one of the Commissioners of His Majesty’s Revenue; in 1735 he was admitted to the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, and held that post till his death; in public life his great abilities and unwearied diligence, the calmness of his temper, and clearness of his judgment, his extensive knowledge of the canon and civil laws, and his inflexible regard to justice rendered him a most discerning and impartial judge; his experience of the true interest of his Prince and of his country, and his strict attention and invincible regard to both, qualified him equally to discharge his trust as a counsellor and servant of the Crown and as a representative of the subject; in private life he was a most zealous active friend, the patron of merit, the arbitrator amidst jarring interests and parties; his universal benevolence, endeared by the most engaging and affable behaviour, and associated with the greatest zeal and abilities, distinguished him in every scene and period of life as the friend of mankind, and caused his death to be justly lamented as a national loss; be died of the gout in his stomach on the 9th day of March, 1738/9, after a long and painful illness, which he supported with patience, fortitude, and resignation; Mary Coghill hath built this house for the worship of God, and erected this monument to the memory of so valuable a brother, whose body is laid in the vault belonging to his family in St. Andrew’s Church, Dublin.”]

As tenant of a house on Miss Coghill’s land, it is at that time interest to find one of Vanessa’s friends and legatees, William Lingen, who was an official in Dublin Castle.

The great event in connexion with the Drumcondra district in the middle of the 18th century was the erection on the south-eastern part of the Donnycarney lands of Marine House, famous as the residence of the first Earl of Charlemont, the hero of the volunteer movement in Grattan’s time. Prior to the year 1747, when his death occurred, Richard Warburton, a kinsman of the owner of Garryhinch and a member for the borough of Ballinakill, had resided in Donnycarney House, and subsequently Viscount Strangford, who has been noticed in Palmerstown, and William Netterville, who was a kinsman of Viscount Netterville and died in 1757, were living in or near it; but after the erection of Marino House and formation of its demesne, all other dwellings on the lands became insignificant.

The builder of Marino House was Lord Charlemont’s stepfather, Thomas Adderley, of Innishannon, in the valley of the Bandon, a man who in his day was constantly in the public eye as a politician and promoter of industrial enterprise. When telling of a visit which she paid in the spring of 1753 to a bachelor friend called Mount, who was living in “a little odd sort of dwelling” at Donnycarney, Mrs. Delany mentions that Adderley was building a house there, and praises the design and site. At that time it was evidently believed that the house was intended for his own occupation, but in the following year it appeared that it was to be a present to Lord Charlemont, who was then returning from abroad, where he had been for eight years.

Within three years of their marriage Adderley had lost his wife, who was one of the Bernards, his neighbours at Innishannon; but he transferred his love to his stepchildren, and devoted the best years of his life to the care of them and promotion of their interests.

At first sight Charlemont, then a young man of 26, fell in love with Marino, and formed the idea of making it a classic seat in Ireland. So far as the house was concerned, there was little to attract one accustomed to the palaces of the continent.

When built, it stood close to the high road, which was afterwards moved farther from it, and with the exception of a gallery over 70 feet in length, which had been designed for the display of great collections of articles of virtu that Charlemont had made, its apartments were of modest dimensions. But its situation overlooking Dublin Bay, then undisfigured by railways and harbour works, recalled, as Charlemont first saw it under a summer sun, Italian scenes, and seemed to him to afford a fit setting for imitations of the architectural achievements of that country.

Without a moment’s delay he wrote off to an agent in Rome to procure designs for a temple and entrance gates. The design for the temple was sought from the foremost architect, Luigi Vanvitelli, and the fees demanded by him made the agent pause.

Meantime Charlemont’s health gave way, and although expense would probably have had no deterrent effect upon him, the project had to be cast aside owing to his absence from Ireland. But notwithstanding his inability to give personal attention to its improvement, Marino was constantly in his mind, and while in London he caused large additions to be made to the demesne, and the gardens to be brought to such perfection as to provide a present of ten pine-apples for Mrs. Delany.

He had also correspondence about the house, which was apparently not completed, with his stepfather, who tried to curb his extravagance, and suggested that the original plan should be followed.

On his return to Ireland Charlemont lost no time in under-taking the erection of a temple in the grounds, but the classical style was relinquished for the gothic. This temple, which was being erected in 1762, and of which little trace remains, was an extensive and ornate building, containing a banqueting hall with a kitchen, and was remarkable for the beauty of its windows of painted glass and marble floor. In front of Rosamond’s Bower, as this temple was called, there was constructed a lake, on which in Charlemont’s time Carolina ducks were to be seen, and near which peacocks spread their tails and round it plantations, in which horticultural skill of the first order was displayed, were made.

