O’Donnell was then confined in chains in the castle’s Record Tower, where he was placed under heavy guard. Despite the increased security O’Donnell managed to escape again one year later.
Red Hugh along with Art and Henry O’Neill managed to overpower their gaolers and they escaped by sliding down what the transcriber of the annals politely described as ‘privy-chutes’ but were really open sewage pipes.
Once the three men had safely negotiated the deep defensive ditch that then surrounded Dublin Castle they were met by a guide, who brought them safely away from the city and into the foothills of the Dublin mountains, where they separated from Henry O’Neill.
However, the men made slow progress because Art – who had grown heavy in prison – was so weak that Red Hugh and the guide were forced to carry him. Their progress was hindered further by the cold January weather. It was snowing that night and the men were only lightly clothed as they had been forced to leave their heavy cloaks behind.
The men’s destination on that occasion was the Glenmalure fortress of Fiach McHugh O’Byrne, but they were forced to seek shelter at the bottom of a cliff near a place now known as Glenreemore (the ‘glen of the big king’).
Hugh sent the guide on to O’Byrne’s stronghold for help. Fiach immediately sent some of his servants to help the men and bring them food, ale and beer but when they eventually found Art and Red Hugh, the two men were unconscious and covered with snow and hailstones. Fiach’s men did their best to revive them but Art died soon afterwards from exposure and was buried there. Red Hugh, suffering from frostbite, was carried to Glenmalure where he laid low until he had sufficiently recovered to make his way back to Donegal.
On his return to Ballyshannon, Red Hugh had both of his frost-bitten toes amputated. He eventually succeeded his father as leader of the O’Donnells and during the following years he became the main ally of the earl of Tyrone, Hugh O’Neill. Following the Battle of Kinsale in 1601, O’Donnell fled to Spain where he died in 1602.
Bishop Whateley
During the mid-eighteenth century the Protestant archbishop of Dublin, Richard Whateley, was a familiar sight on the south-side streets of Dublin. Besides being a man of the cloth, Whateley was also an economist, philosopher and ardent social reformer. He was also a vociferous supporter of Catholic emancipation and he campaigned extensively for the abolition of transportation of Irish prisoners to British colonies throughout the New World.
Whateley, the son of a Bristol cleric, was born in 1787 and he was said to have been an extremely absent-minded child. So much so that he was totally unaware of the names of streets and shops in his own locality. He was sent to Oxford at the age of eighteen and he later became a don there. During his time at Oxford Whateley was known as a controversial liberal and a progressive thinker and he attracted large crowds to his sermons. Even during those early years Whateley was renowned for being extremely restless and many attended his sermons simply to see what antics he would get up to.
In 1831 he was sent to Dublin as archbishop by the English Whig prime minister Lord Grey, who felt that Dubliners might appreciate his down-to-earth qualities a bit more than those of his stuffier predecessors.
These qualities weren’t immediately obvious to members of his own church and the often controversial and outspoken Whateley seems to have made several enemies within its ranks for working too closely with Catholics on a common religious curriculum. In his Memoirs of Richard Whateley written in 1864, W.J. Fitzpatrick gives details of a confrontation between the archbishop and one of his critics. ‘Pray sir,’ said the archbishop, ‘why are you like the bell of your own church steeple?’ The clergyman thought for a moment before replying, ‘Because I am always ready to sound the alarm when the church is in danger.’
‘No,’ said Whateley, ‘it is because you have an empty head and a long tongue.’
Dubliners must have been more than a little bemused with their new archbishop’s behaviour as he was often seen sitting on the fence outside his palace at 16 St Stephen’s Green smoking his pipe or playing in the palace gardens with his boomerang. On other occasions he would be seen climbing trees on the green or playing hide-and-seek with his dogs and he was even observed stoning crows there on occasion.
Whateley was never happier than when he was in his garden and it must have been a peculiar sight to see him wandering through it on his twice-daily walks dressed in his old vestments while slashing at weeds with his walking stick with a large steel blade attached to the end of it.
