Scandinavian Dublin

Chapter 1

**Scandinavian Dublin **

Crypt of Christchurch (22331 bytes)Though Dublin cannot boast the venerable age of many European cities, it can at least claim a respectable antiquity. There is little doubt that in primitive times a settlement would grow up round the mouth of such a river as the Liffey, and as the eastern coast of Ireland appears to have been that best known to Greek and Phoenician traders, such a settlement would soon become a place of some importance.

The identification of Dublin with the ‘Eblana civitatis’ of Claudius Ptolemy may be questioned on many grounds, though a colour of probability is given to that supposition by the position of the ‘desert island’*; *properly speaking the promontory of Howth (Ben Edair), lying oft’ the coast to the west.

But even if we reject the later testimony of Jocelin, who wrote his *Life of St. Patrick *in the 12th century, and who accounts for the name of Dublin by a legend of a Princess Dublina drowned in the Liffey and restored to life through the prayers of the saint, we at least reach sound historic ground in the settlement of the Ostmen or Scandinavian rovers who Ath Cliath (the ford of the hurdles) in 836 A.D. and bestowed on it the new name of Dubh-linn (Duv Linn, Danish Diflyn) or Blackpool, from the inlet of the Liffey at its confluence with the small stream of the Poddle, where their ships were moored.

In the fanciful account of the historian Olaus Magnus, the city is said to have been taken by the unlikely stratagem of snaring a number of swallows and releasing them, each with a lighted sponge fastened under its wings, which speedily ignited the thatched roofs of the Irish town, and presently reduced it to ashes. However sceptical we may feel as to the accuracy of this statement, it probably affords a correct estimate of the kind of town, if any, which then occupied the site at the mouth of the Liffey, as the dwellings of the natives were then almost universally constructed of timber or wickerwork, plastered with clay.

That a town existed is probable from the full Irish name of Baile Atha Cliath (pronounce Bwala auha Kleeah), the *town *of the hurdle ford; and also from the fact that one of the five great roads, constructed in the second century, leading from Tara, the palace of the Irish Ard Rí (or chief king) to the then five provinces of Ireland, most have crossed the Liffey about the spot where the Whitworth Bridge now stands.

The present thoroughfare of Stonybatter probably formed a portion of this road, the name being an imperfect translation of Bothair na gloch (pr. Boher na gloch) that is, the road of the stones, from the blocks of stone with which it was paved.

The particular race of foreigners who first settled in Dublin belonged to the Fin Gall or White Strangers, probabley Norwegians, who were distinguished from the Dubh Gall, possibly modernised into Doyle, or Black Strangers, who were Danes. The district north of Dublin was long known as Fingal, and gives the title of earl to one branch of the Plunkett family. Between these two races a constant warfare was for some time waged in Ireland till the arrival, in 852, of Aulaff or Olav The White, son of the King of Lochlann *(i.e. *Scandinavia), when, according to the *Annals of the Four Masters, *‘all the foreigners submitted to him.’

The conqueror of Dublin was joined by Ivar supposed by some to be the younger son of the grea tNorse hero Ragnar Lodbrok, plausibly identified with the Irish Turgesius, i.e. Thorgisi (servant of Thor); and together they invaded and conquered Northumbria. Olav was slain in battle in 870 A.D., and Ivar and his brother Halfden and their descendants reigned alike in Dublin and Northumbria, their coinage, minted in Dublin, bearing with the name of Olav, Sitric, or Ivar, the title of ‘high king of the Northmen of Ireland and England.’

In 897 ‘the foreigners’ were, according to the Irish annals, expelled from the fortress of Ath Cliath’ by Cearbhall (Carroll), King of Leinster, and many of them, after having been besieged in Ireland’s Eye (off Howth), fled to Mercia, where Hingamund, their leader, asked of Queen Aethelflaed, the Lady of Mercia, ‘lands oil which to erect stalls and houses,’ and she, ‘pitying his condition, gave him lands near Chester, where he remained for some time.’

The Irish victory was both partial and temporary, for in 919 we read that Sitric or Sygtrygg, grandson of Ivar, with an immense royal fleet, recovered Dublin and the neighbouring territory, as far as Cend Fuaidh, now Confey, near Leixlip.

The same year, Sitric having sailed for Mercia, to support the claims of his brother Reginald to that province in his absence Niall Glundubh (G’lun Duv - Black Knee), ‘King of Ireland,’ assembled an army to attack Dublin. He was met at Coill Moramocc, now Kilmashogue, near Rathfarnham, about six miles from Dublin, by the sons of Sitric, and suffered a disastrous defeat, in which were slain the king and his stepson and heir, Conchobhar, son of Flann, the kings of Ulidia and Breagha, and many other chieftains. The Irish bards make great lamentation over this defeat, which, they say,

‘Shall be called till Judgement’s day

The destructive morning of Ath Cliath.’

In the grounds of Glen Southwell, near St. Columba’s College, on the side of Kilmashogue mountain, are still to be seen the remains of a large cromlech, which possibly marks the grave of the chieftains slain in this battle.

On the death, in 926, of Sitric, King of Northumbria, his dominions were seized by his brother-in-law and ally, Aethelstan, King of the Anglo-Saxons, and his sons fled to Dublin: but Aethelstan’s occupation was contested by Godfrey or guthfrith, King of Dublin, brother or nephew of Sitric, who for six months reigned in Northumbria, but was then expelled by Aethelstan, and returned to Dublin.

