Part of the Parish of St. George.

The** **city parish of St. George contains lands which were in mediaeval times part of the possession of St. Mary’s Abbey.

It is now divided by the Circular Road, and embraces outside that road the townlands of Clonliffe (i.e., the herb meadow) East and West, Daneswell, Daneswell or Crossguns North, Drishoge (i.e., the bramble), Fairfield, Gooseacre, Greenmount, and Prospect. **

The Vicinity of Holy Cross College**

The part of St. George’s Parish with which this history is concerned lies to the south-east of the parish of Glasnevin. It borders on the sea, and is crossed to the north by the river Tolka, and to the south by the Royal Canal, as they approach their exit in the port of Dublin.

Interest in this part of St. George’s Parish centres in its representing a district known from very ancient times as Clonliffe, a name said by some to mean the meadow of herbs, by others the meadow of the Liffey.

As Mr. Westropp has shown in “King Brian, the Hero of Clontarf,” it was in this district that the great struggle between the Irish and the Norsemen was determined, and, although giving name to the battle, Clontarf saw only its close.

But the district comes also into notice in connexion with the foundation of St. Mary’s Abbey, the site of which was within it. An ancient legend tells us that the owner, one of the chieftains called MacGillamocholmog, was blind, and that one day while engaged in deeds of charity there he had his sight restored on eating an apple, which had been borne by a bough that had sprung supernaturally out of his seat.

Afterwards two other apples appeared, and these, according to the legend, he gave to his wife and to Mallaghlin, King of Meath, who were also blind, and their sight was similarly restored. Thereupon Mallaghlin desired MacGillamocholmog to sell him Clonliffe, and on his doing so Mallaghlin dedicated the lands to the Virgin for a monastery of friars, who would, he prophesied, praise her name there for ever.’

Under the Anglo-Norman settlement, Clonliffe was confirmed to the abbey, and, as it was on the borders of the city, its extent became a question of importance that gave rise on more than one occasion to litigation. In the ecclesiastical taxation of 1804 the grange of Clonliffe appears; some years later oxen and horses are mentioned as taken from it, and it is said to have been the birthplace of an abbot of St. Mary’s, Stephen Lawless, who ruled the abbey from 1429 to 1487.

After the dissolution of the religious houses in 1539 the grange of Clonliffe, which was then granted in common with the other possessions of the abbey to Walter Peppard, was estimated to contain just 150 acres, as well as a messuage and water mill, and 70 years later, in 1611, when it was granted to Henry King, the grange was estimated to contain over 200 acres, as well as the messuage, three cottages, and the mill.

When the Commonwealth Survey was made “Mary’s Abbey land and the grange of Clonliffe,” which included 250 acres, were in the possession of the Earl of Drogheda’s ancestor, Viscount Moore, and on them there was a “fair stone-house slated with two stone-houses of offices,” which were valued at £140, as well as the mill, which was valued at £20.

After the Restoration this house, which was rated as containing eight hearths, appears in the possession of Mr. Munn, and subsequently of Mr. Leeson, while the miller of the grange had another house rated as containing four hearths.

During the first half of the 18th century the Grange, as Clonliffe was then called, became the residence of Tristram Fortick, the founder of Fortick’s alms-house. In his will, which was made shortly before his death in 1755, he mentions the charity-house built by him for poor women, and in certain eventualities, which did not occur, he bequeathed the residue of his property to found a similar house for men. After his death the Grange was called Fortick’s Grove, and was occupied successively by Samuel Taylor, Henry Irwin, and a famous theatrical character, Frederick Edward Jones, known to his contemporaries as Buck Jones.’

In the early part of the 18th century the most conspicuous landmark in the Clonliffe district was the Red House, which is mentioned by Swift in one of his letters. It appears to have stood between Clonliffe and the sea, and to have survived until last century, when it was superseded by the modern Nottingham Street.

On the other side of Clonliffe there lay Eccles Mount, which was then the country residence of Sir John Eccles, who was sometime lord mayor of Dublin. It was afterwards the residence successively of Joseph Darner, knight of the shire for county Tipperary, who died there in 1787, and of the Archbishop of Tuam. During the residence of the latter, the eccentric Richard Pockrich “projected to turn it into a cake-house, and for that purpose treated with his Grace, to whom he made several presents of young pigeons”:-

From sea to land your thoughts now roam,

A project offers nearer home:

When Eccles Mount with Vauxhall vies,

And fancied mountains thence arise,

Thither your pigeons wing their flight,

The gudgeons now you think will bite

But prelates know, I trow, what’s what,

Too well by pigeons to be caught.

Later on there are found amongst its occupants in 1751 the widow of Sir Sheffield Austen, and in 1757 Nicholas Archdall. At the same time there appears near it a country house called Mountjoy, which was in 1761 occupied by Henry Gavan.

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