The archbishop had many peculiar habits which included paring his nails at the dinner table and he often alarmed his fellow diners by twirling his chair around on one leg at top speed. He often attended meetings of the National Board of Education at Antrim House in Merrion Square, where he managed to wear a large hole in the carpet by swinging on his chair. The hole was referred to for many years afterwards as ‘Whateley’s Hole’.
Whateley’s wife of nearly forty years died in 1860 and Whateley was overcome with grief. He became gravely ill and he rejected all attempts to help him, even to the extent of throwing his medicine out the window. He eventually died from a stroke in 1863 at the age of seventy-seven.
Zozimus
Michael Moran a.k.a Zozimus was born in Faddle Alley near Blackpitts in the Liberties sometime around 1794 and as far as Dublin ‘characters’ go, Zoz was the granddaddy of them all. He took the name Zozimus from one his favourite recitations, which told the story of a meeting in the desert between St Mary of Egypt and Zozimus, a fifth-century holy man.
Moran, who was blind almost from birth, won fame in the city from an early age as a ballad-maker, raconteur and reciter. During his early years he was only one of a number of roving minstrels in the city and he learned his trade from the likes of the Winetavern Street balladeer, Brady the tanner’s son, and the two Richards – Madden and Shiel – who were both weavers from the Liberties, and Reynolds the poet who was renowned for his savage wit and sarcasm.
Zoz’s strengths lay in his recitations and he was often seen on his rounds dressed in what his biographer described as a long frieze coat, a greasy brown beaver hat, corduroy trousers and a pair of ‘strong Francis Street brogues.’ He also carried a large blackthorn stick attached to his wrist with a leather strap.
Zoz had a regular beat and each day of the week would see him in a different part of the city. Sometimes he took up position at the top of Grafton Street or on Dame Street or Henry Street or his favourite pitch on Carlisle Bridge (now O’Connell Bridge).
Zozimus fell foul of the law on many occasions and he had several encounters with one member of the Dublin Metropolitan Police force in particular. DMP constable 184B had a particular dislike for ballad-singers and street performers and the blind Zozimus was at the top of his hit list. 184B didn’t like the press either and he made the mistake of hassling a journalist named Dunphy who worked for the Freeman’s Journal.
The disgruntled hacks and street entertainers soon joined forces to get even with 184B with the result that he was lampooned and ridiculed in newspaper articles and by every ballad-singer in the city. 184B became so famous that tourists went out of their way to come to Dublin to take a look at him. Wherever 184B went he was followed by crowds of Dubliners who would hurl abuse at him and laugh at his every move. Eventually, his position became untenable and he was removed from the force. For many years afterwards no other constable would wear the number 184B for fear of receiving the same treatment.
Of course, Zozimus was only too glad to join in the vilification of 184B and he wrote a ballad that was simply entitled ‘184B’, which concluded with the verse:
How proud Robert Peel must be of such a chap,
He stands about five feet nothing in cap,
And his name’s immortalized by his friend Mr D,
A statue must be riz to 184B.
(Mr D. is a reference to the journalist Dunphy.)
Zozimus died following a short illness on 3 April 1846 at his home in Patrick St
reet and he was buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave at Glasnevin although a memorial was erected over the plot in 1988. Zozimus had asked to be buried in the better-protected Glasnevin cemetery after his friend Stoney Pockets’ remains had been taken by body snatchers from Merrion churchyard.
Walking Gallows
In his Personal Sketches of His Own Times published in 1830 Jonah Barrington provides us with a sketch of one Lieutenant Edward Hepenstall, one of the most feared loyalist militiamen of 1798. Barrington, who knew Hepenstall personally, described him as a large and extremely powerful man but one ‘so cold-blooded and so eccentric an executioner of the human race I believe never yet existed, save among the American Indians’.
Hepenstall, who was a lieutenant in the County Wicklow Militia, was born at Newcastle in County Wicklow sometime around 1766 and was known on the streets of Dublin and the greater Leinster area as ‘Walking Gallows’.