Here, six years later, ‘he died a filthy and ill-favoured death,’ and was succeeded by his son, Aulaf or Olav. This prince proved both a statesman and a warrior, and have effected alliances with the Danes of Ulster, the king of Wales and East Anglia, and Constantine, King of Scots, whose daughter he had married, and being joined by troops from the distant Orkneys, entered the Humber with a fleet of 615 ships, and landed at the Humber Stane in A.D. 937, to dispute with Aethelstan the inheritance of Northumbria.

In the Annals of the Four Masters we read that Aulaiv went to Cair Abroc, i.e. York (Eboracum), and that Blacaire, son of Godfrey, came to Ath Cliath to govern the Danes. But the Saxon king collected a no less formidable force, hiring 300 Scandinavian mercenaries under the celebrated leaders Thorolf and Egils, and in 938, at the great battle of Brunanburbh (Brumby, near Beverly), Aulaf suffered a signal defeated. Five kings and seven earls were amongst the slain, and Auluf, son of Godfrey, fled to Ireland with the remnant of his followers, as graphically described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:

‘Departed the Northmen in nailed ships

Drear remnant of darts on the sea of Dyng,

O’er the waters deep Dublin to seek,

Back to land of the Erse, depressed in mind.’

On Aulaf’s return he found Blacaire firmly seated in Dublin; and, crushed as he was by the slaughter of Brunanburh, he sought allies among the Irish, and obtained the assistance of the warlike King of Ireland, Muircheartach of the Leather Cloaks, so nicknamed from the sheepskin mantles with which be equipped his troops for winter campaigns. Blacaire was equal to the emergency. Sallying against his Irish foe, he met him in Louth, and defeated and slew him in a battle near Ardee (A.D. 941). His success, however, was short-lived. Conghalach, son of Maolmithigh, possibly in the absence of Blacaire, took and sacked Ath Cliath, and, in the words of the Four Masters, ‘burned its houses, divisions, ships, and all other structures.’

From this we may gather that Dublin had, architecturally, made little advance during the Danish occupation. Aulaf appears temporarily to have reoccupied the city, but in 945 Blacaire once more retook Dublin, only to be defeated and slain the following year by Conghalach in the great battle of Ath Cliath, wherein ‘1,600 men were lost, wounded, and captives, in revenge of Muircheartach, son Niall Glún Dubh, slain by him some time before’. Of this was said by the Hour Masters:

‘The Thursday of Conghalach of chiefs

At Ath Cliath was a conflict of heroes;

As long as his children live to propogate children

They shall bring the foreigners all kinds of trouble.’

Blacaire was succeeded by Aulaf Cuaran, son of that Sitric who had ruled Northumbnia in 921. He revived the claim of his family to their English inheritance; and in 949 sailed for Northumbria, which had rebelled against King Eadred, leaving Dublin in care of his brother Godfrey. He occupied the throne of Northumbria for four years, and was the last of its Danish kings.

Godfrey iii Dublin seems to have obtained fresh levies from abroad, for we find him in 949 plundering Kells and other churches of Meath, and carrying ‘3,000 persons into captivity, besides gold, silver, raiment, wealth, and goods of every description.’

Godfrey, son of Sitric, was the first of the Danish kings of Dublin to embrace Christianity. On a visit to England in 943, he was converted, and received baptism, says the Saxon Saxon Chronicle, from King Edmund. His sister Gyda was married to Olaf Trygvasson, afterwards King of Norway, who had also become a Christian.

Godfrey is said to have founded the abbey of St. Mary’s del Ostmanby, so called from its situation in Ostman’s town, now Oxmantown, on the north side of the Liffey; and from its foundation, *circa *948, the conversion of the Danes of Dublin is usually dated. Godfrey was slain in 951 by the Dalcassians, a tribe forming a kind of household troops for the kings of Cashel, and was succeeded by his son Aulaf; but on the expulsion of Aulaf Cuaran from Northumbria, the latter disputed the throne with his nephew, and was assisted by his son-in-law, Conghalach, King of Ireland.

From this time, that is, from the conversion of the Danes to Christianity, the matrimonial connections between the Danish and Irish Dublin monarchs become bewildering. For example, Aulaf Cuaran had married Gormflaith, daughter of Murchadh, son of Find, King of Leinster. After bearing him a son, Sitric, Gormflaith was repudiated, and married Brian Boroimhe (Boru), whose daughter married Sitric, son of Aulaf Cuaran. In support of his father-in-law’s claims on Dublin, Conghalach, King of Ireland, led a hosting into Leinster, and having plundered a wide district, held the fair of the Liffey on the present Curragh of Kildare for three days, but was ambushed by Aulaf, son of Godfrey, and slain with many of his chieftains.

Soon after, we find Aulaf Cuaran again plundering Meath, and in 979 the old warrior went on pilgrimage to Iona, and died there ‘after penance and a good life.’ His stepson and son-in-law, Maolrechlamd or Malachy II. had now succeeded his father Ard Rí, or King of Ireland, and also laid claim to Dublin. He defeated the Danish garrison at the battle of Ath Cliath’, slew Ragnal, or Reginald, heir to the sovereignty, and laid siege to the ‘dun’ or fortress, which probably occupied the site of the present Castle of Dublin.

