LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF AN ANCIENT CAPITAL
I KNOW Dublin somewhat better now, and I no longer think of it as a gay
town--rather as a supremely tragic one. Turn the corner from any of the
main thoroughfares, and you will soon find yourself in a foul alley of
crowded tenements, in the midst of a misery and squalor that wring the
heart. You will wonder to see women laughing together and children
playing on the damp pavements. It is thin laughter and half-hearted
play; and yet, even here, there is a certain air of carelessness and
good-humour. It may be that these miserable people do not realise their
misery. Cleanliness is perhaps as painful to a person reared in dirt as
dirt is to a person reared in cleanliness; slum dwellers, I suppose, do
not notice the slum odour; a few decades of slum life must inevitably
destroy or, at least, deaden those niceties of smell and taste and
feeling which play so large a part in the lives of the well-to-do. And
it is fortunate that this is so. But one threads one's way along these
squalid streets, shuddering at thought of the vice and disease that must
be bred there, and mourning, not so much for their unfortunate
inhabitants, as for the blindness and inefficiency of the social order
which permits them to exist.
[Illustration: DUBLIN CASTLE
(C) Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.]
[Illustration: O'CONNELL, ALIAS SACKVILLE STREET, DUBLIN]
These appalling alleys are always in the background of my thoughts of
Dublin; and yet it is not them I see when I close my eyes and evoke my
memory of that ancient town. The picture which comes before me then is
of the wide O'Connell Bridge, with the great monument of the Liberator
guarding one end of it, and the curving street beyond, sweeping past the
tall portico of the old Parliament House, past the time-stained
buildings of Trinity College, and so on along busy Grafton Street to St.
Stephen's Green. This is the most beautiful and characteristic of
Dublin's vistas; and one visualises it instinctively when one thinks of
Dublin, just as one visualises the boulevards and the Avenue de l'Opera
when one thinks of Paris, or the Dam and the Kalverstraat when one
thinks of Amsterdam, or the Strand and Piccadilly when one thinks of
London.
It was in this direction that our feet turned, that bright Sunday
morning, when we sallied forth for the first time to see the town, and
we were impressed almost at once by two things: the unusual height of
Dublin policemen and the eccentric attitudes of Dublin statues. There
are few finer bodies of men in the world than the Royal Irish
Constabulary. They are as spruce and erect as grenadiers; throughout the
length and breadth of Ireland, I never saw a fat one. They are recruited
all over the island, and the tallest ones must be selected for the
Dublin service. At any rate, they tower a full head above the average
citizen of that town, and, in consequence, there is always one or more
of them in sight.
As for the statues, they sadly lack repose. The O'Connell Monument is a
riot of action, though the Liberator himself is comparatively cool and
self-possessed. Just beyond the bridge, Smith O'Brien poses with leg
advanced and head flung back and arms proudly folded in the traditional
attitude of haughty defiance; opposite him, Henry Grattan stands with
hand outstretched midway of an eloquent period; and, as you explore the
streets, you will see other patriots in bronze or marble doing
everything but what they should be doing: standing quietly and making
the best of a bad job. For to stand atop a shaft of stone and endure the
public gaze eternally _is_ a bad job, even for a statue. But a good
statue conceals its feeling of absurdity and ennui under a dignified
exterior. Most Dublin ones do not. They are visibly irked and impatient.
I mentioned this interesting fact, one evening, to a Dublin woman of my
acquaintance, and she laughed.
"'Tis true they are impatient," she agreed. "But perhaps they will quiet
down once the government stops calling O'Connell Street by a wrong
name."
"Where _is_ O'Connell Street?" I asked, for I had failed to notice it.
"Your hotel faces it; but the government names it after a viceroy whom
nobody has thought of for a hundred years."
