The Parish of Glasnevin

The Parish of Glasnevin.

(Or Naeidhe’s Streamlet.)

Tun parish of Glasnevin is stated in the seventeenth century to have contained the following townlands:- Clonmel, Draycott’s farm, Forster’s farm, Gough’s farm, Seven farms, and Wickham’s or Wycomb’s farm.

It contains now the townlands of Ballygall (i.e., the town of the foreigner), Bankfarm, Botanic Gardens, Claremont, Clonmel (i.e., the meadow of honey), Crossguns, Glasnevin, Glasnevin Demesne, Hampstead Hill, Hampstead North and South, Prospect, Slutsend (or the slough’s end), Tolkapark, Violethill Great and Little, Wad, and Walnutgrove. **

Glasnevin**

No name in Dublin county is more familiar than that of Glasnevin parish, which is situated to the east and south of the parish of Finglas. In the life of to-day it denotes the situation of the cemetery in which the remains of O’Connell lie, as well as that of the Botanic Gardens, and in connexion with the past it recalls an episode in the life of St. Columba, and a meeting-place of Swift and his friends. **

From Ancient To Modern Times**

Like the parish of Finglas, the parish of Glasnevin is crossed by the river Tolka, and its name is first mentioned in connexion with the establishment of a Celtic seat of learning on the bank of that river where the village of Glasnevin now stands. The foundation of this seat of learning, which is attributed to St. Mobhi, preceded that of Finglas Abbey, and the patron of Finglas, St. Canice, was one of the earliest of the Glasnevin students.

At the same time St. Columba was studying there, and according to an ancient legend, in response to a prayer made by him, the cells of the students, which were on the southern side of the Tolka, were transferred to the northern side of the river, where St. Mobhi’s church stood. “Boldly comest thou here to-night, O descendant of Niall! ” exclaimed St. Mobhi to St. Columba on his fording the river to attend nocturn one winter’s evening. “God is able to take the hardship from us,” exclaimed in his turn St. Columba, with such faith, that when service was over the cells were found to have been moved across the river to a site near the church.

As appears from the obits of other holy men connected with Glasnevin, the abbey founded by St. Mobhi existed for many generations after his time, and the special veneration paid to it as the place of St. Mobhi’s sepulture is shown in a resolution of Colman, son of Luachan, to sleep upon St. Mobhi’s tomb, and to offer prayer near it three times.

When the Anglo-Norman settlement took place, the lands of Glasnevin, together with the church, appear as the property of the Priory of the Holy Trinity, which owed its possession of them to the Archbishop of Dublin, to whom they had fallen in common with the lands of the other religious houses of Celtic foundation in his diocese.

In the early part of the 13th century Glasnevin gave its name to a family, one of whose members, William of Glasnevin, granted in 1230, with his wife, Juliana, lands at Kinsaly to the Priory of the Holy Trinity and at the close of that century Glasnevin is described as a grange, value in regard to both spiritualities and temporalities for seven marks.

At the opening of the 14th century, in 1306, the possessions of the Priory of the Holy Trinity at Glasnevin appear as constituting a manor, and are said to have comprised three carucates of land, which were valued with the tithes at £24. A great portion of the lands was farmed by the priory, and the tenants, to whom the remainder was let, were under the usual obligation to assist the priory in ploughing, hoeing, haymaking, reaping, and carrying the corn.

In 1326 the tenants numbered 28, and included John do Barry, William Bodenham, Geoffrey Finch, and Salmon by the Water, besides others distinguished by their occupations - Sir David the chaplain, Nicholas the clerk, Hugh the smith, Yvor the turner, and Maurice the driver.

As the accounts of the priory show, in the four opening months of the year 1338 the prior visited Glasnevin on an average once every fortnight. Except on one occasion, his visits were on week-days, and, as a rule, he cannot have spent the night, for, except on Easter Monday and Tuesday, and the following Tuesday and Wednesday, he was not there on two consecutive days.

For the prior’s entertainment the chamberlain provided chiefly produce from the farm, but he supplemented it by the purchase on one day of a fowl, on another day of bread, and on a third day of rice and almonds, which were used to make a pottage “that does restore and comfort nature.”

On two days, as a special delicacy, oysters were obtained, and on three days ale and on six days wine were bought. Six years later there is recorded the purchase for the prior’s breakfast of a capon, fine bread, white salt, and wine.

In the latter year, 1344, the church and manorial residence at Glasnevin underwent restoration. In connexion with the church the items of expenditure include iron bars, nails, and hooks for two windows, which were made by Brother John Dolphin, with the assistance of masons, and eighteen images for a shrine, which was made by Brother John Savage, while for the hall of the manorial residence an iron window-frame was fashioned, and for the prior’s chamber a lock and key and straw chairs and stools were provided.

In addition the purchase for use at Glasnevin of a censer, of a tanned horse-skin, and a hammer to break stones, is recorded.

At that time the priory’s staff at Glasnevin consisted of a bailiff, a sergeant or foreman, a carter, six ploughmen, a shepherd, a doorkeeper, and a housemaid, and during harvest, in addition, two superintendents of higher rank were employed.

