Hidden Dublin

by Frank Hopkins

  There was also a great deal of shouting and singing of Orange songs during the ‘row’ but very little occurred in the way of physical violence. All four men were eventually acquitted.

  Six years earlier on 16 December 1814, another lord lieutenant was caught up in a Dublin theatre riot. The venue on that occasion was Crow Street theatre in Temple Bar and the riot that occurred became known afterwards as ‘The Dog Row’.

  The lord lieutenant had gone to Crow Street to see the popular and long-running play Forest of Bondy and he particularly wanted to see the star of the show The Dog of Montargis played by a Dublin canine thespian called Dragon. However, on the night in question, Dragon’s master decided to strike for a better pay deal. The irate manager told him where to go, so dog and master quite literally ‘got off the stage’ and left the theatre.

  The manager hurriedly arranged to put on a substitute play and all seemed well until the end of the show when one of the manager’s underlings went on stage to apologise for the non-appearance of Dragon.

  The speech failed to satisfy the rowdies in the cheap seats and they called on the manager to come out and face them himself. No amount of cajoling could force him from his hiding-place backstage, so the angry mob proceeded to wreck the theatre.

  The lord lieutenant and his entourage were forced to flee from Crow Street while the crowd went berserk. The lord lieutenant’s box was torn asunder, chandeliers were smashed to pieces while the rioters up in the galleries broke up benches and threw them on top of the musicians in the pit. The theatre never fully recovered from this incident and following another major riot five years later, Crow Street closed its doors for the last time.

  William Street

  In his Dublin Street Names , C.T. McCready states that South William Street was named after King William III soon after the battle of the Boyne but this is not the case. South William Street actually takes its name from William Williams, who developed it along with Clarendon Street and the Clarendon Market during the 1670s.

  The Dublin Assembly Roll for 1671 states that Williams ‘shall have a new lease of a plot situate on Hoggen Green, continuing from the end of Trinity Hall to the brick chimney belonging to John Sams House …’ Williams was given the land by Dublin Corporation on a lease of ninety-nine years for the princely sum of eight pounds sterling per annum and ‘a couple of fat capons’ for the lord mayor at Christmas.

  The area leased by Williams was also referred to as being ‘neere Tibb and Tom’ in other corporation documents. The name ‘Tibb and Tom’ appears to describe an area on Hoggen Green mentioned by Walter Harris in his History and Antiquities of the City of Dublin where, according to Harris there was ‘a small range of buildings called Tibb and Tom where possibly the citizens amused themselves at leisure by playing at Keals or ninepins’. Gilbert also describes Tibb and Tom as ‘a range of buildings’ beside the Hoggen Butts where Dubliners honed their archery skills.

  Today the street is dominated by the magnificent Powerscourt House, which was built between 1771 and 1774. The house was built by Richard Wingfield, third Viscount Powerscourt and it was one of the largest dwelling houses in Dublin. The house – which cost £8,000 to build – was designed by a James’ Street stonemason Robert Mack. The house was built using Wicklow granite from the Powerscourt Estate and it was complete by 1774. However, it was only used as the Wingfield’s city residence until 1807 when it was sold to the government for £15,000.

  One of the street’s most interesting buildings is 58 South William Street. It was built in 1765 by the Society of Artists which held its first exhibition there the following year, featuring well-known artists of the day, such as Gabriel Beranger, Bernard Scale, Somervil Pope, Peter Shee and Jeremiah Barrett. The society continued to hold exhibitions at the hall until 1780 by which time most of its members had emigrated to London.

  Richard Cranfield, owner of Cranfield’s Baths in Irishtown, then took over the lease of the building and it continued to host plays and concerts and was a popular venue for all manner of exhibitions.

  In 1791 the Exhibition Rooms became the City Assembly House. The Tholsel in High Street was in imminent danger of collapse, so Dublin Corporation arranged to rent the premises from Cranfield at fifty guineas per annum. When Cranfield died in 1809 the corporation bought his interest in the building and occupied it until 1852 when the Assembly moved to City Hall.

