Dublin under the Tudors and the Stuarts

Chapter III

Dublin Under The Tudors and Stuarts

In June 1541, a notable Irish Parliament met in Dublin, in which the Anglo-Norman lords, such as the Earl of Desmond, Lord Fitzmaurice,a descendant of Raymond le Gros, and Lord Bermingham, sat in council with the Irish hereditary chieftains of the Kavanaghs, O’Reillys, and O’Mores, and MacGillapatrick with his brand new title of Baron of Upper Ossory. The Lord Deputy, Sir Anthony Sentleger, ‘caused an Act to pass which gave unto King Henry VIII., his heirs and successors, the name, style, and title, already suggested by Lord ChanceIIor Allen in 1537, of King of Ireland, whereas before that time the Kings of England were styled but lords of Ireland.’

The proclamation of this new title, together with a general pardon, was received with great rejoicings in Dublin, and on the following Sunday the lords and gentlemen of Parliament went in procession to St. ‘Patrick’s Cathedral, where solemn Mass was sung by Archbishop Browne and the *Te Deum *chanted.

‘There were made in the city,’ writes Sentleger to the King, ‘great bonfires, wine set in the streets, great feasting in their houses, with a goodly firing of guns.’ Thus was ushered in the new era of English rule in Ireland, which was productive indeed of many burnings and much firing of guns, but scarcely of feastings and rejoicings.

The pacification of the Pale, however, went on apace. Two years previously the northern Irish had led a plundering expedition as far south as Tara, in Meath, and Lord Grey ‘made a complete muster of all the English in Ireland, the forces of the great towns of Meath … and all the fleets in the adjacent harbours,’ to oppose them; whereupon ‘O’Neall and O’donill colourably required a parley with the Deputy, but in the way as they rode they burned the Navan and the towne of Ardee. Wherefore the Deputy, with the helpe of the Maior of Divelin, Iames Fitz Symonds, and the Maior. of Droghedagh, and the English pale, met them, flighted them, slew 400 of their trayne, and there the Major of Divelin, for notable service in that journey, was knighted.’ This affair took place at Bellabroa, or Belahoe (Irish Bel-atha-hoa), a ford near the old bridge of Belahoe, four and a half miles south of Carrickmacross, on the boundary of Meath and Monaghan.

The O’Tooles too seemed desirous of alliance with the men of Dublin. In 1546 one of that sept was sheriff of Dublin County, and when in the following year the Geraldines, headed by two nephews of the late Earl, made insurrection with the O’Byrnes, Sentleger, with the aid of the O’Tooles, defeated them at Three Castles, near Blessington. About this time the Lord Deputy ‘erected a Mint within the Castle of Divelin, which,’ we are quaintly told, ‘quickly wearyed them for want of fuell.’ (Campion)

The Dublin citizens, meanwhile, continued to give proof of their ability to protect their own neighbourhood. Sentleger had been recalled more than once during the changes which marked the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, and we read that ‘while the Deputy staggered uncertaine of continuance, the Tooles and the Cavenaghes waxed cockish in the Countis of Divelin, rangeing in flockes of seven or eight score, on whom set forth the Marshall and the Sheriffes of Divelin, Buckley and Gygen, with the cittie’s helpe, and overlayde them in sudden skirmishes, of which three score were executed for example.’

These marauders seem to have been Kavanaghs, and, being hemmed into Powerscourt Castle, were forced to surrender, and 74 of their number were hanged in Dublin. Again, when in 1566 Shane O’Neill laid siege to Dundalk, ’ Master Sarsfield, then Major of Divelin, with a chosen band of goodly young men Citizens brake the rage of the enemies,’ and compelled O’Neill to raise the siege. For this exploit Sarsfield was, on his return, knighted by the Deputy.

In 1556 Sir Thomas Radcliffe, Viscount Fitzwalter, eldest son of the second Earl of Sussex, to which title he soon after succeeded, landed at Dublin on Whitsunday, 24th May. Next day he visited Sentleger at Kilmainham and the following day received the sword of state ‘on the left hand of the altar’ in Christchurch. ‘That done, the trumpets sounded and drums beat, and then the Lord Deputy kneeled down before the altar until *Te Deum *was ended.’

He summoned a Parliament in the following year, which made shire land of the districts of Leix, Slievemargy, Tregan, Gleumalier, and Offaly, and ‘did by Act of Parliament, 3rd and 4th Philip and Mary, reduce those countries into two several counties, naming the one the King’s and the other the Queen’s County’; their respective chief towns of Philipstown and Maryborough serving as a record of what monarchs were commemorated in their names. His commission as Viceroy was renewed on the accession of Queen Elizabeth, with the title of Lieutenant-General instead of that of Lord Deputy.

He landed at or near Dalkey, and next day rode into Dublin, outside which he was received on St. Stephen’s Green by the Mayor and Aldermen. The sword of state was twice entrusted, in his absence, to his brother-in-law, Sir Henry Sidney, called in the *Annals of the Four Masters *‘Big Henry of the Beer.’ Sidney was appointed Lord Deputy in October 1565, and in January he landed and was received in Dublin with great ceremony by the Lord Justice, the Mayor and Corporation, and the people ‘in great troops came and saluted him, clapping and shouting with all the joy they could devise.’(Stanihurst)

He was followed in spring by troops from Bristol and from Berwick, and by Edward Randolph, an experienced captain, with 1,000 foot. He caused the old ruinous Castle of Dublin to be re-edified, and on the death of Shane O’Neill caused his head to be fixed on a pole and set on the highest tower. He seems to have been anxious to provide for a reliable record of the proceedings of the Irish Parliament, and issued a licence, dated Castle of Dublin, 20th March 1568, to John Hooker in the following terms:-

‘Whereas divers Parliaments have been holden within Ireland, and divers laws, statutes, and acts made in the same, which laws being hitherto never put in print have been altogether turned into oblivion … and forasmuch as John Vowell *alias *Hoker, Gent., being one of the said assembly has offered at his own charges to imprint all the said statutes and acts heretofore made, we grant him the sole privilege and licence to imprint the same for ten years next ensuing.’ (Carew MSS., vol. i. P. 387.)

Sidney seems also to have been far-seeing enough to recognise how best to introduce manufactures, for he caused ‘above forty families of the reformed churches of the Low Countries’ to settle in the ruined town of Swords in the north of the County Dublin. In 1575 a plague raged in Dublin and in many towns of the Pale, including Naas, Ardee, Mullingar, and Athboy. ‘Between these places many a castle was left without a guard, many a flock without a shepherd, and many a noble corpse without burial.’ (Annals of the Four Masters) Grass grew in the streets of Dublin, and the citizens fled to Drogheda, where the Lord Deputy also kept his court, finding ‘the infection of the plague so generallie dispersed, and especiallie in the English pale, that he could hardlie find a place where to settle himselfe without danger of infection.’ (Holinshed’s Chronicles)

On Friday, 12th August 1580, Arthur Grey, 14th Lord Grey de Wilton, landed at Howth as Lord Deputy, bringing with him as his secretary the poet Edmund Spenser; and next day received the sword of state in St. Patrick’s Cathedral. He found the Pale ‘sore vexed through the undutifulness of Viscount Baltinglas and his associates,’ Pheagh M’Hugh O’Byrne of Glendalough and one of the Kildare Fitzgeralds.

With an impetuosity born of ignorance of the conditions of Irish warfare, he determined to attack the insurgents in their fastnesses, and marched into the district known as the ‘glynnes’ of Wicklow, about 25 miles from Dublin. Here his forces were attacked in the Pass of Glenmalure, called by Spenser Glan-malor, ‘a vallie or combe, lieng in the middle of the wood, of a great length, between two hils, and no other waie is there to passe through. Underfoot it is boggie and soft, and full of great stones and slipperie rocks, verie hard and evill to passe through: the sides are full of great and mightie trees upon the sides of the hils, and full of bushments and underwood.’ (Ibid)** **So is it described by John Hooker (p. 73), possibly an eyewitness of the events of ‘the black day,’ as he terms it and the description would even now be fairly accurate.