In the priory’s accounts there is also mention in connexion with** **Glasnevin of the seneschal and his clerk coming to make a new rental, of tithe corn being removed from the churchyard to the granary, of sheep being sent to Kill of the Grange and corn received from that manor, and of expenditure on mowing and harvesting, on repairing walls and gates, and on purchasing ploughs and carts and horses.

During the next century leases begin to afford information as to the village and manor lands. In 1454 an indenture provided for the maintenance of a house with six couples or rafters; in 1473 an agreement was made for the erection of a dove-cote near this house; and in 1475 a lease of the Clonmel lands provided for the building upon them of a house of seven couples, which was to have walls of mud, a roof of thatch, and a fence with a gate of oak.

At that period wills also throw light on local conditions. Although a citizen of Dublin, Nicholas Barrett, who died in 1474, recognized that Glasnevin church had claims on him, inasmuch as he held “the great meadow near the Tolka”; and two wives of Geoffrey Fox, who died respectively in 1473 and 1476, show that they owned jointly with their husband at Glasnevin much farm-stock as well as other possessions, which included in the case of the first wife, Janet Cristore, household stuff and utensils, and in the case of the second wife, Agnes Lawless, a maser, six silver spoons, and linen cloth, as well as a great store of bacon.

In the 16th century, the leases of the Glasnevin lands increase rapidly in number. A bull-ring appears in 1542 as the principal landmark in the village, and a tailor and shoemaker are mentioned amongst the villagers. Provision for cutting and re-planting ash trees, the timber then used for making carts and cart-wheels, are frequent in leases of the lands towards the close of that century, and - on one occasion there is a covenant for the keep of a horse and a boy for a day at Christmas, and on another occasion for the keep of two horses and a boy for two days and two nights at that season, which were probably inserted for the convenience of the dignitaries of Christ Church Cathedral, who held the rectory.

Amongst the leases there appear the demise in 1542 of the manor to Alderman Thomas Stephens, Alson FitzSimon, his wire, and Oliver Stephens; in 1554 of the lord’s meadow to the owner of Drumcondra, James Bathe ; in 1573 of the Clonmel farms to his son, John Bathe in 1559 of Braghall’s farm to John Quartermas, a cleric, who was succeeded in 1594 by Alderman John Forster; in 1572 of the Seven farms to Thomas Lockwood, another cleric, and Richard Fagan; in 1594 of Draycott’s farm to Arland Ussher, and of houses and void places in the village to various persons.

At the beginning of the 17th century Glasnevin was the residence of a member of a family with a good position in the Pale, Nicholas Wycombe, who was married to a niece of Sir John Plunkett, of Dunsoghly. On his death, in 1610, he was succeeded there by his son, John Wycombe, who married a daughter of James Preston, of Ballymadun, a member of Lord Gormanston’s family.

He was licensed in 1613 with one of the Ussher family to keep taverns in Dublin, and died in 1624 at Glasnevin.

After the rebellion, in February, 1642, a force of the insurgents, numbering 1,000 horse and foot, under the command of Colonels Hugh Byrne and Lisagh Moore, lay at Glasnevin, and descended one night on Oxmantown, from which they retired without injuring the inhabitants or even awakening them.

From the Commonwealth surveys it appears that the owners of Drumcondra had acquired a fee-farm interest in Clonmel and the other lands leased to them in the previous century, and that the remaining lands in the parish were held from Christ Church by Alderman Daniel Hutchinson, under the denominations of Draycott’s farm, Wycombe’s farm, Gough’s farm, Forster’s farm, and the Seven farms.

After the Restoration, in 1664, the householders of the parish are returned as numbering 10, their houses being rated for only one chimney each; but in 1667 the householders are stated to have increased to 24, and three houses were rated for two hearths and an oven each, and three for two hearths each. For the former three Alderman Hutchinson was rated, but in the case of the latter three William Cooper, John Griffin, and John Allen are returned as the occupants. **

In the Time of Swift **

At the beginning of the 18th century, the principal residence at Glasnevin was one on the northern side of the road through the village, which has since become celebrated under the name of Delville. It was then known as the Glen, and was described as a stone house, with good offices in repair, surrounded by a garden and orchard. Its occupant was Dorothy Berkeley, who was the widow of Maurice Berkeley, and a daughter of Major Joseph Deane, of Crumlin, and it was held by her from James the Second, who had acquired an interest under Christ Church Cathedral in the Glasnevin lands.

But a few years later a leading Dublin citizen of th at time, Sir John Rogerson, who had purchased James the Second’s interest, converted a house which stood on the southern side of the road through the village, into a country residence for himself. It is said to have had a large court surrounded by a stone wall, as well as a garden, attached to it, and it became afterwards known as Glasnevin House.

Sir John Rogerson, to whom Dublin owes one of its quays, was a man of great enterprise, and as a merchant and shipowner amassed much wealth, which he invested in the purchase of property in Dublin and its neighbourhood.

During the reign of William the Third he represented Dublin in the Irish Parliament, in which he had previously sat for Clogher, and he filled the office of lord mayor, on his election to which he was knighted. In London he was also well known, and was a brother-in-law of Sir John Ward, who was lord mayor of London early in the reign of George the First.

After a distinguished legal and political career, Sir John Rogerson’s eldest son was raised to the judicial bench as chief justice of the king’s bench, and through him Sir John Rogerson became an ancestor in a female line of the Earls of Erne.