  When a new city fire service was established in 1862 the basement of the City Assembly House was used as a fire station. The station housed nine firemen and one small engine until 1885 when it transferred to Chatham Row. Today the building is in use as the Dublin Civic Museum and is home to the Old Dublin Society.

  Monto

  Dublin’s infamous ‘Monto’ district immortalised in the song ‘Take Me up to Monto’ and in James Joyce’s Ulysses as ‘Nighttown’ was once the biggest and best-known brothel district in Europe. During its heyday it was estimated that there were 1,600 prostitutes working there at any given time. One Dublin judge commenting on the area in 1901 described Monto as ‘one of the most dreadful dens of immorality in Europe’.

  Monto was so famous that it was even mentioned in an edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica in an article on prostitution: ‘Dublin furnishes an exception to the usual practice in the United Kingdom. In that city police permit open houses confined to one street, but carried on more publicly than even in the south of Europe or Algeria.’

  Monto takes its name from Montgomery Street (now Foley Street) but the most notorious street in the area was Mecklenburgh Street. There were also a large number of smaller brothels and shebeens in the surrounding streets and laneways such as those found at Purdon Street, Mabbot Street, Elliott Place, Faithful Place and Beaver Street.

  North inner city Dublin folklorist and local historian Terry Fagan was born and bred in the heart of Monto and has written a comprehensive and detailed history of the area entitled Monto ­ Madams, Murder and Black Coddle . Fagan says that Monto, which was also known locally as ‘The Kips’, ‘The Digs’ and ‘The Village’, ‘became the undisputed centre of attraction for those in search of Dublin’s alternative nightlife.’ Mecklenburgh Street, which was the hub of the district, according to Fagan, ‘was set up to cater for the needs of punters of all classes. The higher numbers in the street were where the so-called “flash houses” were to be found. These houses catered for a higher class of customer. The lower numbers were where the less-well off were catered for.’

  The large number of soldiers living in close proximity to Monto kept trade in the area flourishing for many years. In addition, the port of Dublin was also thriving and for many sailors arriving in Dublin, Monto was their first port of call. Inevitably, many of Monto’s women and their clients succumbed to the ravages of venereal disease.

  During the last twenty years of the nineteenth century, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases was rampant in Dublin and in 1880 it was estimated that over 30 per cent of the British Army’s 5,000-strong Dublin garrison was infected. In 1881 one British Army commander complained that half the unmarried men in his regiment had succumbed to venereal disease.

  Of course, large numbers of Monto’s working women ended up suffering from these diseases themselves and the Westmoreland Lock Hospital for venereal disease in Townsend Street was the last refuge for many of them.

  The brothels went into decline after the First World War and following the departure of the British Army in 1922 the writing was on the wall for Monto. The end of the red light district was hastened by a vigorous campaign led by Frank Duff and the Legion of Mary. The end for Monto came on the night of 12 March 1925 when gardaí launched a massive raid on the remaining brothels in the area. Over one hundred women and their clients were arrested and those detained were taken to Store Street Garda Station. Their number included a Donegal TD who protested that he had only been there for a drink.

  The Poddle

  The River Poddle has been known by several different names over the centuries su
ch as the Puddle, Pottle and the Podell. It was known by some as the Tiber and also as the Salach, meaning ‘dirty’, or the Soulagh. This latter name has been immortalised by the Dubliners in the song ‘Down by the River Saile’.

  The Poddle which rises in Tallaght was at one time, the main source of fresh water for the medieval city of Dublin. As the city expanded the demand for water increased accordingly and in April 1244 Maurice Fitzgerald, justiciar of Ireland, commanded the sheriff of Dublin ‘without delay … to make inquisition, with advice of the Mayor and citizens, as to whence water can be best and most conveniently taken from its course and conducted to the King’s city of Dublin, for the benefit of the city, and at the cost of the citizens.’