Caught, like the English forces in the Khyber Pass, in this natural trap, mowed down by a heavy fire from the surrounding underwood, the troops hastily took to flight, and were slaughtered by the pikes of the Irish as they struggled over the broken ground; Sir Peter Carew and other captains being slain in the action. Lord Grey de Wilton returned to Dublin, only to discover soon after a dangerous conspiracy to seize the Lord Deputy and his household, to take possession of Dublin Castle, to massacre the English soldiers and settlers, and to overthrow the English Government.

These occurrences may be taken as the grounds for the merciless severity of the rule of Lord Grey, which was marked by massacres which spared neither woman nor child, and by indictments for high treason whereby 45 persons were hanged in Dublin alone. The suppression of the rebellion of the southern Geraldines, and the death of Gerald, 15th Earl of Desmond, seem to have produced the tranquillity of utter exhaustion, and even to have led some of the turbulent Irish chieftains to submit their quarrels to the English courts.

For instance, a suit between Teigue MacGillapatrick O’Connor, who charged his cousin and kinsman, Con MacCormac O’Connor, with ‘sundrie treasons in the late rebellion,’ (Hooker) was laid by them before the Lords Justices, and referred by the latter to the ordeal of judicial combat. ‘And then the court was called, and the appellant or plaintiff was brought in before the face of the court, being stripped into his shirt, having only his sword and target (which were the weapons appointed); and when he had done his reverence and duty to the lord justices and to the court, he was brought to a stool set in the one of the ends within the lists, and there sat. After him was the defendant brought in, in the like manner and order, and with the like weapons: and when he had done his duty and reverence to the lord justices and to the court, he was brought to his chair placed in the other end of the lists … And then, when by the sound of a trumpet a sign was given unto them when they should enter into the fight, they arose out of their seats. … In which fight the appellant did prevail, and he not only did disarm the defendant, but also with the sword of the said defendant did cut off his head; and upon the point of the same sword did present it to the lord justices, and so with the victory of his enemy he was acquitted.’

‘And,’ adds the chronicler, ‘as for the combat, it was so valiantly done, that a great many did wish that it had rather fallen upon the whole sex (sept) of the O’Connors, than upon these two gentlemen. ’ (Hooker)

Lord Grey left Ireland on the 31st August 1582, and was succeeded two years later by Sir John Perrott, who had at one time been Lord President of Munster. In 1591 Trinity College was incorporated by charter of Queen Elizabeth, and opened to students on the 9th January 1593.

In 1592 occurred the memorable escape from Dublin Castle of the young Ulster chieftains Hugh Roe O’Donnell, and Henry and Art, sons of Shane O’Neill. The former had been captured by an unworthy stratagem on the shores of Lough Swilly, where he had been visiting MacSwiney in Dundonald Casfle.

A ship laden with Spanish wine anchored in the Lough, and when most of the cargo had been sold to the people of the district, MacSwiney and his guest were decoyed on board, clapped safely under hatches, and conveyed to Dublin Castle, where for three years young O’Donnell shared the captivity of his cousins, the sons of the great Shane O’Neill. An attempt to escape had consigned them in fetters to the Bermingham Tower; but, aided by their servant and fosterer, Turlough O’Hagan, Bard of Tullahogue, who had gained access to them in disguise, they knocked off their fetters, and by means of a long rope succeeded in reaching the deep trench that surrounded the Castle.

They climbed its outer side, and, passing through the city, found the gates open at that festive season, and reached the Red Mountain, near the great O’Byrne stronghold of Glenmalure. Here they were enveloped in a snowstorm in which Art O’Neill perished of cold and exposure; but the others were hospitably received by Pheagh MacHugh, chieftain of tile O’Byrnes, who expedited their flight to Dungannon, where they joined their cousin, Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone.

In 1595 Walter Fitzgerald gathered a body of the O’Byrnes and plundered and burned the village of* *Crumlin, three miles south-west of the city walls, carrying off the lead from the roof of the church. The conflagration was ‘plainly visible from the streets of Dublin. Fitzgerald was soon after taken prisoner, carried to Dublin and hanged.

On 11th March of the following year, 144 barrels of gunpowder, sent by Queen Elizabeth for the use of the royal forces in Ireland, were landed at a place known as ‘The Crane’ at the northern extremity of Winetavern Street. The building was used as the Custom House of Dublin prior to the erection of the new Custom House in the reign of James 1., and ships generally discharged their heavier cargoes at Dalkey and the remainder at the Crane. The barrels, when landed, were drawn to Wine Street, and in course of transit some of them accidentally exploded, occasioning great damage.

In the subsequent investigation, conducted by ‘Michael Chamberlin, Major, and John Shelton and William Pallas, Shrieffs,’ no less than six-score bodies were identified, besides ‘sondrie headles bodies and heades with out bodies that were found and not knowne.’

The opening of the 17th century found the whole of the County Dublin south of the Liffey overrun by the Leinster rebels; but Sir George Carew, the Lord Deputy, reduced the O’Byrnes of Wicklow, and ‘the mountains and glynnes on the south side of Dublin were made a shire of itself and called the county of Wicklow,’ whereby the inhabitants, which were wont to be thorns in the side of the Pale, are become civil and quiet neighbours thereof.’ (Fynes Moryson)

The death of Queen Elizabeth synchronised with the submission of Shane O’Neill, and the cost of the war, in less than five years, is stated as £1,198,718. In September 1607 the two northern earls, Tyrone and Tyrconnell, heads of the great septs of O’Neill and O’Donnell, set sail from the shores of Lough Swilly never to revisit their native land; and in May of the following year occurred the abortive rising of Sir Cahir O’Dogherty, Lord of Inishowen.

This chieftain, then in his twenty-first year, had been knighted, and in the course of a personal quarrel with Sir George Paulett, Governor of Derry, the latter struck Sir Cahir. The chieftain brooded over the insult, and soon after he seized Culmore fort, marched on Derry, which he took by surprise at daybreak, and put to death Paulett and many of the garrison and townsfolk.

Wingfield, the English marshal, marched against O’Dogherty and set a price on his head. The Lord Deputy, Sir Arthur Chichester, hastened to the assistance of the marshal, and in an engagement near Kilmacrennan O’Dogherty was defeated and soon after slain, it is said, by a man named Alexander Ramsay, a Scotch settler, whose cattle had been driven off and his wife and children slaughtered by Sir Cahir. By this man his head was cut off and taken to Dublin, where it was set over Newgate on the city walls.

As a consequence of the flight of the earls, and the local rising in Inishowen, 800,000 acres of land in Ulster were forfeited, and thus room was made for the plantation of Ulster. At the commencement of the reign of James I. the rule of the most successful Viceroys of his predecessor is thus characterised by Sir John Davies: ‘Sir A. Sentleger, the Earl of Sussex, Sir Henry Sidney, and Sir John Perrot were good governors, but they did not abolish the Irish customs, nor execute the law in the Irish countries, but suffered the people to worship their barbarous lords, and to remain utterly ignorant of their duties to God and the King.’ That is to say, they had striven to govern Ireland according to Irish ideas, and had failed.

Such conduct would naturally not be pleasing to the great exponent of the divine right of kings. To the agents of the Irish recusants, who had been admitted to plead their cause before the council in London, James I. expressed himself in no measured terms. ‘In the matter of Parliament,’ said that monarch, ‘you have carried yourselves tumultuously and undutifully, and your proceedings have been rude, disorderly, and inexcusable, and worthy of severe punishment.’

Under Charles I. religious animosities developed in Dublin, of which the following may be taken as a sample. On the 26th December (St. Stephen’s Day) 1629, the Lords Justices-Adam Loftus, Viscount Ely, the Irish Lord Chancellor, and Richard, Earl of Cork, Lord High Treasurer - were attending divine service in Christchurch, when tidings reached ‘them that the Carmelites (So Harris, who quotes a tract entitled *Foxes and Firebrands. *Gilbert says they were Franciscans. Both orders had houses in Cook Street.) were celebrating Mass in Cook Street. The Archbishop of Dublin, Lancelot Bulkeley, accompanied by the Lord Mayor, with a body of soldiers, proceeded thither, seized the officiating priest, and carried him off with all the sacred vessels. The priest was rescued by the populace, but fifteen religious. houses, lately founded in Dublin, were sequestrated to the King. Two years later the Roman Catholic College, which had been established in Back Lane, was closed by order of the Government and handed over to Trinity College, whose governing body established a weekly lecturership therein.