After henry Singleton’s death, which occurred in 1759, Belvedere became the residence of the Lord Chancellor, Lord Bowes, who has been already mentioned at Kilmainham. It is a curious coincidence that he should have succeeded Singleton at Belvedere, as he had been one of his greatest rivals at the bar, and had attained to the position to which Singleton aspired.

He was in years much younger than Singleton, and in his standing at the Irish bar even more junior to him. But he had the advantage of English birth, as well as knowledge of English practice, before he came to this country, and was rapidly raised to office as third serjeant-at-law. His promotion to that position excited much jealousy, and in “A View of the Irish Bar,” which has been already quoted, he is thus mentioned:-

There’s Bowes a great beau

That here makes a show,

And thinks all about him are fools, sir

He winks and he speaks,

His brief and fee takes,

And quotes for it English rules, sir.

Although his talents would probably not have brought him to the woolsack without English birth, Bowes proved before long that be was a man of great ability, one of the most able, if not the most able, that practised at the Irish bar in the first half of the 18th century. While holding the office of solicitor-general, a position that he filled, with a seat in parliament for the borough of Taghmon, for nearly 10 years, he is said to have shone in the debates on the question of the gold coinage; and at the trial of the last Lord Santry his speech was a most remarkable oratorical effort. Of it Bishop Rundle wrote that he had ” never heard, never read, such a piece of eloquence,” and, coming from a member of the episcopal bench, this judgment is the more convincing, as Bowes was a critic rather than a friend of the bishops, and had supported a repeal of the test.

After a few years’ service as attorney-general, Bowes was raised to the bench as chief baron of the exchequer, a place which he occupied for 16 years, and from which he was promoted to the chancellorship, which he held for 10 years.

At Belvedere, Bowes is seen in the spring of 1762 entertaining the Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of Halifax, and in the winter of 1765 enjoying an abnormal bloom in his gardens. In letters to the learned Dr. Birch, whose researches still assist historical students, Bowes wrote as one who looked open residence in Ireland as punishment; and even when a judge he was occupied in devising means for the protection of the English interest. Both judicially and privately he appears as a determined opponent to Roman Catholic claims, and he avows regret that the key-words Protestant and Papist should have given place to court and country.

His acumen as a statesman has led Mr*. *Lecky to quote from some of his letters. In one of these he says that no state in Europe was then more flourishing than Ireland. To his gift. for friendship his will hears witness, the long list of legatees including all degrees of men, from an archbishop of Canterbury to a man-cook and porter, and of his love of the fine arts the same document contains also proof.

According to Mrs. Delany, who bore him no goodwill on account of his taking a view adverse to Delany in his litigation, Bowes was soon after his elevation to the woolsack in a state of health to unfit him for his duties, with his ankles swollen larger than the calves of his legs ; hut he was in sufficiently good health a few months before his death to cause her to view with apprehension the possibility of the litigation coming before him in a judicial capacity.

After the death of Marmaduke Coghill’s sister, which occurred in 1755, at the age of 88, Drumcondra House became the residence of Charles Moore, then second Lord Tullamore, and afterwards Earl of Charleville. His occupation of it was through his wife, who was a niece of Marmaduke Coghill, the only Surviving child of Marmaduke Coghill’s younger brother, Dr. James Coghill, who was registrar of his court, and who died before him.

To Charleville has been attributed the building of Drumcondra House; and it is possible that the classical front and a temple in the grounds may have been his work. He died in 1764, and his widow married as a second husband Major John Mayne, who assumed the name of Coghill, and was created a baronet.

According to Horace Walpole, the countess was more fit to be the major’s mother than his wife, and married him in romantic circumstances by moonlight in an arbour, possibly the temple at Drumcondra House, where one of the apartments was known as the major’s room.

About the middle of the 18th century residents in the parish began to increase in number, and the suburban districts of Richmond and Fairview developed. Early in the century, in the year 1718, a Jewish burying-ground had been made at Fairview, and later on, about 1748, Joseph Dioderici, maternal grandfather of Thomas Elrington, sometime provost of Trinity College and bishop of Ferns, came to live there.