  To this end, Dublin Corporation entered into an agreement with the Abbey of St Thomas, which owned the rights to the Dodder at Balrothery, to re-route water from the Dodder into the Poddle. The water was diverted by way of a two mile man-made canal that came to be known as the ‘City Watercourse’ and which remained in use until 1775. Parts of this watercourse can still be seen today in the Dodder Valley Linear Park near Tallaght.

  The Poddle, which is now mostly underground, flows into Dublin via Templeogue and Kimmage where the river divides into two at a place called the Tongue near Mount Argus. One strand, which supplied the City Watercourse, flows down through the Liberties and the other flows through Harold’s Cross. The two streams reunite at the junction of Patrick’s Street and Dean Street. It then flows past the cathedral, turns east and flows down under Ship Street and Dublin Castle to merge with the Liffey at Wellington Quay.

  St Patrick’s Cathedral is built on a small island between the two strands of the Poddle that is referred to in a document written in 1179 as ‘St Patrick’s in insula’ or St Patrick’s on the island. There was also a holy well dedicated to the saint on the island and this is now covered over by the park adjoining the cathedral. Legend has it that Patrick himself performed baptisms at this well.

  This stretch of the Poddle was very prone to flooding and the cathedral was inundated many times over the centuries. In 1687 it was reported that the floodwater in the cathedral rose above the level of the desks and on another occasion it was flooded to a depth of five feet while boats sailed on the swollen river outside.

  The present-day junction of Dean Street and Patrick’s Street was, until 200 years ago, called Cross Poddle. This was obviously one of the main crossing points over the Poddle either by way of a bridge or ford and was the place where local women gathered to wash clothes.

  It is not clear when exactly the name of Soulagh or Salach was applied to the Poddle but there were certainly many reports written over the centuries in relation to the filthy state of the river. The main culprits seem to have been the many industries and mills that lined the banks of the river and contaminated the water with bleach, refuse from the skinners’ yards and other materials, rendering the water undrinkable. The city section of the river was eventually covered over during the eighteenth century in an effort to keep the water clean.

  Brass Money

  When James II abdicated from the English throne in December 1688 he went to France for a while but he returned to Ireland in March 1689 in an attempt to regain his throne. James urgently needed money to fund his campaign and on the following day he issued a decree raising the value of English gold by 20 per cent and silver by 8 per cent.

  By June of that year James was still short of money so he decided to make his own out of brass and he established mints at the Deanery in Limerick and at 27 Capel Street in Dublin to make sixpences, shillings and half crowns. James’ proclamation of 18 June 1689 read: ‘Whereas, for remedy of the present scarcity of money in this our kingdom, and that our standing forces may be the better paid and subsisted, and that our subjects of this realm may be the better enabled to pay and discharge the taxes, excise, customs, rents, and other debts and duties, which are or shall be hereafter payable to us; we have ordered a certain quantity of copper and brass money to be coined to pass in this our kingdom during our pleasure …’

  The manufacture of brass money was only intended to be a temporary measure and the coins were dated by month as well as year because James had planned to convert them into silver on a month-by-month basis once he was back on the throne, but this obviously never happened.

  The Capel Street mint contained two coin presses: one was called the ‘James Press’ and the other was ‘the Duchess’. The mint worked twenty-four hours a day to keep up with the demand for coin and staff working on the presses worked twelve-hour shifts in order to keep the operation going.

  The mint soon ran out of copper and brass and the sourcing of new metals became an urgent priority. The mint commissioners embarked on a country-wide search for brass and copper. Later on, when these materials became scarce, tin and pewter were used in the manufacture of the coins.

  A certain amount of desperation seemed to be setting in, judging by an order sent out by the commissioners in July 1689 commanding the authorities at Dublin Castle to deliver to the mint at Capel Street ‘those two brass canons now lying in the court of this our castle …’

  In January of the following year the castle received a large quantity of mixed metals from Walter Plunkett in Limerick which contained ‘six hundred weight of gunn mettle’ and a similar amount of pewter. He also promised to send in the next consignment, four or five broken bells and a number of useless cannons from Galway and Kinsale. The use of old brass cannons in the manufacture of the coins gave rise to the new currency being known popularly as ‘gun money’.