Walking Gallows earned his nickname because he hanged so many Irishmen whom he believed to be rebels on his own back, literally. He acted as judge, jury and executioner and he would often hang those he suspected as being rebels on the flimsiest of evidence.
Hepenstall developed a barbarous method of executing his victims by twisting his scarf into a makeshift loop and sliding it over the condemned man’s neck. He would then pull the other end of the scarf over his own shoulder and set off at a run with the unfortunate victim jolting on his back, strangling him in the process. Hepenstall would then give the dying man a parting twist of the scarf to make sure he was dead before handing him over to his aide-de-camp for disposal.
W.J. Fitzpatrick gave a similar description of Walking Gallows in his book entitled The Sham Squire and The Informers of 1798 : ‘If Hepenstall met a peasant who could not satisfactorily account for himself, he knocked him down with a blow from his fist, which was quite effectual as a sledgehammer, and then adjusting a noose round the prisoner’s neck, drew the rope over his own shoulders, and trotted about, the victim’s legs dangling in the air, and his tongue protruding, until death at last put an end to the torture.’
According to Barrington, Hepenstall carried out many of his Dublin executions at a place he calls the ‘commercial exchange of Dublin’ which could have been one of two places: the place now covered by the Commercial Buildings at College Green or the Royal Exchange, now called City Hall.
Hepenstall is also known to have carried out at least one execution in a stable yard at the rear of Kerry House on St Stephen’s Green. Barrington seemed to think that this particular execution was justified because ‘the hangee’ on that occasion turned out to be a real rebel.
The time and place of Walking Gallows’ own death has been the subject of much disagreement over the years.
Watty Cox’s Irish Magazine claimed that Hepenstall died in great pain at his brother’s house at Andrews Street in 1804, while an entry in the Sham Squire Francis Higgins’ diary on 18 September 1800 reads: ‘Died on Thursday night, of a dropsical complaint. Lieutenant Edward Hepenstall, of the 68 th Regiment, sometime back an officer in the Wicklow militia – a gentleman whose intrepidity and spirit during the Rebellion rendered much general good.’
Higgins also claims that Hepenstall was buried at St Andrew’s churchyard in an unmarked grave and it was suggested that his headstone should contain an inscription with just two lines:
Here lies the bones of Hepenstall,
Judge, jury, gallows, rope and all.
We’ll leave the last word on Walking Gallows to Jonah Barrington who speculated on the possible whereabouts of Hepenstall’s ghost:
He may be employed somewhere else in the very same way wherein he entertained himself in Ireland; and that after being duly furnished with a tail, horns, and cloven foot, no spirit could do better business than the lieutenant.
Martello Towers
A Dublin newspaper report of September 1804 heralded the appearance of some of Dublin’s best-known coastal landmarks: ‘The building of the Martello towers for the protection of the coast from Bray to Dublin proceeds with unexampled dispatch. They are in general about forty feet in diameter, precisely circular, and built of hewn granite closely jointed. Some are already thirty feet high, and exhibit proofs of the most admirable masonry.’
The twenty-one Martello towers erected between 1804 and 1806 along the coast of Dublin at a cost of £1,800 each, formed part of the large number of these fortifications built by the British to help repel the threat of a French invasion during the Napoleonic Wars.
The name Martello comes from a similar round tower at Cape Mortella on the island of Corsica which was captured by the British navy in 1794. The small, lightly armed garrison of the tower had earlier managed to repel British attacks by land and sea, inflicting sixty casualties and causing great damage to some of their frigates in the process. The British were so impressed with the defensive capabilities of the Mortella tower that they built a string of them across the south coast of England and along the Irish coast.
John Carr, who wrote a memoir of his travels through Ireland in 1805, was scathing in his assessment of the military value of the towers. He wrote: ‘I believe it would require the inflamed imagination of the hero of Cervantes [Don Quixote] to discover one possible military advantage which they possess, placed as they are at such a distance, on account of the shallowness of the bay, from the possibility of annoying a hostile vessel.’