After a siege, variously stated by the Irish chroniclers as of 20 and 60 nights, he took it and reduced the Danes to tribute. An ounce of gold for every garden and croft was, we are told, to be paid by them on Christmas night annually for ever. In 980 Malachy issued his famous proclamation to the many Irish then in slavery that ‘as many of the Irish nation as lived in servitude and bondage with the Danes should presently pass over without ransom, and live freely in their own countries according to their wonted manner.’

In 999 Sitric, son of Aulaf, now King of Dublin, took prisoner Donnchad mac Domhnaill, King of Leinster, which led to an attack on him by the combined forces of Malachy and Brian Boru, whose daughter he had married. A battle was fought at Glennmama, near Dunlavin, County Wicklow, in which Sitric was defeated, and his brother Harold slain. The Irish forces took Dublin, where they remained for seven nights, burned the ‘dun’ or fortress, and plundered the city of ‘gold, silver, hangings, and all precious things.’ Sitric was expelled, but soon after found an ally in his father-in-law and former foe, Brian Born, who had commenced that intrigue against Malachy II., which ended in 1002 in the deposition of the latter and the assumption of supreme power by Brian. For some time friendly relations were maintained between Brian and the Danes, the latter with a fleet under Sitric plundering the coasts of Down.

But in 1013 war broke out between the Ard Rí (Brian) and his tributaries, the Irish King of Leinster and the Danish King of Dublin, and a blockade of Dublin ensued. King Brian broke up his camp at Christmas, owing to dearth of provisions, and returned to his palace of Ceann Coradh (Kincora). Sitric availed himself of the breathing-time thus afforded by seeking aid from his kinsmen over sea, and 1,000 warriors in coats of mail, under Brodar, a Danish chief, entered Dublin on Palm Sunday, while Brian aud his forces lay on the north of the river near the present site of the King’s Hospital, Oxmantown.

Brian’s son, Donnchadh led a force against the territory of the King of Leinster, while his father’s troops harried the Danish districts of Fingall and Howth. The Danes sent out a body to repel the latter, and this movement resulted in a general engagement. At sunrise on Good Friday 1014, the battle, now known as the Battle of Clontarf, commenced, and terminated as evening fell in the complete rout of the Danes.

From the river Tolka to the rising ground now occupied by Mountjoy Square, and thence to the abbey of St. Mary’s del Ostmanby, the conflict raged. The Danish king beheld the fight from the walls of his fortress ; the aged Brian, whose grandson was amongst the combatants, remained in the rear of the Irish centre, protected by his body-guard.

The mailed warriors of Brodar faced the Dalcassian levies under Prince Murchadh (Murrough), son of Brian, and at the commencement the former seem to have gained some advantage. ‘Well do the foreigners reap the field,’ exclaimed, as he watched the fight, King Sitric to his wife, daughter of King Brian. ‘It will he at the end of the day that will be seen,’ was her cautious reply.

And later, as the Danish forces were driven into the sea, she remarked sarcastically to her husband, ‘It appears to me the foreigners have gained their inheritance,’ a remark which is said to have cost the lady one of her front teeth. On the wings the forces of Connaught encountered the troops of Leinster, and the remainder of the Monster levies opposed the Danes of Dublin under Dubhghall, son of Aulaf.

At the close of the day the Danish forces were in full flight; their ships, which had lain along the northern shore of Dublin Bay, had been carried out of reach by the rising tide, and the only passage across the Liffey, Dubhgall’s Bridge, being covered by the troops of Brian, a dreadful slaughter ensued. It is said by the Irish annalists that not one of Brodar’s mailed champions escaped alive, while Prince Dubhghall, son of Aulaf, and 3,000 of his troops were also amongst the slain ; and on the Irish side, Prince Murchadh and his son had fallen.

Brodar, probably in attempting to force his way to Dubhgall’s Bridge, came on the tent of Brian, and slew the aged king, it is alleged, while engaged in prayer, and was himself slain by the bodyguard. From the *Dublin Magazine *for June 1763, we learn that when the present Rotunda gardens were hem” laid a trench was found containing a quantity of human bones, together with numberless pieces of iron resembling broad rivets, and a large sword and spear head two feet in length ; possibly the remains of the warriors of Brodar.

The Battle of Clontarf left both parties exhausted, and no one to benefit by the victory. It cannot, therefore, be taken as the popular error would have it, to imply the expulsion of the Danes from Dublin. As industrious artisans and traders they were tributaries too valuable lightly to be banished or exterminated.

We are, indeed, assured by the annalists that ‘after Clontarf there was not a threshing-floor from Howth to Brandon Head (in Kerry) without a Danish slave threshing on it, nor a quern without a Danish woman grinding on it’; but we learn from another source that Brian had left no Danes in the kingdom except such a number of artisans and merchants in Dublin*, *Waterford, Cork, and Limerick as could be easily mastered at any tin]e should they dare to rebel; these King Brian very wisely permitted to remain ‘for the purpose of encouraging trade and traffic, as they possessed many ships and were experienced sailors.’

Brian, as we have seen, having fallen in the battle, these remarks must be taken as applying to his successor, and indeed as representing the general policy of the Irish kings towards the foreigners settled in the chief seaports. And in 1021, seven years only after the crushing defeat of Clontarf, we find Sitric Mac Aulaf defeating the King of Leinster at the battle of Delgany.