When Sir John Rogerson came to Glasnevin, the church was in ruin, and the village is said by Archbishop Ring to have been a harbour for dishonesty and immorality; but before Sir John Rogerson had been many years in possession of Glasnevin House, a new church was erected, and before the time of his death, in 1724, a number of good houses had been built in the village.

According to Archbishop King, it was then one of the most thriving villages near Dublin, and in a quarter of a century its value had doubled or trebled. During the early years of Sir John Rogerson’s residence, the Glen, or some other house at Glasnevin, was occupied by the prothonotary of the common pleas, Charles Ryves, whose father had been a baron of the court of exchequer, and when the church was built he filled with Sir John Rogerson the office of churchwarden.

It was not until the close of the second decade of the 18th century that a link was forged in the chain that connects Glasnevin with the writers of the Augustan age. The link was the execution on May Day, 1719, of a deed, by which Mrs. Berkeley leased Glen to Dr. Richard Helsham and the Rev. Patrick Delany, who were described in the deed as fellows of Trinity College, Dublin.

To-day their names would he placed in the reverse order. Delany has gained immortality as one of Swift’s biographers, and the husband of a talented favourite of society, while Helsham has hardly escaped oblivion, and that only through being Delany’s friend. But of the two, Helsham was the man of higher calibre, and, apart from his being five years Delany’s senior; was entitled to the first place.

In college, where he held his fellowship by virtue of medical knowledge, he was appointed to the chairs of mathematics, natural and experimental philosophy, and physic, and outside college he enjoyed as a physician a large practice amongst persons of light and leading; while, on the other hand, Delany s merits were recognized in college by his appointment to the chair of history and oratory, then little valued, and outside college by preferment to cathedral dignities.

Helsham, who had an advantage over Delany in being born to an assured position, acted probably the part of the rich friend in joining in the lease of the Glen, and appears to have soon relinquished whatever connexion he may have had with it.

But the joint-tenancy lasted sufficiently long to allow Swift an opportunity of exercising his power of verbal manipulation in using the first syllables of the tenants’ names to confer on the Glen the designation of Heldeville, which was soon changed to its diminutive Delville, either, as has been suggested, to avoid inconvenient associations, or to suit the changed conditions when Helsham’s interest terminated.

Throughout his life Delany displayed an ambition of making a figure in the world, and in order to do so he lived in a style that his means did not justify. At Delville he sought to gain the reputation of an improver, and for many years he indulged there in reckless outlay.

The house, which had been occupied by Mrs. Berkeley, was levelled with the ground, and another was designed without any regard to the dimensions of his purse, while the few acres of land were made the subject of an attempt to show how “the obdurate and straight line of the Dutch might he softened into a curve, the terrace melted into a swelling bank, and the walks opened to catch the vicinal country.”’ In “An Epistle upon an Epistle” his follies are thus recounted:-

But you, forsooth, your all must squander

On that poor spot, call’d Dell-ville, yonder;

And when you’ve been at vast expenses

In whims, parterres, canals and fences,

Your assets fail, and cash is wanting;

Nor farther buildings, farther planting;

No wonder when you raise and level,

Think this wall low, and that wall bevel.

Here a convenient box you found,

Which you demolish’d to the ground;

Then built, then took up with your arbour,

And set the house to Rupert Barber.

 

It is evident from other contemporary verses that the walls of Delville did not bound Delany’s extravagance. These verses refer to an inundation, probably from the Tolka, which terrified the country people, and tore up the roads, and tell of Delany’s skill in diverting the flood. In concluding, the poet thus sings Delany’s praises

The labourers all Rejoice at his call,

And readily work wet or dry-a.

So well he does pay,

And treat them each day,

With bread and meat, ale and brandy-a.

So public a spirit,

But few do inherit,

For generous actions renowned;

A friend to the nation

Deserves commendation;

Let him with a mitre be crowned.

Although in receipt of a larger income than most Trinity College fellows of his day, Delany was, according to his own account in 1725, “without one farthing in the world,” and in order to supplement his income from the college, he sought a dispensation from the Crown to enable him to hold with his fellowship the prebend of St. John in Christ Church Cathedral, which had been offered to him. As the dispensation involved release from an oath, many persons thought it ought neither to be sought nor granted, and, on its being refused, Delany was consumed with anxiety lest his character might suffer, and considered it necessary to draw up an elaborate argument to show that such an application was justifiable.

But the refusal had nothing to do with such matters, and was due to the fact that Delany was reputed to be an ardent Tory? At the close of the reign of Queen Anne, when he acted as chaplain to Lord Chancellor Phipps, to whom Toryism was as the breath of his nostrils, he is said to have indited a pamphlet that was ordered to be burned by the first Hanoverian parliament;** **and at the time he sought the dispensation ho was identified with the Tory side in the college, and had his warmest friends in that party.

To Delville, in spite of the politics of its owner, Lord Carteret, who was then lord lieutenant, became soon after a visitor. This honour Delany owed to Swift, to whom he was more indebted than lie ever cared to acknowledge; and because Carteret did not at once confer ecclesiastical office on Delany, Swift fell “all to pieces” with him.

In the summer of 1727 Delany was brought by Swift under the notice of George the Second’s court, and subsequently he visited London, where he lost no opportunity of using Swift’s introductions to gain further interest.