The Martello towers were not built to a standard size but the design was roughly the same in each. The outer walls of the towers are approximately ten feet thick. Inside, the towers there was an upper and a lower floor. The upper floor was the living quarters for the garrison and it contained a fireplace for cooking and heating purposes. Ammunition and provisions were stored on the lower floor and a steel tank was sunk into the floor for the storage of drinking water. The roof, which was accessed by a spiral staircase within the tower, contained a gun mounted on a carriage and a shot furnace that was used to manufacture red-hot shot which could be used to set fire to enemy ships. Access to the tower was usually via a doorway located roughly twenty feet off the ground, usually by a ladder that could be pulled up into the tower.
Today we can only speculate as to the effectiveness of the Martello towers as the expected invasion never materialised. For many years afterwards the towers were put to a variety of uses. Some were used as bathing-boxes and seaside dwellings while others saw service as launderettes. Today, many of the towers stand abandoned and silent but others have been given a new lease of life as converted dwelling-houses or as repositories, such as the James Joyce Museum at Sandycove.
The Martello tower at Sandycove is mentioned in the first chapter of James Joyce’s Ulysses and it now houses exhibits relating to the life of James Joyce. Joyce mentions William Pitt who was responsible for the erection of the towers: ‘Billy Pitt had them built, Buck Mulligan said, when the French were on the sea.’ The towers have also been referred to as ‘Billy Pitt’s follies’ possibly because of the fact that they cost so much to build and were never used.
Ha’penny Bridge
The Ha’penny Bridge over the River Liffey is one of the most enduring images of the city and is probably one of the most photographed bridges in Ireland. The image of this famous old bridge has adorned millions of postcards over the decades and no book, film or TV programme related to Dublin can be complete without a reference to it.
The place where the bridge was built was once the location of one of the many ferries that traversed the river. The mooring point on the south bank was known as the Bagnio Slip. The name Bagnio is believed to originate from an early eighteenth-century Temple Bar brothel.
The idea for a toll-bridge was conceived in 1815 by John ‘Bloody’ Beresford – a member of Dublin Corporation – and a man named William Walsh. Walsh approached the Coalbrookdale Ironworks in Shropshire with his scheme to build a single-span metal bridge over the Liffey. The bridge was made in eighteen separate sections and transported to Dublin.
The
bridge, which was originally called the Wellington Bridge (although it was never officially named so) in honour of the duke of Wellington’s victory at the Battle of Waterloo, was opened to the public without fuss or fanfare on 19 May 1816 and pedestrians were allowed to cross toll-free for the first ten days. From then on a toll of one halfpenny was charged. Beresford had originally erected toll-houses at either end of the bridge but these were removed just a few months later.
The name of Wellington Bridge didn’t rest easily with many Dubliners, who remembered some of Beresford’s activities during the rebellion of 1798 when he and his ‘bloodhounds’ had tortured suspected rebels at his home in Marlborough Street. Some referred to the new bridge as the ‘Triangle Bridge’, a reference to Beresford’s use of a triangular scaffold to torture the rebels.
The Wellington Bridge title must not have lasted too long as twenty years later it was being referred to in official documents as the ‘Metal Bridge’. It has also in times past been called the Iron Bridge and the Cast-Iron Bridge. Today, the official title of the structure is the Liffey Bridge but no Dubliner in living memory and beyond has ever called it anything but the ‘Ha’penny Bridge’.
In 1912 the art dealer and collector Sir Hugh Lane came up with a scheme to replace the bridge with an art gallery and he commissioned Sir Edwin Lutyens to design it for him. Lane proposed that Dublin Corporation would pull down what he referred to as ‘the hideous metal bridge and to build a gallery on a stone faced bridge’. In return he promised to fill it with paintings from his own impressive collection. Although Lane’s proposal was backed by people such as W.B. Yeats, Dublin Corporation turned down his request on the basis that it would prove too costly.
Hidden Dublin Page 6