It was then I understood the confusion of the man who had carried our
bags up from the station; for to every good Irishman Sackville Street is
always O'Connell Street, in honour of the patriot whose monument adorns
it. That it is still known officially as Sackville Street is probably
due to the inertia of a government always suspicious of change, rather
than to any desire to honour a forgotten viceroy, or hesitation to add
another leaf to O'Connell's crown of laurel. O'Connell himself, in some
critical quarters, is not quite the idol he once was; but Irishmen agree
that the wide and beautiful street which is the centre of Dublin should
be named after him, and his monument, at one end of it, is still the
natural rallying-place for the populace, whose orators love to
illustrate their periods by pointing to the figure of Erin breaking her
fetters at its base.
At the other end of the street is a very noble memorial of another
patriot--Charles Stewart Parnell. Parnell's fame burns brighter and
clearer with the passing years, and this memorial, so simple, so
dignified, and yet so full of meaning, is one which no American can
contemplate without a thrill of pride, for it is the work of Augustus
Saint-Gaudens--a consummate artist, American to the marrow, though
Dublin-born, of a French father and an Irish mother.
Midway of this great thoroughfare, rises the Nelson Pillar--a fluted
column springing a hundred and fifty feet into the air, dominating the
whole town. I do not understand why Nelson should have been so signally
honoured in the Irish capital, for there was nothing Irish about him,
either in birth or temperament. Perhaps that is the reason. Stranger
things have happened in Ireland. And indeed it is no stranger than the
whim which set another statue to face the old Parliament House--a gilded
atrocity representing William of Orange, garbed as a Roman emperor in
laurel-wreath and toga, bestriding a sway-backed horse!
The Home Rule Parliament will no doubt promptly change the street signs
along the broad thoroughfare which forms the heart of Dublin; but
meanwhile everybody agrees in calling the bridge O'Connell's monument
faces by his name. A very handsome bridge it is, and there is a
beautiful view from it, both up and down the river. Dublin is like
Paris, in that it is built on both sides of a river, and the view from
this point reminds one somewhat of the view along the Seine. There are
many bridges, and many domed buildings, many boats moored to the
quays--and many patient fishermen waiting for a bite!
A short distance beyond the bridge is the great granite structure with
curving facade and rain-blackened columns, a queer but impressive jumble
of all the Greek orders, which now houses the Bank of Ireland. Time was
when it housed the Irish Parliament, and that time may come again;
meanwhile it stands as a monument to the classical taste of the
eighteenth century and its fondness for allegorical sculpture--Erin
supported by Fidelity and Commerce, and Fortitude supported by Justice
and Liberty! Those seem to me to be mixed allegories, but never mind.
Those later days of the eighteenth century were the days of Dublin's
glory, for then she was really, as well as sentimentally, the capital of
Ireland. Her most beautiful public buildings date from that period, and
all her fine spacious dwelling-houses. After the Union, nobody built
wide spacious dwellings, but only narrow mean ones, to suit the new
spirit; and the new spirit was so incapable of living in the lovely old
houses that it turned them into tenements, and put a family in every
room, without any sense of crowding! I sometimes fear that the old
spirit is gone for good, and that not even independence can bring it
back to Dublin.
It was the Irish House of Commons which, in 1752, provided the funds for
the new home of Trinity College, just across the street--a great pile of
time-worn buildings, also in the classic style, and rather dull; but it
is worth while to go in through the great gateway for a look at the
outer and inner quadrangles.
Beyond the college stretches Grafton Street, the principal
shopping-street of Dublin, and at its head is St. Stephen's Green, a
pretty park, with some beautiful eighteenth century houses looking down
upon it. This was the centre of the fashionable residence district in
the old days, and the walk along the north side was the "Beaux Walk."
Such of the residences as remain are mostly given over to public
purposes, and the square itself is redolently British; for there is a
statue of George II in the centre, and one of Lord Eglinton not far
away, and a triumphal arch commemorating the war in South Africa. But,
if you look closely, you may find the inconspicuous bust of James
Clarence Mangan, who coughed his life out in the Dublin slums while Tom
Moore--who was also born here--was posing before fine London ladies; and
Mangan had this reward, that he remained sincere and honest and warmly
Irish to the last, a true bard of Erin, and one whose memory she does
well to cherish. How feeble Tom Moore's tinklings sound beside the white
passion of "Dark Rosaleen!"