In 1028 he went on pilgrimage to home; and in 1038, as we learn from the Black Book of Christ Church, ‘Sitricus, son of Ablef (Aulaf), Earl of Dublin, gave to the Holy Trinity and to Donatus (or Donagh) first Bishop of Dublin, a place whereon to build a church to the Holy Trinity, together with the lands of Bealdulek (Baldoyle), Rechan (Raheny), and Portraherne (Portrane) for its maintenance.’

On the coins of this king, preserved in the Dublin National Museum, he is styled Sitric III., and the church which he founded occupied the site whereon the present Christchurch stands.

Sitric was succeeded by his cousin Eachmarcach, who, in 1052, ‘went beyond seas,’ possibly to the Isle of Man, of which his brother Godfrey is said to have been king, and Diarmaid (Dermot), son of Donnchadh, surnamed Mail-na-mbó seized the kingship of Dublin under the title of King of Leinster, of the Innse Gall (Danish Isles = Hebrides), and of Dublin.

In 1072 the troops of Leinster and the Danes of Dublin were defeated at the battle of Odhbha (Ova) by Conchobhar (Connor) Ua-Maoileachlainn, Prince of Tara, and Dermot himself ‘slain and mangled.’ He is thus lamented by the bards:-

‘Diarmaid, first man in Leinster fell,

Diarmaid,of the ruddy-coloured aspect,

A king who maintained the standard of war.’

His eldest son Murchadh (Murrough) had predeceased him, and his grandson Dhomhnall macMurcheartaigh (Daniel MacMurrough), surnamed The Fat, succeeded to the throne. The grandson of Domhnall, Diarmaid maMurcheartaigh (Dermot MacMurrough), known in Irish annals as Diarmaid Na-nGoill (Dermot of the Foreigners), was the chieftain who on his banishment from Ireland by his chieftainry in 1166, owing to his character, which was ‘violent, overbearing, and ferocious,’ departed for Aquitaine, there to ask the aid of Henry II. of England, whose feudal vassal he offered to become.

But we would be wrong in supposing that Dublin was without rulers other than these Kings of Leinster. In 1094 we find mention of a certain Godfrey, Lord of the foreigners of Ath Cliath and of the Islands, *i.e. *the Hebrides, generally identified with that King of Man before mentioned, and great-grandson of Aulaf Cuaran. He was expelled from Dublin by Turlough O’Brien, King of Munster, and afterwards died of pestilence. In 1146 we have Raghnall, or Reginald, son of Turcall, or Thorkill, slain by the men of East Meath.

Again in 1160 we have Brodar, son of Thorkill, Lord of Ath Cliath and in 1166 the foreigners of Dublin were leagued with Breifnw (Breffni) and Meath in the expulsion of Dermot MacMurrough. In that year, indeed, the Danes could furnish a thousand horse to the conference held at Ath buidhe Tlachtgha, now Athboy, respecting ‘veneration for churches and clerics.’ (Annals of the Four Masters.)

In 1170, when Dublin was treacherously taken by MacMurrough and his Norman allies, Asgall, or Hasculf, son of Raghnall, whose palace stood beside the Church of the Holy Trinity and occupied the site on St. Michael’s Hill on which the Synod Hall now stands, was king of the foreigners, and escaped by sea. He returned the following year with a fleet of 60 ships, furnished by his kinsmen of the Western Isles, and sailed into the Liffey.

His force consisted of Danes from the Isle of Man and from the Hebrides, and Norwegians, mail-clad warriors, some with the long cuirasses of the vikings, some with plates of metal sewn together, led by a noted Orkney champion whom the contemporary Norman chronicler names Johan le Deve’, *i.e. *John the Mad or the Furious.

Hasculf marshalled his troops at the Stein, on the low ground south of the Liffey, then extending from College Green to Ringsend, and marching through the suburb on whose site Dame Street now stands, he assaulted St. Mary’s Gate, or Dame’s Gate, the east gate of the city, near the present Cork Hill.

While Milun (Miles) de Cogan was hard pressed by John the Mad., his brother Richard with 30 horsemen rode secretly out of the Western Gate, afterwards known as St. Werburgh’s or Pole Gate, at southern extremity of St. Werburgh Street, and fell upon the rear of the Danes. This threw their forces into confusion, and Miles at this juncture sallying upon them with all his force a complete rout ensued. John the Mad fought indeed like a true Berserker-

‘… En la mellé

De une hache ben tempré

Cosuit le ior un chevaler

Que la quisse lui fist voler’

says the chronicler. But individual valour could not retrieve the day, the Danes fled to their ships, and Hasculf was taken prisoner by the Normans, and, on boasting that he would speedily return, was beheaded.

Thus ended the Danish kingdom of Dublin after a duration of over 300 years, for King Henry II. granted Dublin to the people of Bristol with de Lacy as governor, and confined the Danes, it would appear, to the northern suburb, which retained its name of Ostmanstown, now Oxmantown, as we have seen.

In this connection it is noteworthy that Dublin, the metropolis of Ireland, only became so under Anglo-Norman rule, and was for the first ten centuries of its history virtually a foreign city. For 300 years it had been the centre of a small Scandinavian kingdom, and on the coming of the Anglo-Normans, it was peopled by the Bristol colony, administered by their trading gilds, and the seat of those governors, who, under various titles, acted as viceroys of the English sovereigns.