In the summer of 1632 Thomas, Viscount Wentworth, afterwards Earl of Strafford, landed as Lord Deputy. It is characteristic of the condition of the high seas at the time, that the Viceroy’s voyage from England was delayed until he could secure the convoy of a ship of war. Algerine corsairs infested the Irish Channel, and had, in the previous year, landed on the coast of Cork and sacked the town of Baltimore, carrying a hundred of its inhabitants into slavery.

Lord Wentworth found on his arrival that the lodgings of the Lord Deputy were in need of repair, and that new stabling accommodation was required. ‘There is not,’ he writes to the King, ‘any stable but a poor mean one, and that made of a decayed church’ (St. Andrew’s), ‘which is such a profanation as I am sure his Majesty would not allow.’ (Strafford’s Letters, vol. I p. 131)

On the 14th July 1634 the Irish Parliament met in Dublin, ‘undoubtedly with the greatest civility and splendour Ireland ever saw.’ (Strafford Papers) The Lord Deputy and chief officers of state, with the members of both houses, attended service in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where the sermon was preached by Archbishop Usher. The ceremonial observed on the attendance of the Lord-Lieutenant at service in the Cathedral was stately and impressive.

‘On leaving the church there marched before him a company of footmen, beating the drum, and with match-locks ready for action. Then followed a company of halberdiers, his body-guards, and 60 gentlemen on foot, with four noblemen well-mounted, and the Viceroy in the midst upon a white Barbary horse.’ (M. de la Boullaye le Gouz)

The rule of Strafford, though strict, was eminently successful. He introduced the culture of flax, and developed manufactures; he cleared the coasts of pirates, and increased the volume of trade. By 1637 the revenue exceeded the expenditure by £60,000; and the Irish army was at the same time well equipped, well disciplined, and regularly paid. The Lord Deputy purposed ‘once every year to bring the whole army for a month together to Dublin.’

Shortly after the execution of Strafford on Tower Hill, Robert Sidney, second Earl of Leicester, was appointed to the Lord-Lieutenancy, but never even visited the country, and Ireland continued to be ruled by Lords Justices, nominated by a committee of the English House of Commons, with the twelfth Earl of Ormonde as lieutenant-general of the army. The Lords Justices were Sir William Parsons, an English Puritan adventurer, and Sir John Borlace, Master of the Ordnance.

Early in 1641 a rumour had been spread of the intended blowing up, by servants of the late Earl of Strafford, of the apartments in Dublin Castle occupied by the Houses of Parliament. Though this rumour proved unfounded, it was felt that conspiracy was in the air. Warnings had reached the authorities from Sir Harry Vane, Secretary of State in London, and from Sir William Cole of Enniskillen, as to suspicious meetings in Ulster; and finally, on the 21st October, full particulars of an alleged conspiracy were furnished them by the latter.

Yet the Justices remained in heedless security. The English army in Ireland, now reduced to 3,000 foot and 900 horse, was scattered in small garrisons, many of them far from the capital; and Dublin Castle - in which were deposited all the royal stores collected during the Viceroyalty of Strafford, including 35 pieces of ordnance, 1,500 barrels of powder, and 10,000 stand of arms - was under no better guard than was afforded by eight worn-out old soldiers as warders, and 40 halberdiers, the personal guard attached to the Lord Deputy.

The gates also were in bad repair and ill-calculated to repel an assault. On the evening of Friday, the 22nd of October, Sir William Parsons was in his house on Merchant’s Quay, when a man named Owen O’Connolly, ‘much in drink,’ waited on him with the information that a plot had been formed for the seizure of Dublin Castle early the next morning. This man, a servant of Sir John Clotworthy, had been bred a Protestant, but was foster-brother to Colonel Hugh MacMahon, one of the Ulster leaders, who had, while drinking with him in Winetavern Street, been weak enough to disclose to him full particulars of the conspiracy. Parsons at first discredited the information and dismissed his informant; but, on reflection, decided on consulting Borlace, who took the matter more seriously.

They sent messengers after O’Connolly, whom they found in the hands of the watch, and on interrogation he gave a detailed account of the plans of the conspirators. Several of these were arrested, and the Castle was placed the same night in the charge of Sir Francis Willoughby, Governor of Galway fort, who happened to be in Dublin, and who garrisoned the Castle with 200 men of his own disbanded regiment reinforced by volunteers from the Protestant loyalists of Dublin.

On the night of Saturday bonfires blazed upon the hills of Ulster, and the disinherited Irish of the Plantation rose upon their Saxon neighbours. Burnings and massacres took place in many districts, which led to reprisals on the Irish in the territories of the Pale. The public records were removed from the Castle to Cork House, immediately outside its gates. The Roman Catholics were disarmed and expelled the city, and the loyal citizens were commanded to bring in their plate to be minted for the service of the Government, which they did to the value of £12,000.

The Earl of Ormonde was ordered to Dublin with his troop of horse, and many of the Protestant gentry of the Pale hastened with their families to place themselves within the walls of the capital. They were soon followed by fugitives from Ulster, and ‘many empty houses in the city were by special direction taken up for them, barns, stables, and outhouses filled with them; yet many lay in the open streets, and others under stalls, and there most miserably perished.’ (Sir John Temple)

The Ulster forces advanced southwards, captured Dundalk and laid siege to Drogheda, while in Wicklow another body of insurgents committed great havoc, and threatened the important post of Fort Carew. This proximity of the Irish forces caused a positive panic in Dublin; the citizens forsook the suburbs, and to add to their dismay a portion of the city wall fell down.

Tidings had been sent to the English Parliament, now on the eve of their armed struggle with the King, and orders were given by them for ships to guard the coasts, and for the immediate levy and despatch to Dublin of a force of 6,000 foot and 2,000 horse, with stores of provisions for the relief of the garrison.

While awaiting these succours the Lords Justices hastily raised some raw troops, 600 of whom they sent to relieve Sir Henry Tichborne in Drogheda. These were attacked by the insurgents and utterly routed at Julianstown bridge, with the loss of their arms and ammunition. The vacillations of the Lords Justices, and the severities of Sir Charles Coote, had succeeded in alienating the Roman Catholic lords of the Pale, who rose in rebellion, headed by Lord Gormanston and the Earl of Fingall, and beleagured Dublin, thereby hindering the arrival of provisions from the surrounding country.

Further to distress the citizens, the beleaguering forces established their headquarters at Swords, and threatened to occupy Clontarf, so as to cut off all sea-borne supplies. But on the last day of the year 1642 the hopes of the King’s adherents were raised by the arrival from England of 1,100 men under Sir Simon Harcourt, the first instalment of that reinforcement promised by the English Parliament. These were speedily followed by 1,500 foot and 400 horse under Sir Richard Grenville and Colonel George Monk, afterwards the chief agent in the restoration of Charles II.

Drogheda was relieved and Dundalk retaken; but the Lords Justices, with whom were now associated two Commissioners from the English Parliament, incurred much odium by putting to the. torture, in Dublin Castle, men of good position known to be in sympathy with the Irish, in the hope of implicating King Charles I. in the responsibility for the rising.

This conduct seems to have inspired the King with the idea of availing himself of the services of those lords of the Pale who were still loyal to the Crown, at the head of whom stood the Marquis of Ormonde, to whom he offered the Viceroyalty, which that nobleman unaccountably declined. The King issued a commission to these lords to treat in his name with the Irish confederates, who, however, refused all overtures.