At the opening of the next year, 1728, he was given by Carteret the chancellorship of Christ Church Cathedral, and at the same time he was presented to the college living of Derryvullen in county Fermanagh.

But in little more than a year, finding that these preferments did not compensate for the loss of his fellowship, which he was obliged to resign, he made use of his poetical gifts to solicit from Carteret further favours

My lord, I’d wish to pay the debts I owe-

I’d wish besides - to build and to bestow;

and as an immediate response the prebend of Donaghmore in St. Patrick’s Cathedral was added to his other offices, and six months later the more lucrative dignity of chancellor of that cathedral was given to him instead of the prebend.

But at that time advancement in the Church was not Delany’s only hope of increasing his means; and a widow with a handsome fortune was being sedulously courted by him:-

Yet still you fancy you inherit

A fund of such superior merit,

That you can’t fail of more provision,

All by my lady’s kind decision.

For more than four years she kept Delany in suspense, but in the summer of 1732 success crowned his suit, and his marriage to his first wife, Margaret, daughter of William Barton, and widow of Richard Tenison, of Thomastown, in county Louth, took place. It was the signal for further expenditure.

A house in Dublin was considered a necessity, and one was secured in Stafford Street, where Delany’s “Thursday club,” in which Swift predominated, became an institution. In Delany Swift had then a greater penchant than ever, and by making himself one of the party he persuaded Carteret’s successor, the first Duke of Dorset, in the spring of 1734, to honour Delany by dining at Delville.

In the following winter Delany was residing there constantly, and had given up his Dublin house. At this change Swift was much discomposed. Although he had held out the attractions of Delville to Pope as an inducement to visit Ireland, he found then that its bedroom accommodation was but scanty, and when, as a result of his chiding, an adjoining house was taken by Delany to provide more rooms, he discovered that Delville was neither town nor country, a hobbledehoy, as his old enemy the Duchess of Somerset called Sion House, too near to spend the night, and too far to pay a call in bad weather.

At Delville, Delany became for the next five years a recluse engrossed in communicating to the public his views on various theological questions, including the lawfulness of eating blood, the procreation of man after the Flood, and the advantage of a plurality of wives. In 1732 he had published the first volume of his “Revelation examined with Candour.” Even Swift had to admit that it was a book “not to be read,” but he refrained from discussing with Delany the singularities of his opinions.

In 1784 a second volume of his “Revelation examined with Candour” appeared, and it was followed in 1738 by his “Reflections on Polygamy,” and in 1740 by his “Life of David,” for whose sins he was an apologist.

Turning now from Delany to other residents in Glasnevin during the first 20 years of his residence, reference must be made to Rupert Barber, who is mentioned in Swift’s lines as at one time occupying Delville. He was a woollen draper in Dublin, the husband of a lady whom Delany befriended and Swift belauded as a poetess.

Their connexion with Delany is not known, but Rupert Barber seems to have been a party to whatever arrangement was made between Helsham and Delany as to taking Delville. In the lease to them he appears as a witness; and on the day after its execution he became tenant to them of the garden then “walled with lime and stone.”

In his business he was not successful. He failed to carry out satisfactorily a contract to supply the Duke of Dorset’s liveries, which he had obtained through his wife’s influence, and soon after he was on the look-out for employment in London, and was recommended by Swift as an upright, honest man of English birth.

Until her death, in 1728, Mrs. Berkeley resided in the house, which at Swift’s bidding Delany took as an adjunct to Delville, and, after her death, before Delany became tenant, it was leased for some years by her son-in-law, Job Charlton, to one George Banister.

Amongst the other Glasnevin residents there appear in Mrs. Berkeley’s time, Isaac Ambrose, who was sometime a clerk of the House of Commons, and John Davis, who joined Delany and others in presenting plate to the church; and later on a barrister called Hewetson, who died in 1736 at Hampstead; a daughter of Colonel Matthew Pennefather, who was a favourite of the Duchess of Marlborough; and John Lyndon, whose father had been a member of the Irish judiciary.

But, besides these neighbours, Delany had for four years Thomas Tickell, the friend of Addison, who in 1736 became tenant of a residence that is now comprised in the Botanic Gardens, and had been previous to his occupation known as “Teeling’s tenement.” Tickell had then held for 12 years the office of secretary in Dublin Castle, and he had been for 10 years married to a grand-niece of Lord Chancellor Eustace, a lady with a large fortune, whom Swift was wont to supply with fruit from Naboth’s vineyard, and had designated in her early days “the brat.”

With Delany and Tickell as residents it was predicted that Glasnevin would cause the press to groan, but Tickell’s literary labours there were cut short by his death in 1740 at the age of 54.

Shortly after Tickell obtained possession of ” Teeling’s tenement,” in the summer of 1736, Delany’s rival as Swift’s biographer, John Boyle, fifth Earl of Orrery, occupied it for a month while Tickell took his son to Scotland to drink the Moffat waters.

Orrery was greatly pleased with the neighbourhood, solitude being then one of its charms. Although so far as situation was concerned lie considered Tickell’s house could not be surpassed, he believed that in regard to accommodation it would prove insufficient to hold Tickell’s books and children. In the eyes of John O’Keeffe the house was a very fine one but as he imagined that he had seen in it Tickell, who died before he was born, his judgment may be disregarded.