Indeed, until the control of the city was, in 1841, vested in the reformed corporation, it can scarcely be said to have been an Irish city in any national sense of the term. During the three ceuturies of Danish dominion, though the Irish some-times conquered, and even nominally expelled the Danes, that race continuously held and practically continuously ruled the city and district.

The boundaries of their kingdom, though doubtless they sometimes fluctuated, are pretty clearly defined. The coast-line stretched from Arklow on the south to the small stream of the Devlin, or Nanny Water, above Skerries, on the north, and these still form the bounds of the Admiralty jurisdiction of Dublin. Their territory extended inland along the Liffey ‘as far as the salmon swims up the stream,’ *i.e. *to Leixlip or Lax lob the Salmon Leap *(de saltu salmonis), *comprehending the present united dioceses of Dublin and Glendalough.

Many traces of their occupation are to be found in the nomenclature of the district. The northern portion of County Dublin was known, as we have said, as Fingall;’ Howth is merely the Danish Hofed, a head. Arklow and Wicklow are their beacon (loe, a blaze) stations on the coast, Blowick, now Bullock, Dalk-ey, Lamb-ay (Lamb Island), Ireland’s Ey(e), and the Skerries all show their Danish origin. Ringsend is the termination of the Ring or spit of land then stretching into the sea, and, as we have seen, Oxmantown (Ostman’s town) still marks the suburb of the Easterlings.

The Scandinavians of Dublin must not be regarded as plundering rovers. Whatever the first comers may have been, the city soon developed into a thriving trading and manufacturing community. In Worsaae’s *Account of the Danes and Norwegians in England *we find it stated that ‘just as the proportionally numerous Norwegian graves near Dublin prove that a considerable number of Norwegians must have been settled there, so also do the peculiar form and workmanship of the antiquities that have been discovered in them afford a fresh evidence of the superior civilisation which the Norwegians in and near Dublin must, for a good while at least, have possessed in comparison with the Irish.’

However much a knowledge of the remains of early Irish art may lead us to modify this judgment, the presence in the Dublin National Museum of such objects as the Viking brooches, (Journal RSAI for 1902, p. 71) found near Arklow in the County Wicklow, affords proof of the high artistic skill of the invaders.

The city of the Danes, though commercially and politically important, was yet of no great extent. They had found it a mere collection of wattled huts. It became in their hands ‘entrenched Ath Cliath,’ with its walls and ‘dun,’ or fortress. The tale of its plunderings and of the tribute exacted from its citizens* *show it to have been place of wealth and even luxury. Already Christchurch and the Abbey of St. Mary had been built, and Dublin the northern suburb possessed its church of St. Michan (built *circa *1095).

The ‘Thing mote,’ or place of popular assembly, occupied a site north of the present church of St. Andrew, at the intersection of Church Lane and Suffolk Street, and was then 40 feet high and 240 feet in circumference. It is described so late as 1647 as ‘the fortified hill near the college,’ which was occupied by the mutinous soldiers of Colonel Jones; but in 1682 it was levelled by Sir William Davis, Chief-Justice of the Court of King’s Bench, the earth being used to raise the level of Nassau Street, then St. Patrick’s Well Lane.

From this or a neighbouring hill, Hoggen Green, from Norwegian ‘hauge,’ a mound, the present College Green, took its name, and was then a large open space where archery was commonly practised.

The sea-shore then ran on the northern side of the river from Essex Bridge by the line of the present Abbey Street, and below the ridge on which Summer Hill is built, down to Ballybough Bridge, where there was then a stake-weir. It was thus perfectly possible, at the date of the battle of Clontarf, to see from the fortifications of the old city the whole shore of the north side of the bay, which was fringed with oak timber.

The Danish landing-place was at the Stein, an elevated ridge, on which a leper hospital, on the site of present ‘Lock’ hospital, was afterwards erected, a resort of pilgrims intending to embark for the shrine of St. James of Compostella, the patron-saint of lepers, from which the termination of Townsend Street received the name of Lazar’s Hill, afterwards corrupted into Lazy Hill.

At the Stein, as we have seen, Hascuif landed in 1171 in his attempt to regain the city from the Normans, as stated in the Anglo-Norman poem on the conquest of Ireland, already referred to-

‘A Steine erent arive

Hescul e Johan le Deve.’

Here, at the junction of Hawkins Street and Townsend Street, had been erected by the first Danish invaders a pillar-stone standing 12 or 14 feet above ground, and known as the Long Stone, often mentioned in seventeenth-century leases. In 1646, when an attempt was made to fortify Dublin, ‘in removing a little hill in the east suburbs of the city of Dublin, … there was discovered an ancient sephulchre placed SW and NE., composed of eight marble stones, of which two made the covering and were supported by the others. … Vast quantities of burned coals, ashes, and human bones, some of which were in part burned and some only scorched, were found in it.’ (Sir James Ware)

The Danes have left us but little architectural remains. Indeed, their work as builders may be taken to be practically subsequent to their conversion to Christianity in the middle of the 10th century, and as the year 1171 saw their final subjection, there were but two centuries of turmoil in which they could have been so occupied.

