Part 18

The Irish name of Dublin is, perhaps, the longest one by which any city in Europe is called. It is _Baile Atha Cliath Dubhlinne_, and means the town of the ford of hurdles of black pool. In ancient Irish documents it is generally shortened to _Ath Cliath_, and sometimes to _Dubhlinn_. We have no means of knowing what was the size or population of Dublin in Danish times; but long after it became the seat of English government in Ireland, it extended east no further than where the city hall now stands in Dame Street, no further west than James Street, and no further south than the lower part of Patrick Street; both Patrick's cathedral and the Comb having been outside the city walls.

We have no account of the first siege of Dublin by the Danes in 836. The annals merely say that a fleet of sixty ships of Northmen came to the Liffey, and that that was the first occupation of the city by them. The Irish captured and plundered Dublin a great many times, but do not appear to have ever tried to banish the Danes permanently out of it. It is probable that the Irish found them useful as carriers of merchandise to them from foreign countries; for seeing how often the city was captured and plundered by the Irish, it is incredible that they could not have held it had they chosen to do so. The Four Masters record its capture and plunder by the Irish in A.D. 942, 945, 988, and 998. In 994 Malachy II. sacked Dublin and carried off two Danish trophies, the ring of Tomar and the sword of Karl; and in 988 he besieged it for twenty days and twenty nights, captured it, and carried off an immense booty; and issued the famous edict, "Every Irishman that is in slavery and oppression in the country of the foreigners (Danes) let him go to his own country in peace and delight." But the Irish were not always lucky in their attacks on the Danes of Dublin, for in 917 Niall Glundubh, King of Ireland, was killed by them, and his army defeated at Killmashogue, beyond Rathfarnham. He evidently intended to take Dublin from the south, because it was so well defended on the north by the Liffey. The battle usually known as the battle of Clontarf was not fought in the locality now called by that name, but between the Liffey and the Tolka. Where Amien Street is now was probably the very centre of the battle-field. Here it may not be out of place to make a remark on the curious fact that the Danes never made any serious attempt to conquer Ireland after the battle of Clontarf, although they were at the height of their power some six or eight years after by the terrible defeat they gave the Saxons at Ashington, in Essex, which gave Canute the crown of England. He thus became not only King of England, but was King of Denmark and Norway as well--the most powerful potentate in Christendom in his time. It is strange that historians have not taken any notice of this extraordinary fact. There was comparatively little fighting between the Irish and the Danes after the battle of Clontarf, although the foreign people held Dublin until the arrival of Strongbow, and made a very poor stand against him, for he captured the city with very little difficulty. Dublin has hardly suffered what could be called a siege since 988, when Malachy II. took it from the Danes. When Strongbow held it, the Irish under the wretched Roderick O'Connor marched a great army under its walls, and were going to take it; but before they began siege operations, and while they were amusing themselves by swimming in the Liffey, Strongbow sallied out on them and totally defeated them. That was the last serious attempt to besiege Dublin.

Dublin does not appear to have grown much until after the wretched, and for Ireland terribly unfortunate, Jacobite wars were over. It grew and prospered rapidly almost all through the eighteenth century when a native parliament sat there; but from about 1820 until about 1870 there was not very much either of growth or improvement in it. Since then, in spite of what the census may show, it has grown considerably, and has been improved immensely. It is not easy to see what has caused such improvement in Dublin since 1870. The only way that the improvement in the state of the streets, the pulling down of old buildings and the erection of new ones, can be accounted for, is by the fact that the local government of the city is in the hands of a different class of men from those who ruled it so long and so badly up to about the time mentioned. When one considers all that has been done since then in the paving of streets, the laying down of new side walks, the tearing down of old buildings, the erection of cottages for the working classes where rotten and pestiferous houses had stood, the deepening of the river so that the largest ships can now enter it, the extension and perfecting of the tram-car system, and other improvements too numerous to mention, it strikes him as something astonishing; but when it is remembered that all these improvements have taken place in the face of declining trade, declining population, and declining wealth in the country at large, what has been accomplished becomes absolutely sublime. It shows clearly that there is a class of the Irish people who, with all their faults, possess hearts and souls

"that sorrows have frowned on in vain, Whose spirit outlives them, unfading and warm";

and that they never give up and never despair. Never has any city been so much improved in so short a time, and in the face of such difficulties. The improvements are still being carried on. If they are carried on for another quarter of a century at the same rate at which they were carried on during the last quarter of a century, Dublin will be one of the cleanest, pleasantest, healthiest, and most beautiful cities in the world.