The straits to which the English troops had been reduced by scarcity of provisions, combined with his owii necessities to induce the King to promise large concessions to the confederates, and a ‘cessation’ for one year was agreed upon, by which both parties bound themselves to release their prisoners and remain inactive, while the Irish agreed to supply King Charles with 10,000 men, and to grant to him a subsidy of £30,000, one-half in money and the remainder in cattle.

Once more provisions poured into Dublin where Ormonde held high state, while the confederates maintained a rival court in Kilkenny, ‘with all manner of stage plays,’ and other festive proceedings. On the expiry of the truce in 1646, a peace was agreed on between Ormonde and the confederates, which was solemnly proclaimed in Dublin on 30th July; but the Papal Nuncio, Rinuccini, who had arrived in Kilkenny, in concert with Owen Roe O’Neill repudiated its terms, and the latter recommenced hostilities.

Two armies, one commanded by General Preston, the other by O’Neill in person, moved simultaneously on Dublin, to which Ormonde had hastily retreated, and encamped within 10 miles of the walls. Ormonde, now appointed to the Lord-Lieutenancy, which at the King’s request Leicester had resigned, felt his position to be one of extreme peril. His small army was still too great to be provisioned in Dublin while so closely besieged, his estates had been mortgaged to provide subsistence for his troops, and the city walls were in a condition so ruinous that the Marchioness and other ladies of rank headed the citizens in carrying materials to those engaged in their repair.

In these conditions he entered into negotiations with the English Parliament, now completely masters of England, and agreed, on behalf of himself and the Council, to resign their patents and to treat with Commissioners for the surrender of his government and garrisons. A force of 2,000 foot and 300 horse under Colonel Michael Jones, whose brother was the Protestant Bishop of Clogher, accordingly landed in Dublin, to whom, after prolonged negotiations, Ormonde surrendered the Castle on the 16th July 1647, and on the 28th of the same month gave up the regalia to the Parliamentary Commissioners, and sailed for Bristol.

Colonel Jones, appointed Governor of Dublin, and Commander of the forces in Leinster, lost no time in attacking the army of General Preston, on whom he inflicted a severe defeat at Dungan’s Hill, in County Meath. Owen Roe O’Neill, now left without a rival, at once marched on Dublin, and from the steeple of St. Audoen’s the terrified inhabitants saw 200 fires blazing from Castleknock to Howth.

But squabbles and bickerings hampered his movements, and when on 29th September 1648 Ormonde landed at Cork with full powers from the King, the majority of the confederates made common cause with him, and O’Neill and his Ulster Irish found themselves once more isolated and unsupported.

Colonel Jones had been busying himself in repairing the walls of Dublin and putting the city in a posture of defence. On the execution of Charles I., 30th January 1649, his son was proclaimed as Charles II. at Cork and Youghal by Ormonde, who had landed at the former in October of the previous year, and who now prepared for active hostilities on behalf of royalty. On the 21st June he encamped at Castleknock with 7,000 foot and 4,000 horse, and after seizing the Viceregal residence in the Phoenix Park, on the site of the present magazine, he prepared to invest Dublin.

The following day Ormonde removed his camp to Finglas, in order to cut off the communication between Dublin and the garrisons of Drogheda and Dundalk, which were held for the Parliament, and there remained inactive for the following month.

Colonel Jones, however, was not idle. He succeeded in obtaining some much-needed supplies by sea, and utilised the assistance of some ships’ crews in completing the repair of the fortifications. The fall of Drogheda and Dundalk, and the capture of Trim by the forces of Lord Inchiquin, enabled that nobleman on the 21st of July to add his forces to those of Ormonde, who had then under his command some 6,000 foot and 3,000 horse.

The siege had been hitherto but languidly prosecuted; cavalry skirmishes, indeed, were of almost daily occurrence, and the Royalist trenches were pushed within musket-shot of the defences; but save for the storming of Patrick’s Fort on the north bank of the Liffey, and the driving of the Parliamentarians from the village of Ringsend, but little effect had been produced.

Ormonde at length determined on more active measures. Leaving 2,500 men under Lord Dillon of Costello to press the siege on the north, the Viceroy with the remainder of his forces crossed the Liffey and established himself at Rathmines. But the movement had been too long delayed. On the 22nd July Colonel Venables had already reached Dublin with three regiments of foot, and was followed on 25th by Colonel Reynolds with a regiment of horse, and on 26th by still further reinforcements, who bore the ominous tidings that Oliver Cromwell himself, at the head of an army of 12,000 men, awaited only a favourable breeze to pass over into Ireland.

Ormonde encamped near the present Palmerston Road, on the historic ground of the ‘Bloody Fields,’ and cut off the Dublin water-supply at Templeogue, thus depriving the citizens of water. power for driving their corn mills, and causing much inconvenience to the besieged.

On the 28th July Rathfarnham Castle, which had been garrisoned for the Parliament, was taken; the Irish officers urged their general to seize arid fortify the castle of Baggotrath, dismantled by Colonel Jones, which then stood on the site of the present dwelling-houses, Nos. 44 and 45 Upper Baggot Street, near the spot where Queen Victoria and King Edward VII. entered the city.

After dark on the night of 1st August., Major-General Purcell, with a force of 1,500 men, was despatched to occupy and repair the castle; but owing, it is said, to treachery on the part of a guide, who led them through Dundrum, they did not reach the castle till day was breaking. Jones, becoming aware of the movement, and seeing that the possession of a strong post in that direction would not only cut him off from pasture for the horses of his cavalry, but also facilitate the erection of works to command the mouth of the Liffey, was already marshalling the veteran English regiments, which had lately joined him, under earth-works behind Trinty College at the head of the present Townsend Street, then known as Lowsy (a corruption of Lazar’s) Hill.

Perceiving this, Ormonde commanded reinforcements for Baggotrath, ordering at the same time his whole force to remain under arms. Fearing no immediate attack he had lain down to rest, but was roused by heavy firing towards Baggotrath, only to find that the party engaged on fortifying the castle had been driven off, and that the covering force were retreating in disorder.

This emboldened Jones to push on further than he had at first intended, and having routed the right wing he moved on Ormonde’s main body, consisting of the troops of Lord Inchiquin, commanded by Colonel Giffard. To support his centre, Ormonde moved up the regiment commanded by his brother Colonel Richard Butler, but a troop of Parliamentary horse having by a skilful detour taken them in the rear, while the victorious foot delivered a frontal attack, they threw down their arms and surrendered. After an ineffectual effort to rally his left wing, who fled panic-stricken by the fate of the centre and right* *wing, Ormonde himself headed the flight of the broken remains of his forces towards Kilkenny

The body on the north of the Liffey hastily retreated to Drogheda, and only escaped the pursuit of Jones by the opportune arrival of Sir Thomas Armstrong with 1,000 horse, who covered the retreat of the northern contingent, and rejoined them in Drogheda. The whole of Ormonde’s artillery, baggage, and provisions fell into the hands of the victorious Parliamentary troops, who the following day captured the castles of Rathmines, Rathgar, and Rathfarnham, and retook the Viceregal residence. Ormonde’s losses are stated by him to have been only 600 slain, and Jones gives the numbers as 4,000 killed and 2,517 prisoners. The latter figure is probably correct, but the number of killed seems grossly exaggerated. The moral effect of the battle was very great; Dublin was delivered from all apprehension of immediate danger; and though an attack on Drogheda by Jones was easily repulsed by Lord Moore, the safety of that garrison was but short-lived.

On 15th August Oliver Cromwell, having been invested by the unanimous vote of the English Parliament with the title of Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland and Commander-in-Chief of the English forces, landed in Dublin, and signalised his arrival by a proclamation against drunkenness and profane swearing. He then commenced that 10 months’ career of unchecked successes and ruthless terrorism, which has rendered ‘the curse of Cromwell’ the bitterest malediction which, even to our own days, the Irish peasant can invoke upon his enemies. On 25th May 1650 Cromwell returned to England, to meet the Scottish supporters of Charles II., leaving behind him his son-in-law, Major-General Ireton, to complete the conquest of an almost subjugated Ireland, which, by a proclamation (dated 26th September 1653) of Fleetwood who succeeded Ireton, was declared to be, for the first time since the landing of Strongbow, completely subdued.