The most notable of these remains is probably the church, or miscalled ‘Abbey,’ of St. Mary at Howth, founded by Sitric or Sygtrygg in 1042, 28 years after the battle of Clontarf. But little now remains to mark the church of Sygtrygg, which in 1235, two centuries after its erection, was enlarged and dedicated to the Blessed Virgin by Luke, Archbishop of Dublin. Competent authorities have pronounced the western porch to be of Saxon or Danish architecture.

The Danes, up to the date of their settlement in Northumbria, were not, so far as we know, builders in stone, and would after that date naturally adopt the methods of building which they found in use amongst the Saxons. Hence such remains as seem to be of Saxon architecture may be referred to the ancient Danish church.

The church of St Michan, in Church Street, was, as we have said, of Danish foundation, its patron, St. Michan, being of that nationality. The present church was built towards the end of the seventeenth century, and restored in 1828. The tower, a square structure with embattled parapets, supposed to form part of the church of the 11th century, is modern.

The vaults possess extraordinary powers of preservation of the bodies deposited in them, a quality which is attributable to their extreme dryness, and the capacity for absorbing moisture characteristic of the limestone of which they are constructed.

Besides the church of St. Michan on the north of the Liffey, a group of churches stood on the south side in the days of St. Laurence O’Toole. These were St. Olave’s near the north end of Fishamble Street - *i.e. *the Fish Shamble Street, the Vicus Piscatorium of the chroniclers; - St. George’s in the present South Great George’s Street, then St. George’s Lane; St. Stephen’s, with its Leper Hospital, on the site of the present Mercer’s Hospital; and St. Martin’s and St. Paul’s within the present Castle precincts.

ancientt ile.gif (1535 bytes)The Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, the Scandinavian Christchurch, i.e. Head Church or Cathedral, still possesses some remains of the foundation of King Sygtrygg Silkbeard. Soon after 1172 it was enlarged, at the instance of Laurence, Archbishop of Dublin, better known as St. Laurence O’Toole, by the addition of a choir, a steeple, and two chapels, which Richard, Earl of Strigul, surnamed Strongbow, Robert Fitzstephen, and Raymond le Gros, undertook to build at their own charge.

Successive alterations up to 1225 had by that date entirely remodelled the Danish building. After a long series of misfortunes which had reduced it to a mere patched fragment of the original structure, the church was in 1871-8 restored, at a cost of £166,000, by the munificence of Henry Roe, D.L., under the direction of George Street, R.A., Architect.

It was not till the widening of Lord Edward Street, in 1886, that an adequate view could be obtained of Christchurch, since 1872 the Cathedral Church of the United Dioceses of Dublin, Glendalough, and Kildare.

Passing from the front of Trinity College up College Green and Dame Street, on approaching Cork Hill the eye is at once caught by the east end of the cathedral, surmounted by the central tower. A small gate gives entrance to the grounds, and along the path leading to the south porch lie the uncovered remains of the chapter-house.

We enter the south transept through the beautiful Norman door, removed from the north transept in 1831, when the old 14th century Choir was remodelled, and the Lady Chapel on the north of it converted into a Grammar school, chapter-room, and apartments for the cathedral servants.

This is ‘Mary Chapel,’ in Danish times the chapel of St. Nicholas, was for many years used as the church of a French congregation. The only architectural evidence now remaining of its existence is the arch leading to the Choir ambulatory, which is 13th century work.

bridge.gif (5291 bytes)From the south porch steps lead to the bridge (shown, right) connecting the Cathedral with the Synod hall, which stands on the site of the Church of St. Michael the Archangel, and preserves its ancient tower. In the south porch is a monument to Thomas Prior, one of the founders of the Royal Dublin Society, to which Dublin, and indeed Ireland at large, owes so much. The monument originally stood on the south of the nave. On the left of the south aisle is a tomb bearing the recumbent figure of a knight in chain armour, traditionally known as Strongbow’s tomb. That the great earl was buried in Christchurch with great solemnity *in conspectu crucis *is undoubted, and this statement agrees with the present position of the tomb. But that the effigy represents its occupant can scarcely be maintained, as the arms on the shield are probably those of Fitzosbert. It is possible that the effigy is one substituted for the original after 1562, when the latter was broken by the falling in of the roof.

Upon tablets now let into the wall of the south aisle adjoining the tomb are the following inscriptions : This: ayncyent: monument: of: Rychard: Strangbowe: called: comes: Strangvlensis: Lord: of: Chepsto: and: Ogny: the: fyrst: and: pryncypall: invader: of: Irland: 1169: Qui: Obiit: 1177.: The: monument: was: brocken: by: the: fall: of: the: roff: and: bodye: of: Christeschurch: in: Anna: 1562: and: set: up: agayne: at: the: chargys: of: the: Right: Honorable: Sr: Henry: Sydney: Knyght: of: the: noble: order: L: President: of: Wailes: L: Deputy: of: Irland: 1570.’

strongbow tomb (23826 bytes)Beside the larger monument is a smaller one bearing a half-length effigy in Purbeck marble. This figure is generally believed to represent Strongbow’s son, whom his father is said to have cut in two for cowardice in battle; though the chronicler, Stanihurst, naively remarks that ‘he did no more than run him through the belly.’ It is, how-ever, the effigy of a female figure, denoted by costume as *circa *1180. A curious custom long existed of making principal sum in bonds payable ‘on Strongbow’s tomb.’