Over dews, over sands,
Will I fly for your weal:
Your holy, delicate white hands
Shall girdle me with steel.
At home in your emerald bowers,
From morning's dawn till e'en,
You'll pray for me, my flower of flowers,
My dark Rosaleen!
My own Rosaleen!
You'll think of me through daylight's hours,
My virgin flower, my flower of flowers,
My dark Rosaleen!
A short walk down Kildare Street leads to a handsome, wide-flung
building with a court in front, once the mansion of the Duke of
Leinster, but now occupied by the Royal Dublin Society. The wing at the
right is the Science and Art Museum, that to the left the National
Library. The latter is scarcely worth a visit, unless there is some
reading you wish to do, but we shall have to spend some hours in the
museum.
On this Sunday morning, however, Betty and I walked on through to
Leinster Lawn, a pleasant enclosed square, with gravelled walks and
gardens gay with flowers, but marred with many statues; and here you
will note that a Victorian government spent a huge sum in commemorating
the virtues of the Prince Consort. We contemplated it for a while, and
then went on to the great building which closes in the park on the
north, and which houses the National Gallery of Ireland. We found the
collection surprisingly good. It is especially rich in Dutch art, and
possesses three Rembrandts, one of an old and another of a young man,
and the other showing some shepherds building a fire--just such a
subject as Rembrandt loved. And there is a good Teniers, and an
inimitable canvas by Jan Steen, "The Village School." There are also a
number of pictures by Italian masters, but these did not seem to me so
noteworthy.
This general collection of paintings is on the upper floor. The ground
floor houses the National Portrait Gallery, composed for the most part
of mediocre presentments of mediocre personalities, but with a high
light here and there worth searching for. Sir Godfrey Kneller's portrait
of Dick Steele is there, and Holbein's Henry Wyatt, and Zuccaro's
Raleigh, and there are three or four portraits by Lely and Reynolds, but
not, I should say, in their best style.
Let me add here that there is in Dublin another picture gallery well
worth a visit. This is the Municipal Gallery, housed in a beautiful old
mansion in Harcourt Street--another memorial of spacious eighteenth
century days, where that famous judge and duellist, Lord Clonmell,
lived. The house itself would be worth seeing, even if there were no
pictures in it, for it is a splendid example of Georgian domestic
architecture; but there are, besides some beautiful examples of the
Barbizon school, a number of modern Irish paintings which promise much
for the future of Irish art.
* * * * *
The day was so bright and warm that it seemed a pity to spend the whole
of it in town, so, after lunch, we took a tram for the Hill of Howth.
Most of the tram lines of the city start from the Nelson Pillar, so we
had only to cross the street to the starting point.
There seems to be a considerable difference of opinion as to the correct
pronunciation of "Howth." Perhaps that is because it is a Danish
word--hoved, a head--the Danes having left the mark of their presence in
the names of places all over Ireland, even in the names of three of its
four provinces. Only far Connaught escaped the stigma. At any rate, when
I asked a policeman which tram to take for Howth, I pronounced the word
as it is spelt, to rhyme with "south." He corrected me at once.
"'Tis the Hill of Hooth ye mean," he said, making it rhyme with "youth,"
"and that's your tram yonder."
We clambered up the steep stairway at the back to a seat on top, and
presently we started; and then the conductor came around with tickets,
and asked where we were going--in Ireland, as everywhere else in Europe,
the fare is gauged by the length of the journey.
"To the Hill of Hooth," I answered proudly.
"Ah, the Hill of H[=o]th, is it," he said, making it rhyme with "both,"
and he picked out the correct tickets from the assortment he carried,
punched them and gave them to me.
We used the pronunciations indiscriminately, after that, and I never
learned which is right, though I suspect that "H[=o]th" is.