Dublin had meantime suffered severely from pestilence, which had commenced in 1650, when Bishop Martin, Provost of Trinity College, died of it, and raged during the summer of 1651, when it was reported by the Parliamentary Commissioners that, having inquired ‘into the present state of the College of Dublin … (and the House being at present visited with the pestilence),’ they were moved ‘to dissolve that Society until it shall please God to remove the sickness.’

Henry Cromwell, appointed Commander-in-Chief in** **1655, was, on the death of his father, created by his brother Richard Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, but was withdrawn the following year by the restored Long Parliament.

A council of officers seized Dublin Castle, and, on a petition of the Mayor and Aldermen of Dublin, summoned a convention which, on 14th May 1660, accepted the Declaration of Breda, and King Charles II. was proclaimed with great rejoicings in all the chief towns of Ireland. Not unmindful of the attitude of the Dublin municipality, the restored King presented the Mayor with a collar of SS, and assigned him a foot-company of guards; and in 1665 further dignified him with the title of Lord Mayor, and granted him £500 in lieu of the foot-company.

In 1663 dissatisfaction with the Act of Settlement found expression in a plot to seize Dublin Castle, the prime mover in which was the subsequently notorious Colonel Blood. The plot was discovered and the ringleader escaped, but three of his fellow-conspirators, Colonels Jephson and Warren and Major Thompson, were tried, found guilty, and executed at Gallows Green, near Dublin, on 15th November.

In 1670 the Blue Coat Hospital, for children of decayed citizens, was founded, and a wooden bridge was erected at some distance west of the old one over the Liffey. The crossing had heretofore been effected by a ferry, granted, in consequence of the fall of a pre-existing bridge, by Richard II., ‘with all profits and customs for four years.’ This interference with a vested interest seems to have excited much popular indignation, and an attack was made on the new bridge by the apprentices in the interests of the ferry. Twenty of the rioters were seized and committed to the Castle, but as a guard of soldiers were carrying them to Bridewell they were rescued, four of them being killed in the affray, whose death earned for the wooden structure the sobriquet of the ‘Bloody Bridge,’ a name transferred to Barrack Bridge, its more permanent successor in stone, and still in fairly common use.

The lawless condition of Dublin about this time may be gauged by the attempt on the life of the Duke of Ormonde, who, when on the way to Clarendon House, his town residence, within a stone’s throw of Trinity College, was, at about six o’clock on the evening of Tuesday, 6th December 1670, dragged from his coach by a band of eight hired bravos, headed, by his own confession, by the infamous Colonel Blood.

These ruffians stated their intention of hanging the Duke at Tyburn; and it was only by his own coolness and intrepidity that he succeeded in making his escape, after having been fired at, ridden over, and struck with swords and pistols. His son, the Earl of Ossory, attributed this murderous attack to the Duke of Buckingham, whose creature Blood notoriously was, and uttered the well-known threat, in presence of King Charles II., that should his father ‘come to an untimely or violent death … I shall pistol you though you stood behind the King.’

The Viceroyalty of the Duke of Ormonde; 1662-69 and 1677-85, was notable for the marked increase of material prosperity. He re-established the linen manufacture at Chapelizod and Carrick, and worsted at Clonmel.

The so-called ‘Popish Plot’ of Titus Oates was not without its echoes in Dublin. The principal informer in Ireland, a man named David Fitzgerald, confessed indeed that his informations were false, but his accomplices and imitators persisted in their charges, denouncing all favourers of the Roman Catholics as ‘Tories,’ the name given in Ireland to those dispossessed landholders of the confiscations. who had become a species of armed freebooters - thus introducing a new political term into the English vocabulary.

On the statements of these informers the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, Dr. Oliver Plunkett, was imprisoned in New Gate, Dublin, and conveyed thence to London, where, after the grand jury had refused to find a true bill against him, a second most improbable charge was brought forward, under which the unfortunate prelate was convicted and executed at Tyburn in 1681, the last victim of the Popish Plot. In 1905 he was solemnly beatified bv the present pontiff, Pius X.

In the reaction which ensued on the downfall of Titus Oates, Richard Talbot, a favourite of James, Duke of York, obtained considerable influence in Ireland. His brother Peter had been created by the Pope titular Archbishop of Dublin, and had celebrated Mass there with great splendour and publicity to the alarm of the Irish Protestants.

Shortly after the accession of James II. Richard Talbot was created Earl of Tyrconnell and lieutenant-general of the Irish army, and the King’s brother-in-law, the Earl of Clarendon, arrived in Dublin as Lord-Lieutenant. The influence of Tyrconnell was soon felt in the composition of the army and in all Government appointments, and much friction was experienced between the Lord-Lieutenant and the lieutenant-general, which led to the recall of Lord Clarendon and the appointment of the Earl of Tyrconnell, with the less dignified title of Lord Deputy.

So great was the alarm caused by this announcement that, on the departure of Lord Clarendon from Dublin in February 1687, he was accompanied by 1,500 Protestant families.

The landing of William of Orange and the flight of James to France produced but little effect in Dublin, which was largely controlled by partisans of the latter; and on 12th March 1689 King James, with some French officers, landed at Kinsale to fight out on Irish soil that quarrel which had in England been allowed to go by default.

On Palm Sunday, 24th March, King James made his public entry into Dublin, which he entered, as we learn from a contemporary account, by St. James’s Gate, the street from which leading to the Castle, about a mile in length, was lined by the soldiers of the garrison, and strewn with fresh gravel. ‘And at his first entry into the liberty of the city, there was a stage built, covered with tapestry, and thereon two playing on Welsh harps; and below a great number of friars with a large cross, singing; and about 40 oyster-wenches, poultry and herb women, in white, dancing, who thence ran along to the castle by his side, here and there strewing flowers. … At the utmost limits he was met by the Lord Mayor, aldermen, common council, master wardens, and brethren of the several companies, in their formalities, the King and herald-at-arms, pursuivants, and servants of the household, and there received the sword of state (which he gave to Tyrconnell, who carried it before him through the city), and the sword and keys of the city, and there had a speech made to welcome him to that loyal city and people, by Counsellor Dillon, who that morning was sworn recorder in the room of Counsellor Barnwell. … And being come thus to the castle the King alighted from his horse. … And from thence he was conducted into the chapel there (made by Tyrconnell of Henry Cromwell’s riding house). where *Te Deum *was sung for his happy arrival; and thence he retired into an apartment prepared in a new house built before in the castle by Tyrconnell, and there dined and refreshed himself.” (*History of Ireland, *Thomas Wright, vol. ii. book V. p.204)

Want of funds forced King James to the expedient, so bitterly remembered against him, of seizing the machine of a man named Moore who held a patent of Charles II. authorising him to strike copper coins; and having melted down old brass guns, broken bells, and other worthless lumber, he issued a coinage, enforced by successive proclamations, to the nominal value of one million and a half sterling, of which pieces which constituted a legal tender to the amount of £5 were intrinsically worth 4d.!

James expelled the fellows and scholars of Trinity College, seized upon the property of the University, including the communion plate, converted the chapel into a magazine, and the chambers into prisons.

The battle of the Boyne soon altered the aspect of affairs in Dublin. James, after sleeping one night in the city, once more fled to France, and the Irish army evacuated Dublin on Wednesday, 2nd July, and marched to Limerick. William occupied Finglas on Thursday, 3rd July, halted his victorious troops there for some days, fearing outrages on the Dublin citizens, while he entered the city on Friday, 4th July. Dublin Castle had been seized for King William by Captain Farlow, who had been incarcerated therein.

On Sunday, 6th July, William attended a thanksgiving service in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, when the sermon was preached by Dean King, lately released from imprisonment in the Castle, and shortly to be promoted to the bishopric of Derry.

In 1692 a new and extended charter was granted to the ‘President and Fraternity of Physicians,’ founded in 1654 by John Stearne, M.D., senior fellow of Dublin University, and incorporated twenty-three years later by a charter of Charles II. The society was thenceforth known as the King and Queen’s College of Physicians until 1889, when, under a new charter of Queen Victoria, it received its present name of the Royal College of Physicians.