  In June 1690, the situation became so bad that all half-crowns were recalled to the mint and were re-struck as crowns while other coins were reduced in size to save metal. A small amount of pewter pennies and halfpennies were also struck along with a small quantity of white metal crowns and half-crowns.

  James had fled Ireland following the Battle of the Boyne and the Capel Street mint fell into the hands of the Williamite forces. One of William III’s earliest proclamations from his camp at Finglas just after the battle in 1690 devalued the brass and copper coinage to a fraction of its value and in February 1691 the currency was declared to be worthless.

  Black Death

  Dublin suffered from many natural disasters during the Middle Ages but none was worse than the dreaded bubonic plague or ‘Black Death’ that swept through Europe in the middle of the fourteenth century. The bubonic plague spread to humans from fleas carried by black rats that lived in the holds of the thousands of merchant ships travelling between different ports.

  The Black Death – so called because it produced black spots on the skin – was first seen in China during the 1330s and it later spread to the rest of Asia and then into Europe. Once the disease reached Europe it was only a matter of time until it reached Ireland, which it duly did in August 1348.

  The Kilkenny-based Franciscan, Friar Clyn provides us with one of the few detailed descriptions of the effects of the Black Death in Dublin. According to Clyn the plague first arrived at Howth or Dalkey and quickly spread to the rest of the city and to Drogheda. The friar claimed that the disease killed 14,000 people in Dublin before Christmas: ‘There was hardly a house in which one only had died but as a rule man and wife with their children and all the family went the common way of death.’ Clyn’s estimate seems quite high and could possibly have been exaggerated but there is no way today that the friar’s claims can be verified.

  Clyn also recorded that: ‘Many died from carbuncles and boils and buboes which grew on the legs and under the arms, others from passion of the head, as if thrown into a frenzy; others by vomiting blood.’ Clyn succumbed to the disease himself, as evidenced by the final entry in the friar’s account of the disaster: ‘I leave parchment for continuing this work if happily any man survive and any of the race of Adam escape the pestilence and carry on the work which I have begun.’ Some unknown scribe added a footnote to the document some time later with the words: ‘Here it seems that the author died.’<
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  Following the disaster of 1348, the disease continued to smoulder for some years and there were further outbreaks over the course of the next three centuries, which led to many deaths in Dublin. There were two more outbreaks in the city before the end of the fourteenth century and it was devastated by the Black Death in 1439. Three thousand citizens were said to have perished during that outbreak.

  There were four serious plague epidemics during the sixteenth century, including one that began in 1519 and didn’t disappear until 1525. Again, this outbreak resulted in a high mortality rate and many were reported to have fled the city for the relative safety of the surrounding countryside.

  There was another major incidence of the disease in 1650 and 1651, which led to huge loss of life and a sharp decrease in the population of Dublin. This was the last major occurrence of the Black Death in Dublin, although isolated cases were reported for many years afterwards.

  One would imagine that, given the huge scale of the tragedy in Dublin, mass plague graves would have been uncovered before now but to date this has not been the case. Some smaller burial pits, such as those uncovered at Crow Street and at Swords, have been tentatively linked to the Black Death but no large-scale burial grounds have been found. It has been suggested in the past that there were mass graves at Blackpitts off the South Circular Road, but this rumour hasn’t been backed up by any physical evidence.

  Grievance Association

  In August 1847, DMP Inspector John Flint, secretary of a body called The Dublin Police Grievance Association, presented a report to the lord lieutenant of Ireland. The report contained a short history of the Dublin Metropolitan Police and a number of general observations in relation to police manning levels, pay and pensions and a large number of issues generally related to the policing of crime in Dublin over the course of the previous eleven years.