In an educational point of view, there are very few cities either in these islands or on the Continent that offer more facilities for culture than Dublin. Its new National Library is, for its size, one of the finest and best organised and best managed in Europe. It is not a British Museum, nor is it a Bibliothèque Nationale; and the citizens of Dublin who have children who are fond of reading, and who wish to add to their store of knowledge, ought to feel very well satisfied that their National Library is _not_ like either the monstrous and little-good-to-the-masses institution in London, or the still more monstrous and still less good-to-the-masses institution in Paris. Those to whom time is of little value can afford to wait during a considerable part of the day to get a book from the great libraries of London and Paris; but for any one to whom time is really valuable, to visit the great libraries mentioned as a reader of their books, should, in most cases, be the last thing he should think of.

There are three libraries in Dublin, of which two are free to any one known as a respectable person--these are the National Library and the Royal Irish Academy. To become a reader in Trinity College Library costs, to a person known to be respectable, only a couple of shillings a year. Seeing the facilities that are in Dublin for cultured people, or for those who wish to become cultured, it is strange that it does not stand higher as an educational centre. The three great libraries it contains--that is, the National Library, Trinity College Library and the Royal Irish Academy--contain almost every sort of book required for the most complete education in every art and science known to civilised men. But one of the grand advantages of these institutions, an advantage almost as great to the people at large as the treasures they contain, is the fact that they are not controlled by "red tapeism." The amount of trouble and downright humiliation one has to go through to become a reader in the British Museum of London, or in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, is enough to deter any but a person of nerve from seeking admittance to them as a reader. The British Museum is not so bad in the matter of "red tapeism" as it might perhaps be; but the Bibliothèque Nationale puts so many obstacles in the way of those who desire to become readers, that it is little else than a disgrace to Paris and to France. For ridiculous red tapeism it beats any institution of its kind on earth. There are probably not three libraries in the world more easy of access than the three Dublin ones that have been mentioned, and in which there is less red tapeism, or more courtesy shown to readers.

The buildings that have been recently erected in Kildare Street, Dublin, the Library and the Museum, would be considered chaste and elegant in any city in the world; and it is questionable if any buildings of their kind can be found in any city to surpass them in architectural beauty. Even the Picture Gallery and the Natural History Gallery, close to them in Leinster Lawn, are very handsome buildings. If the front of Leinster House, facing Kildare Street, were brightened up and made to look like its rear, the whole group of buildings, including Leinster House itself, would form an architectural panorama hardly to be surpassed anywhere; and if Dublin contained nothing else worthy of being seen, it would make Dublin worth travelling hundreds of miles to see.

But it is the Museum of Irish Antiquities that is, or that ought to be, the glory of this splendid group of buildings, and it is the only one of them with the management of which fault can be justly found. The way it has been managed ever since the articles it contains were removed from the Royal Irish Academy in Dawson Street is a disgrace to all Ireland, and a blot on the Irish people. There is not room to show the public much more than half the objects of antiquity. They are stowed away in drawers, and have been so for nearly ten long years. They might as well be in the earth from which they were recovered as be packed into drawers in a back room where none but officials can see them. If there was a decent and proper national spirit among the Irish people, such treatment of Ireland's wonderful and unique antiquities would not be tolerated for a single week. Her antiquities are among the chief glories of Ireland. In monuments of the past she stands ahead of almost all countries save Greece and Egypt. It is not alone in her ruined fanes, round towers, gigantic _raths_, sepulchral mounds, and Cyclopean fortresses that she can boast of antiquarian curiosities more numerous and more unique than those of almost any other country, but also in her multitudinous articles in gold, bronze, and iron. A good many of these--the greater part of them, perhaps--are in positions where they can be seen; but thousands of them are where no one but an official can see them. If the Irish antiquarian department were properly arranged, and if _all_ the objects it possesses that have been dug up from Irish soil were properly exhibited, Ireland could boast of an exhibition of national antiquities greater, more entirely her own, and more unique than that possessed by any other country in Europe.

Some may think that this statement is not true. They may point to the enormous collection of antiquities in the museum in Naples. It is, however, hardly fair to class the treasures of that museum with the objects found in Ireland. It was the accidental calamity that befel Herculaneum and Pompeii that stocked the museum in Naples. If that calamity had not happened, it is all but certain that not a single object in the Neapolitan museum would now be extant. It was by no accidental calamity that the enormous number of Irish antique objects were brought to light. They were found from time to time all over the country. There are many private collections in the hands of private individuals in almost all the large towns in Ireland, and a very large percentage of the bronze objects in the British Museum were found in Ireland. No other country of its size has yielded so many objects of a far-back antiquity. It seems a pity that those who have so many private collections of antique objects in so many parts of Ireland do not send them all to the Royal Irish Academy; but if they are to lie there, stowed away in drawers in a back room, they might better remain in the hands of private collectors. If there was a real national press in Ireland, there would be such widespread indignation awakened at the way Irish antiquities have been treated since they were removed to the Museum in Kildare Street that those who manage it would be _forced_ to treat one of the finest collections of its kind in the world in a very different manner. Hardly a word has appeared in the Dublin press protesting against the way the department of Irish antiquities has been managed.