In 1697 Bartholomew van Homrigh, Lord Mayor of Dublin, obtained from King William III. a new collar of SS, to replace that lost in 1688. It is still in use by the chief magistrate of Dublin, and bears attached to it a miniature of the royal donor.

The last decade of the century saw the issue of the second Dublin newspaper, the *Flying Post, *published at Dick’s Coffee House in Skinners’ Row.

The city, during the two centuries and a half of Tudor and Stuart rule, though steadily increasing in wealth and importance, still occupied an area to our modern ideas quite incommensurate with its influence and position. Even so late as 1649 the castle of Baggotrath was an isolated building amongst fields.

In 1670, during a great storm at the time of new moon, the river overflowed the ground now occupied by Brunswick Street and reached the walls of Trinity College, still aptly described as *juxta *Dublin; and in the same year St. Stephen’s Green was first enclosed, the walks gravelled, the green levelled, and a double row of lime-trees planted along the wall.

At the same time trenches were made to carry the water away which much ‘annoyed the Green.’ (History of the City of Dublin - Harris) The ground between the rear of the edifices on the north side of Dame Street and the Liffey seems to have been unbuilt on at the beginning of the 17th century.

There then existed at the foot of Dame’s Gate a small harbour, possibly the original Dubh-linn, or Blackpool, whence the city took its name, and whence in 1534 the Archbishop of Dublin took boat to be wrecked at Howth and to meet his death at the hands of the followers of’ ‘Silken Thomas’ at Artane.

Shortly before the close of the 17h century a portion of Grafton Street was still set for wheat-growing at 2s. 6d. per acre, and the southern part was known at the beginning of the 18th century as Cross&s Garden.

The great bridge ‘going to Ostmantown,’ (History of the City of Dublin, Harris) at the head of Bridge Street, was the only communication between the north and south banks of the Liffey until the erection in 1670 of the wooden structure known as Bloody Bridge.

Six years later the construction of Essex Bridge (rebuilt in 1753) was commenced by Humphrey Jervis, sheriff of Dublin two years before, afterwards Lord Mayor, and knighted in 1681; and in 1684 were built Ormonde Bridge, named from the first Duke of Ormonde, and Arran Bridge, named from the Earl of Arran, grandson to the Duke, and his deputy two years before. The latter structure was carried away by an inundation in 1763, and the former swept away by a flood in 1802, when boats plied in Patrick Street.

In 1644 M. de la Boullaye le Gouz, a French visitor to Ireland, describes Dublin as a town about the size of Angers, which would give a population of between 20,000 and 30,000. This population had in 1682 increased to 60,000, and probably exceeded 100,000 before the end of the century.

The Reformation introduced a new line of cleavage between Dublin and the rest of Ireland exclusive of the ‘plantations.’ The people of Dublin, true to their west of England and Welsh ancestry, early became Protestant, and indeed rather Puritan and Calvinistic, in their religious opinions. Thus the city became, like London, a stronghold of the Parliamentary party in the great rebellion, and eagerly welcomed William of Orange after the exodus caused by the ascendency of Tyrconnell.

Of a population estimated in 1644 at 24,000, something like 70 per cent. are stated to have been Protestants. Even 14 years previously, of 239 householders in the populous parish of St. Werburgh only 28 were Roman Catholics. Several new churches, most of which have long since disappeared, were erected during the 16th and 17th centuries. The church of St. Nicholas was re-edified in 1578, and that of St. Bridget or St. Bride in 1684; and, towards the close of the 17th century, the parish of St. Michan, which then included all the city north of the Liffey, was divided into those of new St Michan’s, St. Paul’s, and St. Mary’s, and churches provided for the two latter by a tax on the inhabitants.

The Society of Friends, commonly known as Quakers, had secured many adherents in Ireland during the ascendency of the Commonwealth; and their congregation of Eustace Street was formed in 1662.

Other churches had meantime been sequestrated to secular uses As we have seen, the Materials of St. Mary’s Abbey had been used in the construction of Essex Bridge, and in 1577 we read of the chapel of St. George, near the present South Great George’s Street, outside the walls and the eastern gate, that ‘this chappell hath been of late razed, and the stones thereof, by consent of the assemblie, turned to a common oven, converting the ancient monument of a doutie, adventurous, and holie Knight, to the colerake sweeping of a purloafe baker.’

Under James II.** **two nunneries were established in Dublin: one known as ‘Gratia Dei,’ in Ship Street (properly Sheep Street), by charter of 5th June 1690; the other in Channel Row, now North Brunswick Street. The chapel of the latter, consecrated by Archbishop Patrick Russell 6th June 1689, is said still to form part of the Richmond Surgical Hospital, and is commonly known as the ‘Chapel Ward’ of that hospital.

The principal remains of the Tudor and Stuart periods are the Castle, the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, and the King Hospital’s, Oxmantown, or ‘Blue Coat School.’

The Anglo-Norman Castle of Dublin was erected probably on the same site as the ‘Dun’ of their Scandinavian predecessors - a strong position on the summit of a ridge of land running east and west, defended on the north by the Liffey, and having its fosse filled by the stream of the Poddle.

The need of such a stronghold was realised by Henry ii., as is evidenced by the following letter

‘To Meiler Fitz-Henry, Lord Justice of Ireland, - Greeting.

‘You have given us to understand that you have not a convenient place wherein our treasure may be safely deposited, and forasmuch, as well for that use as for many others, a fortress would be necessary for us at Dublin, we command you to erect a castle there in such competent place as you shall judge most expedient; as well to curb the city as to defend it if occasion shall so require, and that you make it as strong as you can, with good fosses and durable walls. But you are first to finish one tower, unless afterwards a castle and palace and other works that may require greater leisure may be more conveniently raised and that we should command you so to do: for which you have our pleasure, according to our desire-at present you may take to this use 300 marks from G. Fitz-Robert, in which he stands indebted to us.

‘GEDDINgTON, 21st *August *1205.’

The Castle so begun, and continued by John de Gray, was refounded and completed by Henry the Londoner, Archbishop of Dublin, as recorded by Stanihurst: ‘The Castle of Dublin was builded by Henrie Loundres … about the yeare of our Lord one thousand two hundred and twentie. This castell hath beside the gate house foure goodlie and substantiall towers of which one of them is named Bermingham his tower, whether it were that one of the Berminghams did enlarge the building thereof, or else that he was long in duresse in that tower.’ (Stanihurst in Holinshed’s Chronicle)

The Archbishop, in clearing the site for the Castle, removed the churches of St. Martin and St. Paul, while that of St. Andrew, which then occupied the site of No. 10 Dame Street, was used as the Castle stable in

 

[Page 98 is missing - I’m searching for another copy of the book, May 1, 2,000. KF]

 

which before his comming was ruinous, foule, filthie, and greatly decaied. This he repaired and re-edified and made a verie faire house for the lord deputie or the chief governor to reside and dwell in.’ (Holinshed’s Chronicle)

In a panegyric on the Viceroy occurs the line:- *

Verum Sidnaei laudes heac saxa loquunter.*’

The Castle was again allowed to fall into disrepair, and on the arrival of Strafford in 1632 the Viceregal apartments were found to be ruinous, ‘the bakehouse in present being just under the room where I now write, and the wood reek *(sic) *just full before the gallery window.’ (Strafford’s Letters, vol. i. p. 131)

The Castle shared in the benefits of Strafford’s rule; and the same French visitor already referred to thus speaks of the building: ‘I found the Castle indifferently strong, without any outworks, and pretty well furnished with guns of cast metal.’ (M. de la Boullaye le Gouz)

The guarding of the Castle was committed to a Constable, which office could only be held by one of English birth, a gentleman porter, and a body of warders, archers, and pikemen, commonly veteran pensioners. The pay of the Constable was £18, 5s. per annum, that of each warder £2, 5s. 6d. The gate towers were reserved as an abode for the Constable and for State prisoners.