[A tablet in Glasnevin Church hears this inscription:-” Sacred to the memory of Thomas Tickell, Esq,, who was born in 1686 at Bridekirk, in Cumberland; he married in 1726 Clotilda Eustace; died in 1740 at Bath, and was buried in this churchyard; he was for some time under secretary in England, and afterwards for many years secretary to the lords justices in Ireland, but his highest honour was that of having been the friend of Addison; the said Clotilda Eustace was the daughter and one of the co-heiresses of Sir Maurice Eustace, of Harristown, in the Comity of Kildare; she died in July, 1792, in the 92nd year of her age, and was buried in this churchyard.”]

Tickell’s interest in the house was derived from Sir John Rogerson’ s successor, John Putland, who was living at Glasnevin in 1748, while acting as sheriff of Dublin county. Putland’s connexion with Glasnevin was due to Dr. Helsham, who, as a great friend of his father, had known him from childhood. While Putland was at the school kept by Swift’s friend, Thomas Sheridan, Helsham had made use of him to play a trick on Sheridan by inducing him to recite on a public occasion a poem written by Helsham instead of one composed by his master; and in the closing years of his life, when Heisham stood to Putland in the relation of step-father, be had arranged the transfer to him of an interest in the Glasnevin lands acquired by a son of the first Viscount Mountjoy, to whom Helsham was executor.

At the same time as Tickell, James Belcher, a member of a family that supplied more than one governor to the American colonies, appears as a resident at Glasnevin. He held the offices of pursuivant of arms and supervisor of the king’s printing press in Ireland, and probably owed them to Tickell, as in his will, which was made a few years before his death in 1761, he desired that his body should be buried near that of Tickell. He is mentioned as a devoted admirer of the poets, and tried to represent figuratively Apollo and the muses in the design of his plantations?

At Delville, to which this history now returns, an event occurred in the winter of 1741 that made a great change in the life of Delany - the death of his first wife, who appears to have never enjoyed good health. She had several children by her first husband, Richard Tenison, including a daughter who married Robert Rochfort, afterwards Earl of Belvidere; but she was survived by only one child, an unmarried daughter of 18 years of age.

In his first wife Delany said that he lost a friend that was as his own soul; but he has left no clue to the terms on which he lived with his step-daughter. On the morning after his first wife’s funeral he committed an act of extraordinary folly in burning his marriage settlement (that it was done in the belief that the settlement was useless can hardly be doubted in view of Delany’s repeated affirmations), and to this act he made his step-daughter, who had found the settlement in a sealed envelope amongst her mother’s papers, a party.

Whether she saw reason to resent his conduct on that or any other occasion is not certain ; but in a will which she made four months later she does not name him, and mentions those with whom he was afterwards engaged in litigation in terms of affection?

At the opening of the year 1743 the death of Delany’s step-daughter was announced, coupled with a statement that her estate of £2,000 a year devolved to Delany for his life, and three months later Delany was on the road to London to propose for his second wife, the famous Mary Granville, grand-niece of the first Earl of Bath, and niece of Baron Lansdown, of the Granville family. As a girl she had been married to a Cornish gentleman called Pendarves, but she had been for nearly 20 years a widow.

Through Irish friends she had made the acquaintance in London of Delany and his first wife before their marriage, and she had been in Dublin on a visit during the first years of their married life, and had seen much of them. Within 12 months from the death of his first wife Delany had been by gossip-mongers married to his second; within 16 months he had proposed for her; and within 18 months, in the beginning of June, 1743, he was married to her.

At the time of their marriage Delany was in his 59th year, and Mrs. Delany in her 44th year. In his eyes she was “fair as the moon, clear as the sun, but terrible as an army with banners”; and in her eyes his qualities of mind were only surpassed by his qualities of heart.

After their marriage every effort was made by Mrs. Delany to impress her friends with a sense of Delany’s fitness for a seat on the Irish episcopal bench ; and before they left London, where they remained for a year, the honour of preaching before the king was granted to him, and the dignity of Dean of Down conferred upon him, with a promise which was never fulfilled of a bishopric in the future.

When Mrs. Delany arrived at Delville as its mistress in the summer of 1744, she was in ecstasy with it. Never was seen a sweeter dwelling or a more delightful place. She described the house and grounds much as they are to-day.

The house stood, she wrote to her sister, on rising ground, and was approached through a court round which a coach and six could be driven. The front was two stories high, with five windows across the top story; and in the centre of the lower story there was the hall-door, which was approached by six steps, and provided with a portico.

On entering the hall, which was furnished with a handsome ceiling and Doric entablature, there were, on the right, “the eating parlour,” with a bow-window; and on the left, a room designed for a chapel.

From the hall a stone staircase, well finished with stucco, led to the upper story, where there were the drawing-room, in which tapestry, crimson mohair chair-covers, and looking-glasses were conspicuous, and two bed-rooms.

Behind these principal rooms there were others on the ground-floor, a second hall, breakfast parlour, and bed-room, and above it, Delany’s library, and Mrs. Delany’s boudoir, her English room, as she called it, and some more bed-rooms.