With all the advantages Dublin possesses over most of the European capitals in great facilities for education, in cheap house rent as compared with many other cities, in uncommon beauty of environs, very few rich, retired people with families to educate, choose it for a residence. It is not to be wondered at that wealthy English and Scotch people should prefer to live in their own countries, but wealthy Irish people seem not to desire to live in Dublin unless it is their native place. Ireland, unfortunately, does not possess very many rich people, but she has at least some outside of Dublin; but very few of these, even if they have young, growing-up families, go to reside in the capital in order to educate them. Some seem to think that outside of Trinity College, Dublin has no advantages in an educational point of view worth speaking of. This is not now the case. It is true that some years ago Trinity College was the only institution in Dublin where high-class education could be obtained, but it is not so any longer, since the rise of other educational institutions. But it is in the excellence of its libraries, and the easy access that there is to them, that Dublin offers such great advantages to those who do not desire to enter Trinity College. There is, of course, a much larger collection of books in the British Museum, and in many of the Continental libraries, than there is in the libraries of Dublin; but between red tapeism, and the greater number of readers that frequent those places as compared with the Dublin libraries, it is safe to say that more reading could be done and more knowledge gained by a student in one week in a Dublin library than in two weeks in any of those enormous places where there are such crowds and consequently such loss of time.

It is, however, hardly to be wondered at that Dublin has heretofore attracted so few rich people to it. It got a name for being dirty and ill-governed; and it has to be confessed that the name was, in a large measure, deserved. Dublin _was_ dirty and _was_ badly governed, but it is not now. A bad name lasts a long time, and is not easily got rid of; and the improvements made in Dublin are of such recent origin that it is only natural that outsiders should think it is still what it was thirty years ago. Let Dublin continue to be improved for the next twenty years as it has been during the twenty years that have elapsed, and it will be one of the most attractive of the European capitals. It is not yet what it should be; there are many things of many kinds in it which require improvement or alteration; but so much good has been done already that it is only reasonable to expect that still more will be done, and that the time cannot be far distant when the city "of the black pool," badly as its English translation may appear, will attract not only visitors from all parts of the world, but rich people who will take up permanent abode there, attracted by the educational advantages it will afford, by the beauty and cleanliness of the city itself, and by the superlative beauty of the country around it.

The situation of Dublin can hardly be called romantic. It is built at the mouth of a river, and consequently not on high ground; but the site is good, for the ground rises on both sides of the Liffey, making the drainage easy. When the system of main drainage that is now being carried out is finished, it will be one of the best drained cities in the world. Dublin has not such a picturesque site as Edinburgh has, neither has any other city in Europe; but outside of Edinburgh there are no objects of scenic interest unless one goes forty or fifty miles away to see them. But if the site of Dublin cannot be called picturesque, it can boast of having some of the most beautiful, if not the largest, public buildings in the world. For chasteness, harmony, symmetry, and grace, the Bank of Ireland, if it has any equals at all in modern architecture, has very few. The Custom House is one of the finest buildings in Europe. The new public buildings, containing the National Library and the Museum, are gems of architectural beauty; so are some of the banks, and so is the Great Southern Railway Terminus, and so are many other public buildings. Dublin cannot boast of possessing any building as large as St Paul's or the Tuileries; but size and beauty are two different things.

But it is in its environs that Dublin stands ahead of all the capitals in Europe, or, perhaps, of any other city of equal size in any country. Because the beauties around Dublin were not described in the first chapters of this work does not imply that they are much inferior to what may be seen in other parts of the country. There is nothing like the Lakes of Killarney in the environs of Dublin, and Dublin Bay is hardly equal to Clew Bay; but barring those two gems of scenic loveliness, it is questionable if there is, for beauty alone, leaving sublimity aside, anything in Ireland that surpasses the immediate environs of Dublin, without going further north than Howth, or further south than Bray. Every inch of the country round Dublin has some peculiar scenic charm of its own. The Botanic Gardens of Glasnevin are the most interesting and beautiful in Europe; not so much for the care that has been taken of them, or the quantity and variety of the plants that are in them, but principally on account of the charming locality in which they are situated. It is not meant to be implied that they are not well taken care of, or that their collection of plants is not both rare and large. What is meant is that had they the rarest and largest collection of plants to be seen in any gardens in the world, they would not have the same attraction were they situated in a less picturesque locality. If ever there was a place made to spend a hot summer day in, it is these gardens, with their murmuring river, their shaded, sunless walks, their gigantic trees and deep glens. The place where the flower gardens of Glasnevin are would still be beautiful if there wasn't a flower in it.