There were other dwellings within the Castle precincts. A Mint was more than once established in the Castle, and the Master of the Mint, *percussor monetae, *resided therein. Beyond the Castle walls towards the east were a chapel, the prison of the Provost Marshal, an armoury, the offices, as at present, of the Ordnance Department, an office for registry of deeds, and the stables of the governor.

In 1606 Sir Arthur Chichester complains that a court of law was held in the Castle directly over a store of munitions. In a 17th-century lease we find the letting of all the place, tenement, or house and shop occupied by Thomas Pinnocke, goldsmith, deceased, with two small gardens annexed, situate *within *the precincts of the castle ditch, and extending from the castle bridge to the city wall west of the said bridge, and from the castle west and north of the said castle.’

Dean Swift occupied rooms within the Castle, which narrowly escaped being burnt through his carelessness while reading in bed.

From the time of Sidney to the end of the 17th century the appearance of the Castle was pretty much as follows. The entrance was, as at present, from the north on the south side of Castle Street, and was approached by a drawbridge between two strong round towers, called the Gate Towers, as in Derrick’s view. The gateway between them was furnished with a portcullis armed with iron, and two pieces of ordnance stood on a platform opposite the gate.

The east Gate Tower was taken down about 1750 to admit of a more convenient entrance, and the western was subsequently removed. From the Gate Tower a strong and high curtain wall ran westward, parallel to Castle Street, to the Cork Tower, the work of Richard Boyle, which replaced an old one that fell in May 1624.

From the Cork Tower the wall was continued in one curtain, of equal height with the former, till it joined the Bermingham Tower, named either from John Bermingham, Earl of Louth and Atherlee, Lord Justice in 1321, or from Walter Bermingham, Lord Justice in 1548, or from William Bermingham and his son Walter, imprisoned there in 1331.

The Bermingham Tower, supposed to have been built in 1411, was shattered by an explosion of gunpowder in an adjacent store, and rebuilt in 1775.

From the Bermingham Tower the curtain extended to the East Gateway, a building oblong and quadrangular, strengthened by a broad deep moat. In the walls were two sallyports or postern gates, one near the Bermingham Tower, the other affording a passage to the Castle-yard. The former was closed in 1663 by the Duke of Ormonde, in consequence of Colonel Blood’s plot to surprise the Castle.

The Wardrobe Tower, now known as the Record Tower, having been used as a storehouse of the public records since 1579, is the sole survivor of the edifice described by Harris. In 1586 it is said to have been the place of imprisonment of Henry and Art O’Neill and Hugh Roe O’Donnell, and a modern inscription placed on one of the still existing cells records the unauthenticated tradition that this was their place of confinement.

This also was threatened with destruction at the end of the 18th century, as we learn from the *Dublin Evening Post *of 3rd September 1793, ‘that the old black tower to the westward of the chappell is to be demolished as a useless fabric that gives a disgraceful gloominess to the Viceregal residence, little according with the style and elegance of the other parts.’ This proposed demolition was, however, not carried out, but in 1813 the upper storey was rebuilt, the embattled parapet was added, and the interior altered and refitted for the storage of the records. These were in turn transferred to the Record Office, and the Record Tower is now only used for the custody of modern State papers. It contained also the permanent office of Ulster King of Arms, which, however, has now been removed to the Bedford Tower.

The Castle, as it now exists, is divided into two courts or yards known as the Upper and Lower Castle-yards. The upper or western quadrangle is entered from Cork Hill, on the north, by the principal gateway, surmounted by a statue of Justice. Between this gateway and a corresponding artificial one, ‘built merely to preserve uniformity,’ is a building of two storeys exhibiting Ionic columns on rusticated arches supporting a pediment from which uses a circular lantern of the Corinthian order, terminating in a cupola, from which floats a flag on State occasions. This structure, known as the Bedford Tower, is appropriated to the use of the Master of Ceremonies, and above it the Imperial united standard was displayed on the union of the kingdoms, 1st January 1801.

On the north side of the upper quadrangle are the offices of the Chief Secretary for Ireland and the Officers of the Household. The south side, having at the west end the Wardrobe Tower, is occupied by the Viceregal apartments. These include the Council-room, the Throne-room, and St. Patrick’s Hall. The first is adorned with portraits of Viceroys of the 18th and 19th centuries; the second contains the throne erected for George IV., and a handsome lustre presented by the Duke of Rutland; in the last is annually held St. Patrick’s Ball on the 17th March.

It is decorated in white and gold, and lit by electric lights along the cornice, and its walls are enriched with the coats-of-arms and hung with the banners of the Knights of St. Patrick, the ceremony of whose investiture is held here. Its ceiling, painted in 1783 by Vincentio Valdre, represents the conversion of the Irish by St. Patrick, the reception of the chieftains by Henry II., and, in the centre, King George III.,** **supported by Liberty and Justice.

At the rear of the apartments of the Lord-Lieutenant is a small Italian garden, entered by a drawbridge. In the Lower Castle-yard, approached from Palace Street, is the Bermingham Tower; the Arsenal, with stores for 60,000 men, the Ordnance Office, and the office of the Metropolitan Police. In the corner on the south side is the Castle chapel, built of Irish limestone (1807-1814), under the Viceroyalty of John, Duke of Bedford, at a cost of £42,000, in the florid style of Pointed Gothic, the architect being Francis Johnston. On the exterior are the heads, in dark blue Irish marble, of all the sovereigns of England, and over the north door the busts of St. Peter and Dean Swift, over the east those of St. Patrick, Brian Bóroimhe (Brian Boru), and the Virgin Mary. The interior woodwork is of Irish oak.

The district north-west of Dublin had received, prior to the Scandinavian invasion, the name of Kilmainham, *i.e. *the ‘kil,’ or church, of St. Maignend, who is said to have established a monastery here as early as 606 A.D.

The district was a favourite camping-place of the Irish in their attacks on Dublin, and it was the headquarters of Brian Bóroimhe (Brian Boru) before the battle of Clontarf. About 1174 Strongbow founded here a Priory of the order of St. John of Jerusalem, or Knights Hospitallers; not of Knights Templars as has long been incorrectly affirmed. The Knights Hospitallers received a charter from King John in 1201, which was confirmed by Henry III. in 1220. In August 1212 Pope Innocent III. confirmed the ‘Knights Hospitallers of Kilmainham,’ and in 1309 we read ‘of the latter foundation (Hospitallers) was the priory of St. John’s at Kilmaynham besides Divelin.’

The knights of the order were valuable allies of the Anglo-Normans in their conflicts with the native Irish: William Fitz-Roger, Prior of Kilmainhain, was taken prisoner by the latter in a battle fought in 1274. The Priors of the order sat as Barons in the Irish Parliament which sometimes met in the Priory. In 1418 Thomas Botiller (or Butler), Prior of Kilmainham, with a body of 8,000 (‘bien huict mille’) Irish troops ‘in mail, with darts and skeyns,’ attended King Henry V. to France and took part in the siege of Rouen, where ‘they did so their devoir that none were more praised, nor did more damage to their enemies.’

James Keating, Prior in 1461, was perhaps the most notable of the tenants of that office. He wasted much of the property of the order, even going so far as to raise money by pawning a piece of the true Cross. He was deprived of his dignities by the Grand Master at Rhodes, who appointed Marmaduke Lumley, an Englishman, as his successor; but on landing at Clontarf the latter was seized by armed men, and compelled by Keating to surrender his patent of office. Keating, unfortunately for himself, espoused the cause of Lambert Simnel, and on the defeat of that pretender was deprived of his office of Constable of Dublin Castle. He held forcible possession of the Priory and Hospital for a few years, but was expelled in 1491, and soon after died in poverty. At the dissolution of the religious houses by Henry VIII., the Prior of Kilmainham surrendered all the property of his order to the King, and was created Viscount Clontarf, with a pension from the funds of the Priory.