The grounds she describes as being chiefly laid out in paddocks, planted, “in a wild way,” with trees and bushes. A stream flowed through them, and an attempt was made to convey an impression of park-like extent by stocking them with deer.

Behind the house there was a bowling-green, which sloped down to the stream, and to the left of it there was a terrace-walk with a parterre surrounded by elm trees and flowering shrubs. Thence, another walk led to a temple, which was afterwards celebrated for containing a portrait of Stella, and bearing an inscription ascribed to Swift, “fastigia despicit urbis,” but of which Mrs. Delany gives no further particulars than that it was “prettily painted within and neatly finished without.”

On the left of the walk, leading to the temple, there was a representation of a ruined castle with a vault beneath; and in various parts of the grounds, which were encompassed by terrace-walks and banks of evergreens, there were shady seats, especially one known as the “beggar’s hut,” and another which just held her and her husband overlooking “the purling rill.

The marriage of the high-born Mary Granville to Delany was not viewed with favour by her family, and a promise was exacted that every third year should be spent by them in England. This promise was not forgotten, and of the 25 years of their married life, no more than fourteen and a half were spent in Ireland.

In this country the embellishment of Delville was one of Mrs. Delany’s chief occupations, and on the ceilings of some of the rooms stucco work which she made with her own hands is still to be seen.

In the autumn of 1747 she mentions that an addition had been built to Delany’s library, and, although only 12 feet square, room was found in it for two windows, a mock one of looking-glass, and pilasters.

Again, in the autumn of 1750, while Delany was occupied in thinning his trees, she says that she was busy having her dressing-room hung with dove paper, and preparing closets for painting and carving and holding her collections of fossils, minerals, and drawings.

But her chief effort was not made until 1759, when the chapel was finished, and her bedroom supplied with new window-sashes made “in the narrow way,” and glazed with glass procured specially from England. The decoration of the chapel was largely the work of her own hands. The ceiling and four gothic arches in the chancel were covered with imitation stucco made of cards and shells, and round the principal window, which had a star of looking-glass in the centre, she placed a wreath of vine and oak branches entwined, with grapes and corn intermingled, the branches being made of cards, and the grapes of nuts and periwinkles, while the corn was real corn painted. For the seats she provided covers, which she worked without any pattern in chenille, the design being borders of oak branches, with roses of every colour except yellow, on a back-ground of black, “to give a sense of gravity.”

On some of the Delville herd of deer Mrs. Delany conferred the names of her relations and closest friends, and these favourites were to enjoy life for the natural term, but the remainder of the herd, which numbered some 18 head, provided “as fine venison for fat and taste as could be eaten.”

To marauders the herd was a strong temptation. On one occasion a man was caught pursuing them with dogs, and on another occasion several men appeared “in the park” with guns, and fired on the servants, one of whom was dangerously wounded. Besides the deer, Mrs. Delany refers to wild ducks and pheasants being preserved in the grounds.

At Delville, in Mrs. Delany’s time, the hospitality was unceasing. It was one of the first houses visited by Lord Chesterfield when in Ireland as viceroy, and it was also the last. On the first occasion, in the autumn of 1745, he came to breakfast, the house being “as spruce as a cabinet of curiosities,” and was accompanied by Lady Chesterfield; and on the second occasion, in the spring of 1746, he came at 24 hours’ notice to dinner, and said he had reserved Delville as a bonne-bouche before leaving.

While the Delanys were in England, in the winter of 1747, there was an idea of Delville being occupied for a time by Lord Chesterfield’s successor, Lord Harrington, but he arranged finally to stay at Mount Merrion.

Some conception of the state kept at Delville is to be gathered from the description given by Mrs. Delany of their proceeding to church. On a Sunday in May, 1745, she tells how they went to morning and evening service, accompanied by eight guests, who came to dinner, and attended by their “pretty numerous” train of servants. “You cannot think what a gay appearance we made as we walked through the garden,” she writes to her sister.

Once again, in 1752, on a Sunday, while the bell rang for morning prayer, her cook was married by Delany, and she tells of their marching through the garden at the head of a long procession of men and maids with white ribbon favours, “a gallant show,” as she writes to her sister.

The year after their marriage, in 1744, Delany published a volume of sermons on “Social Duties,” and 10 years later his famous “Observations on Lord Orrery’s Remarks on Swift” appeared. The latter work, which was issued anonymously, was published in the summer of 1754, just after the Delanys had returned to Delville from a visit to England, and in her letters Mrs. Delany mentions more than once her gratification at the commendation bestowed upon it.

It was never to be owned, and much amusement was given them by a friend asking Delany his opinion of it; but it was generally believed to be by him. When, early in the next year, Deane Swift’s “Essay on Swift” came out Mrs. Delany’s indignation exceeded all bounds: in her opinion it was the most abusive book ever written, and the treatment of Delany was indecent.

In 1757 Delany published a periodical entitled the “Humanist,” in which examples of the female character were mingled with denunciation of such practices as docking horses’ tails, and in 1766, two years before his death, he published another volume of sermons entitled “Discourses and Dissertations upon Various Subjects.”

Notwithstanding the round of society and of expenditure in which Delany and his second wife lived, there was hanging over him continually a cloud of litigation affecting his personal character, and involving the possible loss of all the means which he had derived from his first wife. That anyone should doubt the purity of his intentions in burning his marriage settlement was a thing that he could not understand, and that he should lose his cause was a thing beyond his belief.