Its bay is the great scenic attraction round Dublin. It cannot be seen to real advantage but from the south-west side of the hill of Howth. The bay has very few islands, but its background of mountains on one side and woodland on the other is so wonderfully fair, that were there myriads of islands to be seen, they could hardly add to the wondrous beauty of the view. What a Scotch mechanic said about the view of Dublin Bay from the high land on the south-west of Howth the first time he was there will give the reader a better idea of Dublin Bay than a whole chapter of descriptions, and loses nothing by being expressed in the strong doric of the north: "Ech, mon, I seed mony a bonny sicht in Scótland, but this beats a'." There are many who think the view from Killiney Hill finer than that from Howth. The view from the former takes in Sorrento Bay, which is in reality part of the Bay of Dublin that can hardly be seen from Howth, and also takes in many valleys in Wicklow and plains in the interior that are not visible from Howth. It is not easy to say which of the views is the finer; but either is worth travelling not only ten miles, but a hundred miles, afoot to see.

In describing the beauties of Dublin Bay, it cannot be out of place to give the finest poetic address to it that was ever written. It will be new to most English and many Irish readers. The poem is by the late D. F. M'Carthy:--

"My native Bay, for many a year I've loved thee with a trembling fear, Lest thou, though dear and very dear, And beauteous as a vision, Shouldst have some rival far away, Some matchless wonder of a bay, Whose sparkling waters ever play 'Neath azure skies elysian.

"'Tis love, methought, blind love that pours The rippling magic round these shores, For whatsoever love adores Becomes what love desireth; 'Tis ignorance of aught beside That throws enchantment o'er the tide, And makes my heart respond with pride To what mine eye admireth.

"And thus unto our mutual loss, Whene'er I paced the sloping moss Of green Killiney, or across The intervening waters; Up Howth's brown side my feet would wend To see thy sinuous bosom bend, Or view thine outstretched arms extend To clasp thine islet daughters.

"My doubt was thus a moral mist,-- Even on the hills when morning kissed The granite peaks to amethyst, I felt its fatal shadow; It darkened o'er the brightest rills, It lowered upon the sunniest hills, And hid the wingèd song that fills The moorland and the meadow.

"But now that I have been to view All that Nature's self could do, And from Gaeta's arch of blue Borne many a fond memento; And gazed upon each glorious scene, Where beauty is and power has been, Along the golden shores between Misenum and Sorrento;

"I can look proudly on thy face, Fair daughter of a hardier race, And feel thy winning well-known grace, Without my old misgiving; And as I kneel upon thy strand, And clasp thy once unhonoured hand, Proclaim earth holds no lovelier land Where life is worth the living."

One great charm of the country around Dublin, like one of the great charms of Killarney, is its diversity. There are mountain, bay, woodland, and river. There is a variety of scenery in the immediate vicinity of Dublin such as cannot be found so near any other European capital, and such as not even Naples itself can boast of. Great indeed is the difference in the style of scenery between the cliffs of Howth and the green lanes of Clontarf, although both places are hardly more than four miles apart. To go a few miles further from the city, Bray is reached. It is only twenty-five minutes by train from Dublin. There one finds himself almost within a gunshot of some of the most picturesque and peculiar scenery in the world. The Dargle and Powerscourt Waterfall are in the same locality. They are gems of loveliness that surpass anything of their kind in these islands. Even Killarney has nothing like them. Their very smallness adds to their charms. The Dargle is exactly what its name, _Dair-gleann_, signifies, an oak-glen. It is a chasm some two or three hundred feet deep, every inch of the sides of which is covered in summer-time with some sort of tree, shrub, or flower. In its depths laughs or murmurs a limpid stream that can rarely be noticed, such is the thickness and luxuriance of the trees and shrubs that overhang it. Powerscourt Waterfall is close by the Dargle. The river that forms it leaps down a rock nearly three hundred feet in height, into a valley of brightest verdure, covered with a thick growth of primeval oak-trees. An enchanting spot--which it is gross folly to attempt to describe--in a land of towering hills and flower-crowned rocks. Its wildness, winsomeness, and loveliness must be seen in order to form anything like a just idea of it. And all within about twelve miles of Dublin!