The architectural of the south transept is a striking example of the transition from Norman to early English, and dates, as does the north transept, from about 1170. The arches leading from the aisles and from the transepts towards the side chapels are pointed, but the detail is Norman in character.

The capitals, mouldings, and string-courses are richly carved. The triforium arches, each eclosing two pointed inner arches, are almost though not quite semicircular; as are those of the clerestory. The niche in the east wall of the south transept, where a clock now stand, originally contained a pedestal on which stood a statue of the Virgin.

South aisle (20094 bytes)This transept also contains the beautiful monument of the 19th Earl of Kildare *(ob. *1743), father of the first Duke of Leinster, which formerly stood on the north-east side of the choir; and also a 16th-century monument to Francis Agard, commander of a troop of horse under Thomas Lord Seymour of Sudeley, and afterwards Chief Commissioner of the Province of Munster.

On the east of the south transept a semi-circular arch leads to the chapel of St. Lorcan or Laurence O’Toole, originally Abbot of Glendalough, Danish bishop of Dublin prior to 1170, the second Irishman canonised by papal authority, the first being St. Malachy. This chapel was founded late in the 12th century, destroyed early in the 19th, and rebuilt in 1871 on its original foundations.

In the walls are two recesses; that on the south side containing the supposed effigy of the archbishop, and that on the north a figure in purbeck marble, found by the workmen engaged on the restoration, and said to represent the wife of Strongbow. There is also an ancient inscription in Norman-French to John of the fraternity of Parma, the ‘Lumbard’ or master builder of the 12th-century additions.

An ancient arch leads from the south transept to the Ambulatory, east of which are the three chapels built by Strongbow, Fitzstephen, and Raymond le Gros, and dedicated respectively to St. Edmund, king and martyr, St. Mary Alba, aud St. Laud or St. Lo, Bishop of Coutance in the sixth century.

These were destroyed by John de St. Paul to build his unsightly choir, and not rebuilt till 1871. The chapel of St. Laud contains a brass commemorating the restoration of 1871, a prior’s coped tomb of black calp stone, hearing an early English floriated cross from the old chapter-house, a reputed effigy of Basilea, sister of Strongbow, and a metal case believed to contain the heart of St. Laurence O’Toole, who died and was buried at St. Eu in Normandy in 1180.

Ancient tile (2390 bytes)The central chapel of Sancta Maria Alba has seventeen sedilia, the central for the bishop being the largest. The chapel of St. Edmund communicates with the north porch, from which a stair leads to the choristers’ schoolrooms. The chapter-house and library occupy the site of the original projecting Lady Chapel north-east of the Cathedral, remodelled, as we have said, by Mr. Street at the restoration. This Lady Chapel has been identified with the original Chapel of St. Nicholas ‘on the north side,’ founded by Sygtrygg or Sitric; but a 16th century deed is on record, whereby the dean and chapter leased to Walter Forster of Dublin, clerk, a long loft called St. Nicholas’ Chapel, situate over a cellar on the west side of the north gate of the church, a transaction which recalls the treatment of the church of St. Bartholomew the Great in London.

The north transept contains the organ, which stands on a carved gallery of Caen stone, supported by marble columns. Under the organ on the north wall of the transept are the arms of Sir Henry Sidney, Lord Deputy.

The choir was, previous to 187l, a crooked oblong 102 feet long from west to east, but as it possessed neither beauty of its own, nor any trace of its original architecture, and presented no object of interest save an ancient piscina, Mr. Street wisely resolved on its complete demolition and the erection of the present choir on the lines of the crypt below it. It now consists of the apse and the space under the central tower, and forms a striking feature of the building. The two western arches of the older choir had not been disturbed during the fourteenth century alterations; and it was found that another arch built into the old north wall of the choir would fit precisely into the east end.

The arches preserve the old 12th century capitals. The present design reproduces, in all probability, the old 12th century choir, many of the old stones being in fact used in the reconstruction of the piers and arches. The carving of the new capitals of the coupled shafts round the apse was executed by a workman named Taylerson, and are magnificent specimens of modern workmanship, representing the Annunciation, Salutation, Adoration of the Shepherds and of the Magi, the Circumcision, and the Presentation in the Temple.

The floor is of exceptional interest. The designs of the tiles are entirely a reproduction of patterns on those discovered under the debris of the fallen roof; and all the originals capable of being used were laid in the eastern end of the south choir aisle.

The pillar between the nave and the south transept has carved on it the heads of Mr. Street, Archbishop Trench, Mr. Roe, and Primate Beresford. On the north of the Choir, immediately outside the sanctuary, is a long memorial brass to Archbishop Trench, to whom a similar memorial exists in Westminster Abbey.

The stalls of carved oak provide for the dean and precentor, chancellor and treasurer, and for the 12 canons constituted by the Act of 1872 of the General Synod of the Church of Ireland. The screen, of yellow Mansfield stone on a base of red Cork marble, is divided into five by columns of Kilkenny marble, and reproduces in its finial the design of the celebrated Cross of Cong in the Natioinal Museum, Kildare Street.

The ancient State or Royal pew, and the Mayoralty pew, now seldom occupied, have been replaced by modern oak stalls. The former shows the Royal arms, scorched and disfigured by the Cromwellian troopers. West of the choir, on the north side, stands the pulpit rising on columns of green Galway marble, with bases of red Cork marble, the whole standing on a slab of Kilkenny marble. In the choir stands the fifteenth-century lectern, from which the Scriptures were first read in English in Ireland, from a Bible sent by Queen Elizabeth.