He lived in perpetual optimism; in the midst of the litigation, in the year 1754, he purchased a London house, and when the House of Lords gave a decree in his favour on a subsidiary point, although the judges did not allow him to escape without criticism, he made up his mind that all his troubles were at an end.

But the year before his death, in 1767, when he had attained the great age of 82, on fresh proceedings being instituted against him, his spirit gave way, and he decided to retrench and retire to Bath. On his way thither, in London, he made his will, in which he laboured to prove that Delville and his London house, which were all that he had to bequeath, would realize the amount which he had settled upon his second wife. To his will he appended a solemn declaration that he was innocent of the crime of spoliation in regard to his step-daughter, with a prayer that his “enemies, persecutors, and slanderers, ” might be forgiven, and that their hearts might be turned.

In the following spring, on May 6, 1768, his death took place at Bath, whence his body (was conveyed to Glasnevin for internment.

[A stone in Glasnevin churchyard bears this inscription : “Here lieth the body of Patrick Delany, D.D., formerly Senior Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, late Dean of Down, an orthodox Christian believer, and an early and earnest defender of Revelation, a consistent and zealous preacher of the Divine laws, and an humble penitent, hoping for mercy in Christ Jesus, he died the 6th day of May, 1768, in the 84th year of his age.”]

When Mrs. Delany came to Delville in 1744, Mrs. Barber’s second son, Rupert Barber, who was a portrait-painter, was living in a house adjoining the grounds. He was known in his day as a painter of miniatures in enamel, but is now remembered from portraits executed by him in crayon of Swift.

Whatever the original connexion between Delany and the Barbers may have been, it had been strengthened by young Rupert Barber’s marriage to a niece of Delany, and some months after her arrival, Mrs. Delany mentioned that a nephew of Delany, who acted as his steward, was about to marry a niece of Mrs. Barber.

In Mrs. Delany’s letters there is frequent reference to “the Barber race,” especially to Mrs. Barber, who resided not far from Delville, and who was in very bad health. After years of suffering she died in the summer of 1755, being apparently survived by her husband, who is mentioned by Mrs. Delany a few months before as not caring a pin for his family, and spending his time drinking claret and smoking?

As a neighbour, Mrs. Delany refers also to Tickell’s widow, who reminded her of “a good actor performing an odd part,” for, though not wanting in wit and good sense, Mrs. Delany describes her as emotional and volatile and ringing the changes between crying and laughing.

At that time, 1753, her eldest son, John Tickell, was living with her, but he took the side of the Government on the occasion of the anti-union riot in Dublin at the close of George the Second’s reign, when the Parliament House was invaded by the mob, and he was obliged to leave Ireland on account of the unpopularity his conduct provoked.

At that time he was proposed for membership of the Dublin Society, and was rejected, being the first candidate who suffered that fate. Another neighbour mentioned at the same time by Mrs Delany was a barrister, Hugh Eccles, whose wife was the only child of Isaac Ambrose, and whose son, Ambrose Eccles, became known as a Shakespearean scholar. He was residing in the house owned by his father-in-law, who died in 1751, and had aim property at Cronroe, in County Wicklow, which Mrs. Delany, who visited it, considered the most beautiful place that she had seen in Ireland.

But the principal resident in Mrs. Delany’s time was Henry Mitchell, some time member of parliament for Bannow, and treasurer of the Barrack Board, who had succeeded John Putland in Glasnevin House. He was a banker, a very wealthy man, and is said to have had great skill in horticultural design.

In his time the gardens and demesne of Glasnevin House became celebrated, and attracted everyone from the viceroy downwards. In addition to Henry Mitchell there may also be mentioned as residents at that time in or near Glasnevin, a friend of his own, Thomas Egerton, a member of the Tatton family, who died in 1756; Samuel Fairbrother, a publisher disliked by Swift, who died in 1758; William Purdon, whose wife died at Claremont in 1760; Colonel Peter Renourd, a man of very high reputation, who died in 1763, and Charles Davys, an ally of Lord Blayney, who died at Hampstead in 1769.’ **

Conclusion **

The village became in the later part of the eighteenth century a favourite resort of Dublin citizens. At the Bull’s Head preparations were made as early as the year 1761 to cater for them. The owner, Lancelot Donnely, acquainted then his friends and the public that having fitted up his house in “a genteel manner,” he had laid in a choice stock of wines and other liquors, and was determined to have a larder well stocked with provisions in season.

His specialities were neat claret,” at 20 pence per bottle, and tea, coffee, and the best kinds of hot cakes; dinners were usually “as bespoke,” but on Sundays at three o’clock there was “a good ordinary.”

Glasnevin House was occupied after the death of Henry Mitchell, which occurred in the same year as that of Delany, 1768, by his widow and his son. In the 19th century it became the residence of the Right Rev. Charles Dalrymple Lindsay, Bishop of Kildare, and it is now the Convent of the Holy Faith.

Hampstead after the death of Charles Davys became the residence of Sir Richard Steele, who was created a baronet in 1768, while representing Mullingar in Parliament. He died in 1785, and the baronetcy was held by his descendants, who assumed the name of Steele-Graves, until 1878, when it is supposed to have become extinct.