The Hospital was reconstituted under Queen Mary, and in 1557 Sir Oswald Massingberde was appointed Prior, ‘with the sanction of Cardinal Pole, the Pope’s Legate,’ and ‘restored to the former possessions of the house; but, on the accession of Queen Elizabeth, he privately withdrew from the kingdom, and died in obscurity.’ In 1556 the Viceroy, Thomas Radcliffe, Viscount Fitzwalter, afterwards Earl of Sussex, had kept his court at the Priory of Kilmainham, which in 1535 is described by the Deputy Lord Grey, son to the Marquis of Dorset, as ‘assuredly a goodly house, and great pity that it should decay.’

Yet on the landing of Sir Henry Sidney in 1565 it was found, as we have seen, unfit for his occupation; and when Beverley Newcomen, the last Keeper, resigned in 1617, the buildings were allowed to fall into complete decay.

In 1675 the maintenance of the Veterans of the Irish garrison of 7,000 men, who, when unserviceable by reason of age, still continued in the ranks ‘for want of some other fitting provision for their livelihood,’ demanded settlement. The founding of the ‘Invalides’ in Paris by Louis XIV. pointed the way to a similar solution of the question in Ireland. accordingly, the Duke of Ormonde obtained from Charles II. in 1679 a letter authorising the erection of an Hospital for the reception of army pensioners, and a deduction of 6d. in the £1 on the pay of the troops was ordered to be applied to the maintenance and convenience of aged and maimed soldiers in the army of Ireland, whose number was then computed at 300. This financial arrangement ceased in 1794, since when the hospital has been supported by parliamentary grants.

The lands of Kilmainham, amounting to 64 acres, then included in the Phoenix Park, were considered to afford the most suitable position; but the site of the ‘old ruinous building, commonly called the Castle of Kilmainham,’ was not chosen for the erection of the new building, the present situation being selected as highest and nearest the city.

Here, says the charter of Charles II., ‘we directed an Hospital to be erected near our City of Dublin for the reception and entertainment of such antient, maimed, and infirm officers and soldiers … as have faithfully served, or hereafter shall faithfully serve Us, our Heirs and Successors.’ This charter was lost on its removal to England in 1688, but found amongst family papers and restored to the Hospital by Edward W. Newenham, 9th Regiment in 1848.

The foundation stone was laid by the Duke of Ormonde on 291h April 1680, and the building, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, was, as it now stands, completed in 1684 with the exception of the chapel, consecrated two years later, and the steeple, -added in 1701. The total cost, exclusive of the latter was £23,500.

It is described in a contemporary record as ‘a stately, spacious, and commodious building, wherein 400 invalids are decently maintained.’ The Royal Hospital has two, approaches - the more ordinary one from the north, by the Kingsbridge terminus; the more imposing from the west, by the South Circular Road, through a gateway surmounted by a Norman tower. This entrance, erected from a design of F. Johnston in 1812 during the Viceroyalty of the Duke of Richmond, and hence known as the Richmond Tower, formerly stood at the foot of Watling Street, near Barrack, formerly ‘Bloody,’ Bridge, where the south quays then ended.

On the opening of the Great Southern and Western Railway in 1846, and the conveyance to them of 21 acres of the lands of Kilmainham, it was removed to its present position by the Board of Works, at the expense of the railway company. The Royal Hospital is a plain and massive building forming a quadrangle surrounding a court, and measuring 306 feet from north to south, and 288 feet from east to west. The principal front faces north towards the Liffey.

In the centre is ‘the great hall, approached by an entrance with an ornamental Corinthian front, over the door of which are the arms of the Duke of Ormonde, having the chapel to the east and the residence of the Commander of the Forces in Ireland on the west. Above the entrance is a square steeple (1701), with a Gothic window on each of its sides, over each of which is a clock-dial, the whole terminated by an octagonal spire with a ball and vane.

The east front contains the beautiful Gothic east window of the chapel, sole relic of the Priory of the Knights Hospitallers, from the ruins of which it was carefully removed and re-erected in its present position. The stained glass of the upper portion is old, that of the lower was presented by Queen Victoria in 1849.

The great hall is 100 feet in length by 50 feet in breadth. Its walls are hung with portraits of King Charles II.,** **William and Mary, Queen Anne, and Prince George of Denmark, James, first Duke of Ormonde, and others; and decorated with flags and tattered remnants of regimental colours, including the standard carried by the Inniskilling Dragoons at the battle of the Boyne. The lower part of the walls is wainscotted in oak, and adorned with trophies of armour mainly brought from the collection in the Tower of London in 1829, including suits of armour of the 16th and 17th centuries, early matchlock and flintlock muskets, and a representative display of modern weapons.

Behind the door of the chapel is a handsome wrought-iron gate, said to have been presented by Queen Anne. The handsome ceiling is ornamented with designs of fruit and flowers, an exact reproduction in lighter materials of the original fine Italian stucco-work of Cipriani, and the carved oak of the chancel is by Grinling Gibbons. Many interesting relics are preserved in the Hospital, including charters, curious old books, and some good church-plate. Many ineffectual attempts have been made to abolish the in-pensioners of the Royal Hospital, the last in 1853; but the number fixed by Royal Warrant in 1854 at 140 is still maintained.

Adjoining the Hospital is the ancient graveyard said to have been the burying-place of Prince Murchadh, son of Brian, and others slain at the battle of Clontarf; the upright shaft of a granite cross, ornamented with an interlacing knot and divergent spirals, being traditionally believed to be portion of his monument. The enclosure, formerly known as ‘Bully’s Acre,’ was used for interments up to 1832, when, in the great cholera visitation, 500 burials took place within 10 days, and 3,200 in six months. It was then closed as a burying-place by the governors from fear of the spread of the pestilence.

Educational facilities in English Ireland may be said to date from the 17th century. The close of the 16th century had, indeed, witnessed the foundation of Trinity College, but it was not till 1608 that the Royal Free Schools, the first public schools in Ireland, were established by Order in Council. In 1617 Foyle College, Londonderry, was founded; and in 1669 Erasmus Smith, a large Irish landowner, endowed the schools which still bear his name, of which foundation is the High School in Harcourt Street, Dublin.

The following year saw the foundation by Charles II. of the King’s Hospital, or Blue Coat School, and before the close of the century the colleges or collegiate schools of Kilkenny, Clonmel, Navan, and Middleton had been founded. The only one of these which concerns the history of Dublin is the King’s Hospital, which still stands at the south-east corner of Oxmantown Green, and was the first charity of the kind in the kingdom. The district is, as we have seen, an historic one.

One of the early settlements of the Ostmen, we learn that in the 12th century ‘the faire greene or commune now called Ostmontowne-greene was all wood. … From thence, Anno 1098, King William Rufus by license of Murchad had that frame which made up the roofe of Westminster Hall, where no English spider webbeth or breedeth to this day.’ (Hanmer’s Chronicle.)

Here, in 1670, Charles II. founded the King’s Hospital, since generally known as the ‘Blue Coat School,’ from the quaint uniform of the scholars, ‘for the sustentation and relief of poor children,. aged, maimed, and impotent people, inhabiting or residing in the city of Dublin.’ In 1680 the latter object was dropped and the charity limited to the education and support of children of freemen, none of whom should be admitted who were under 3 feet 9 inches in height, or who were lame, deformed, or afflicted with any infectious disease.

The children were taught reading, writing, and arithmetic, and a fee of £5 was paid on leaving to apprentice them to some suitable calling. In 1689, as we learn from a petition to the Privy Council, Tyrconnel ‘turned out all the poor Blew Boys,’ 60 in number, and sent their beds ‘to the great Hospital near Kilmainham for the use of the wounded soldiers.’

The present structure was erected, from the plans of Thomas Ivory in 1777, a little to the west of the original building, which stood on the west side of Queen Street, and hence was sometimes incorrectly called the *Queen’s *Hospital. It presents a curiously incomplete appearance from the absence of the large central steeple included in the original design, still to be seen at the school.

The charity was endowed with £1,000** **real estate, worth £2000 per annum in 1780, when there were 170 scholars in residence; which number had fallen to 120 before the end of the 18th century. The school now affords maintenance and a first-class classical and mathematical education to 100 boys.

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