In the spring of 1762 a new house, on rising ground, between Ballybough Bridge and Marino, was advertised to be let. This house, which had been occupied by a Mrs. Donnellan, had attached to it a large garden, which contained “all necessaries for the kitchen as well as for pleasure,” including two fish-ponds well stocked with trout, and “choice fields” with running water in them.

Five years later, in 1766, the parishioners comprised many persons of distinction. In a return of those made then there appear, besides Lord Bowes and Lord Charlemont, the Earl of Wandesford, Lord Longford, the Hon. Henry Loftus, afterwards Earl of Ely, who has been noticed under Rathfarnham, the Bishop of Meath, and Sir George Tuite**, **the seventh baronet of his line.2

But the most remarkable resident at that time was the patriot physician, Henry Lucas, then in the zenith of his strange career:-

Lucas, Hibernia’s friend, her love and pride,

Her powerful bulwark, and her skilful guide

Firm in the senate, steady to his trust,

Unmoved by fear, and obstinately just.

He occupied a house, now known as Croydon Park, and formerly as Pennyville, which it has been suggested was the one occupied by Mrs. Delany’s friend, and he had probably come there under the wing of Charlemont, who, in addition to being politically allied to him, consulted him as a physician.

At that time Charlemont revived his intention of adorning Marino with a representation of classical architecture, and carried it into effect by the erection of the casino, the glory of Marino, which remains a monument to his lofty ideals.

It was erected some distance to the north of Marino House, in an open plain, and was raised imperceptibly above the level of the ground by means of galleries of groined brickwork, extending for a long distance under the grass.

In its design it has been described as the perfection of architectural elegance. It rests on an expansive base, with a sculptural lion at each angle. On the north and south there are wide steps leading to the entrances, and on the east and west there are areas enclosed by balustrades. The casino consists of a central building and two wings, and is said to be an imitation of Sicilian Done.

On each side there is a portico, finished to the north and south by an attic story over the central building, and to the east and west by a pediment and balustrade over the wings. In front of the attic story, over an entablature, there are to the north statues of Ceres and Bacchus, and to the south statues of Venus and Apollo; and above the attic story there is at each end a vase which conceals the opening of a chimney fine.

The casino contains, on the ground-floor, in the central part, a vestibule and saloon; in the eastern wing a room variously described as a dining-room and bedroom; and in the western wing a study and a staircase.

In the basement there are, to the north, a scullery, kitchen, and pantry; to the south, an ale-cellar, servants’ hall, and wine-cellar to the east, a butler’s pantry, and to the west, the staircase. The doors on the principal floor are mahogany and cedar; and in one of the side rooms there is a ceiling representing the sky, the paint for which was so delicate that it was feared it would not retain the proper colour while being brought to Dublin from London.

What amount Charlemont spent on the casino is unknown. In a memoir which he wrote he refers to the expenditure at Marino as being of a character to affect for all time his estates ; and when the casino was being built it is said that the workmen estimated the value of a single stone when sculptured at that of a townland.

The architect was Sir William Chambers, who says that the design had been elaborated by him in connexion with projected buildings for Lord Harewood and the Dowager Queen of Sweden, and with him there were associated Joseph Wilton, the sculptor of Wolfe’s monument in Westminster Abbey, and Giovanni Battista Cipriani, many of whose drawings have been preserved by Bartolozzi. For the actual work of erection an Italian sculptor, Simon Verpyle, whom Charlemont had brought with him from Italy, was employed.

While the casino was being built Marine House was embellished with stucco-work and costly mantel-pieces, and the entrance gates, which excited the admiration of George the Fourth when driving from Howth, were erected from a design by Cipriani. As well as renown, his activities at Marine brought to Charlemont married happiness, as he met then as a neighbour at Clontarf Miss Hickman, whom in 1768 he made his wife. Before 1772 the principal works at Marine were completed, and the author of the “Phoenix Park” was able to call the traveller to

Behold Marino elegantly graced,

With every touch of novelty and taste,

Where Charlemont, with** **liberal hand and heart,

Joins British majesty to art.

After the death of Lord Bowes, in 1767, Belvedere was purchased from his representatives by John Leigh, a barrister, and was occupied for a time by Lord Bowes’s successor on the woolsack, Lord Lifford, who has been noticed under Stillorgan, where he resided in the close of his life. From Leigh, Belvedere was purchased by the great Richard Robinson, Primate of Ireland and Baron** **Rokeby of Armagh.