The north aisle has undergone serious change in the course of the restoration. That a doorway existed, facing Winetavern Street, at the third bay from the west end is proved by entries in Cathedral leases. The porch which it seems certain was attached to this northern door furnished Mr. Street, when its foundations were discovered, with the idea of the baptistery, which now stands, not on those foundations, but one bay further towards the west. The baptistery is, however, in itself a beautiful structure, with its roof supported by two central columns of Irish marble, and its stained glass windows, introducing, amongst Irish saints, SS. Mary and Anne to indicate the Christian names of the wife of the architect, and SS. George and Edmund to signify his own. In the centre, between the pillars, stands the font, a beautiful example of modern design in marble.

From the west door a good general view is obtained of the Cathedral, somewhat hindered by the screen, which intercepts the prospect beyond the choir eastwards. The stained glass, though entirely modern, is rich and varied; the clerestory windows contain the arms of the Irish sees from drawings by Ulster King of Arms.

In the north aisle is an unfinished monument, formerly in the south transept, to Sir John Stevenson, the composer, who had the unique distinction of having been the firrst native of Ireland admitted to office in the choir of Christchurch, thus emphasising in its Cathedral what has been already said of the un-Irish character of the City of Dublin.

For the antiquary perhaps the most interesting portion of the Cathedral is to be found in the crypt, which is entered from the eastern end of the south aisle by a circular-headed door of a small chapel, whence steps lead downwards to the crypt. An accidental comparison by Sir Thomas Drew of the ground plan of the Danish Christchurch of Waterford with that of Christchurch Dublin disclosed the interesting fact that, ‘pier for pier, dimension for dimension,’ the Waterford Christchurch had been a** **genuine *replica *of the Dublin one.

This, taken in connection with the fact that the nave piers of the Anglo-Norman work of post 1190 *‘do not stand truly over the piers below,’ *shows conclusively that we have in the crypt ’ the survival of a Danish-built Christian church.’ The quasi apsidal arrangement at the east end, ‘the square eastern chapel with which the apsidal inclination ends,’ apparently the *feretrium, *for the reception of relics, while resembling the Scandinavian church of Trondheim, is said to have had no parallel in these kingdoms save one, at Pershore Abbey in Worcestershire, which is now no longer in existence.

Much of the crypt was, we find from leases of the 16th century, in the occupation of tenants who utilised their holdings as shops, stores, and taverns, one of the cellars being euphemistically described as ‘Paradise,’ perhaps in distinction to ’ Hell’. An Order in Council of 28th November 1633 forbade, indeed, these vaults to be used as ‘a tavern, tippling house, or tobacco shop,’ but the abuse was not discontinued, for in 1678 the ‘Lord Lieutenant and Councell’ ordered that the dean arid chapter ‘doe use their best endeavours’ for removing the taverns, tippling houses, and tobaccoe shops’ located in ‘the vaults and cellars, to the great annoyance of the said Church.’

The stocks (6174 bytes)Many objects of interest are now stored in the crypt. The wooden stocks, 200 years old, which stood in Christchurch yard outside the south transept till 1821, when the penalty had fallen into disuse, are here in good preservation. In the eastern sub-chapels are preserved the tabernacle and candlesticks used in the celebration of the Mass in the Cathedral during the reign of James II. The statues of that monarch and his brother Charles II. were removed from niches over the entrance to the Tholsel, which stood at the corner of Nicholas Street, and were placed for a time at the northern end of the north transept, but shared the fate of more modern monuments in being consigned to the crypt at the time of Mr. Street’s restoration. Some of these monument are fine examples of modern sculpture, and many are well-deserved memorials of distinguished citizens.

A* tragic interest attaches to the tablet to Sir Samuel Auchmuty Auclimuty, G.C.B., who died in 1822 while in command of H.M. forces in Ireland. It* **is said that at his funeral an officer lost his way in the crypt, was accidentally locked in, and was there devoured by rats, which probably swarmed from the great sewer which led from the cathedral to the Liffey. His skeleton is said to have been afterwards found still grasping his sword, and surrounded by the bones of numbers of rats which he had slain before being overcome.

The ancient piscina and font, removed at the time of restoration, are preserved in the crypt. The church plate, in silver-gilt Dutch *repouseé *work, presented to the cathedral in 1698 by William III. after the battle of the Boyne, is supposed to have been borrowed for the use of the castle chapel in 1816, where it is still retained.

ancient tile (1163 bytes)The Cathedral precincts are interesting. South of the remains of the old chapter-house, of beautiful moulded 13th-century work, discovered in 1886 by Sir Thomas Drew, lay the *calefactory *of the old monastic foundation, separated from the former by the *Slype. *This was the site of the passage long known as ‘Hell’: it is supposed from the black figure popularly believed to represent the devil, to which Burns refers in the lines:-

‘Is just as true’s the Deil’s in hell

Or Dublin city.’

As this passage led to the ‘King’s Courts,’ held after 1610 in the *Domus Conversorum *and other buildings of the convent cloister, there is at least verisimilitude in the advertisement which appeared, ‘To let, furnished apartments in Hell. *N.B.-They *are well suited to a lawyer.’

Chapter II. Fitzpatrick Contents Home.