Hampstead was bequeathed by him to his second son, Smith Steele, who survived him for only two years, and died of a violent fever while serving as sheriff of Dublin county. Although Mrs. Delany hoped that Delville would become the residence of the lord chancellor or an archbishop, it came after Delany’s death into the possession of an untitled landowner, John Westlake, who died in 1799 while in possession of it.

It is said to have been occupied for a time by the editor of the “Reliques of Ancient English Poetry,” Thomas Percy, Bishop of Dromore, and subsequently was the residence of Sir Marcus Somerville, the father of the first Lord Athlumney.

Amongst other residents in or near Glasnevin in the closing decades of the eighteenth century there appear - Miles Strickland, “a gentleman of considerable fortune in Yorkshire and Westmoreland,” who died in 1770; Robert Edgeworth, who died in 1772; Edward Netterville, who died in 1777 John Cotton, an alumnus of Lincoln College, Oxford, who died in 1777; Gerald Dillon, who died in 1782; Thomas Taylor, a large land-owner, who made his will in 1787; and Maurice Peppard Warren a great virtuoso, who made his will in 1797.

At the close of the 18th century Thomas Tickell’s house and lauds were sold by his grandson to the Dublin Society, and were made the nucleus of the Botanic Gardens; and 30 years later the great cemetery was designed. **

Ecclesiastical History**

The church at Glasnevin, which is a building of the early 18th century, presents no feature of interest, and little information is to be obtained as to the ecclesiastical history of the parish. The death of St. Mobhi, who was known as clairinech or the flat-faced, is recorded to have occurred on October 12, 544. It is believed that he perished of plague, as he had foretold that it was about to come, and had sent away the students, who are said to have numbered 50, from Glasnevin,

Of his successors as abbot there are recorded the names of Cialtrog, who died in 74; Elpin, who died in 753; and Maeltuile. son of Fethghnach, who died in 882.

After the Anglo-Norman invasion the church was assigned, together with the lands of Glasnevin, to the priory of the Holy Trinity. It appears in the ecclesiastical taxation of the 13th century as value for 30 shillings ; and some 50 years later it is mentioned as one of the churches belonging to the priory over which the archdeacon of Dublin established his right of visitation.

Towards the close of the 15th century the wills of the inhabitants show devotion to the church. Geoffrey Fox’s first wife desires to be buried in the nave, before the image of St. Mary, and leaves 12 pence to buy a cope for the priest ; Nicholas Barrett leaves 12 pence towards works then being executed in the chancel ; and Geoffrey Fox’s second wife desires to be buried in the nave, and leaves two shillings towards the works and a towel for the use of the clergy.

After the suppression of the priory and constitution of the cathedral establishment of Christ Church the church was served by a curate or vicar. In 1572 the curate is mentioned as entitled to the rent of a house at Glasnevin known as “the church house” and in 1581 the vicar is mentioned as entitled to a proper rotation of crops on the Glasnevin lands to maintain his tithe.

When the regal visitation of 1615 was held, the church was evidently not in a satisfactory condition, and the dean of Christ Church was admonished in respect to it, but it was returned as in charge of a curate, one Wybrants, a preacher. During the remainder of the 17th century the parish was served by the curate of Drumcondra, and the church was evidently in ruins.’

The credit of rebuilding the church at the opening of the 18th century is given by Archbishop King to Sir John Rogerson, who is said by the archbishop to have contributed effectually to the work; but probably the project originated with the archbishop, who took a great interest in it.

At that time the rectory was vested in the precentor and chancellor of Christ Church, who divided the tithes between them; and although the rectory seems to have been of very small value, the archbishop was unceasing in his efforts to induce the rectors to assist so far as lay in their power.

The great difficulty was provision for payment of a curate, which Sir John Rogerson was of opinion should not be wholly imposed on the parishioners. In the beginning of May, 1707, Archbishop King wrote to the precentor that the walls of a new church were built, and the roof was ready to he put on, but that further progress was not likely. Later on in that month he persuaded, however, Sir John Rogerson to continue the building so as not “to lose the season”; and in September he was able to announce that the church was finished.

From that time service has been constantly performed in it. As curate there appear – in 1708, Ralph Darling; in 1709, William Woolsey; and in 1711, Michael Hartlib. Between 1719 and 1727 the church was served by the chancellor of Christ Church, John Travers, who died in the latter year.

Subsequently, there appear as curate - in 1727, William Poultney ; and in 1735, Edward Parker. The latter owed his appointment partly to Delany, who was then chancellor of Christ Church, and he is said by Mrs. Delany to have been an ingenious and charitable man. He held the curacy for nearly 20 years, until 1753, when his death took place.

He was succeeded in 1754 by John Boyle, in whose time the church tower was rebuilt; in 1780, by Theobald Disney; and in 1785, by Travers Hume. During the 19th century the succession of incumbents was - in 1805, Crinus Irwin ; in 1809, Philip Ryan: in 1822, James Smith; in 1827, Richard Greer; in 1829, John West; in 1830, Walter Cramer Roberts; in 1838, Charles Stuart Stanford; in 1843, Charles Henry George; in 1845, Moses Margoliouth; and in 1847, Henry George Carroll: on whose death in 1896 the parish was united to Santry.

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