In the 19th century it was the residence of more than one member of the Coghill family, and passed from them to the trustees of St. Patrick’s College.

Tourists in the closing years of the eighteenth century dwell on the rural beauty of the approaches to Marino, especially Summer Hill**; **and the isolation of Marino from the life of Dublin is evident from the fact that Charlemont was robbed while walking in his grounds no less than three times-in 1774, in 1787, and in 1790 - and that lead to a weight of 1500 pounds was in 1789 carried off by robbers from the roof of the casino or the temple.

Charlemont was not the only one who suffered from such outrages. In 1779 a fellow of Trinity College was knocked off his horse and robbed by “pinking dinders” near Marino; and in 1787 turnpike gates, which then stood near to it, were carried away.

To a house on the site of Drumcondra Castle there came as a resident, about the year 1780, Sir Edward Newenham, one of the members of the county of Dublin, and a most prominent public man. He succeeded there his aunt, Mrs. O’Callaghan, a lady of great wealth, who had died in the year 1779; and afterwards the house had a number of owners before it passed to the trustees of St. Joseph’s Asylum for the Blind.

About the year 1773 Drumcondra House was leased by the Countess of Charleville to Alexander Kirkpatrick, a leading Dublin citizen, and in the 19th century it had as one of its occupants Lord Edward FitzGerald’s son-in-law, Sir Guy Campbell; and afterwards passed to the trustees of All Hallows College.

Amongst other houses prominent in the close of the 18th century and opening of the 19th century there may be mentioned High Park, the residence of Thomas Ball; a master in chancery; Hartfield, and Sion Hill.

About the year 1790 Drumcondra became celebrated for its tea-houses, and their frequenters were probably very familiar with the subject of the verses entitled “The Glass of Whiskey”

At the side of the road, near the bridge of Drumcondra,

Was Murrough O’Monaghan stationed to beg

He brought from the wars as his share of the plunder,

A crack on the crown and the loss of a leg.

During the opening years of the 19th century Drumcondra continued to be a place of popular resort. In 1812 a famous aeronaut made an ascent from Belvedere; and in 1869 a dancing master called Duval tried to exploit a well for its alleged medicinal qualities, and make the grounds of a house near the church into a second Vauxhall. But the amenity of the Ballybough neighbourhood was encroached upon in the eighteenth century by the erection of iron works, which were succeeded by glass works, and it was entirely dissipated in the nineteenth century by the erection of vitriol works. **

Ecclesiastical History**

The church of Clonturk, which is dedicated to St. John the Baptist, is a building of the 18th century, but occupies the site of an older one. In its churchyard lie the remains of Francis Grose, the author of “The Antiquities of Ireland,” and the remains of other notable persons.

The Donnycarney lands are believed to have been the site of one of the churches whose foundation is attributed to St. Patrick, known as Domhnach-aithir-Eamhna, where in the 11th century an Archbishop of Armagh was brought to be anointed before his death; but of the church of Clonturk there is no mention until Anglo-Norman times. It appears then as a possession of the Priory of All Saints, and at the close of the 13th century was returned as not sufficiently valuable to maintain a chaplain. After the dissolution of the priory, a small church dedicated to St. Margaret is mentioned and of it, in 1639, John Allen, and, in 1646, Laurence Wogan appear as incumbents.

During the Commonwealth the vicar of Santry, Henry Brereton, petitioned** **the Corporation of Dublin, as owners of the Clonturk lands, to nominate him to the cure, and mentioned that he was at that time, 1651, preaching at Clonturk every Lord’s day.

After the Restoration there appears to have been a church in good repair, and to it on the nomination of Sir John Coghill there was appointed in 1685 Michael Clenaghan; in 1687, Adam Nixon, and in 1697, Joseph Espin.

About the year 1721, as the control of interments was vested in Marmaduke Coghill, there would appear to have been an interregnum; but from that time we find a continuous success of incumbents, beginning with Henry Hamilton, to whom succeeded in 1733 Edward Hudson; in 1740, Robert Johnson (in whose time, on July 10, 1733, the present church was consecrated); in 1748, James Edkins; in 1781, Charles O’Neill; in 1789, Jacob Cramer; in 1816, William Barlow; in 1826, James Duncan Long; in 1864, Benjamin H. Johnson; and in 1871, Henry Charleton, who held the church until 1896, when it was united to the North Strand Church.

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