Howth is a great detached block of mountain thrown down, by some caprice
of nature, at the sea-ward edge of a level plain to the north of Dublin
Bay, where it stands very bold and beautiful. It is some eight or ten
miles from Dublin, and the tram thither runs through the north-eastern
part of the town, and then emerges on the Strand, with Dublin Bay on one
side and many handsome residences on the other. Away across the bay are
the beautiful green masses of the Wicklow hills, and presently you come
to Clontarf, where, on Good Friday, nine hundred years ago, the Irish,
under their great king, Brian Boru, met the marshalled legions of the
Danes, and broke their power in Ireland.
For the Danes had sailed up the Liffey a century before, and built a
castle to command the ford, somewhere near the site of the present
castle; and about this stronghold grew up the city of Dublin; and then
they built other forts to the south and north and west; bands of raiders
marched to and fro over the country, plundering shrines, despoiling
monasteries, levying tribute, until all Ireland, with the exception of
the extreme west, crouched under the Danish power. The Danes, it should
be remembered, were the terror and scourge of Europe, and since the
Ireland of that day was the richest country of Europe in churches and
monasteries and other religious establishments, it was upon Ireland the
Pagan invaders left their deepest mark.
For a hundred years they had their will of the land, crushing down such
weak and divided resistance as the people were able to offer. And then
came Brian Boru, a man strong enough to draw all Ireland into one
alliance, and at last the Danes met a resistance which made them pause.
For twenty years, Brian waged desperate war against them, defeating them
sometimes, sometimes defeated; but never giving up, though often
besought to do so; retiring to his bogs until he could recruit his
shattered forces, and then, as soon as might be, falling again upon his
enemies.
In the intervals of this warfare, he devoted himself to setting his
kingdom in order, and to such good purpose that, as the historians
tell--and Tom Moore rhymes--a lone woman could make the circuit of Erin,
without fear of molestation, though decked with gold and jewels. Brian
did more than that--and this is the measure of his greatness: he built
roads, erected churches and monasteries to replace those destroyed by
the Danes, founded schools to which men came from far countries, and
"sent professors and masters to teach wisdom and knowledge and to buy
books beyond the sea."
It was in 1014 that the final great battle of Clontarf was fought. Both
sides, realising that this was the decisive struggle, had mustered every
man they could. With Brian were his own Munster men, and the forces of
O'Rourke and Hy Many from Connaught, and Malachy with his Meath legions,
and Desmond with the men of Kerry and West Cork--a wild host, with
discipline of the rudest, trusting for victory not to strategy or
tactics, but to sheer strength of arm.
And what a muster of Danes there was! Not only the Danes of Dublin, but
the hosts from the Orkneys and "from every island on the Scottish main,
from Uist to Arran"; and even from far-off Scandinavia and Iceland the
levies hastened, led by "Thornstein, Hall of the Side's son, and
Halldor, son of Gudmund the Powerful, and many other northern champions
of lesser note." It is characteristic of Irish history through the ages
that, on this great day, one Irish province cast in its lot with its
country's enemies, for the battalions of Leinster formed side by side
with the Danes.
There are Danish and Irish sagas which tell the story of that fight, and
blood-stirring tales they are. Brian Boru, bent under the weight of
seventy-four years, took station apart on a bit of rising ground, and
there, kneeling on a cushion, alternately prayed and watched the battle.
The Danes had the better of it, at first, hewing down their adversaries
with their gleaming axes; but the Munster men stood firm and fought so
savagely that at last the Danes broke and fled. One party of them passed
the little hill where Brian knelt, and paused long enough to cut him
down; but his life's work was done: the power of the Danes was broken,
and there was no longer need to fear that the Norsemen would rule
Ireland.
Just north of Clontarf parish church stands an ancient yew, and
tradition says that it was under this tree that Brian's body was laid by
his men. The tradition may be true or not, but the wonderful tree, the
most venerable in Ireland, is worth turning aside a few moments to
visit. It stands in private grounds, and permission must be asked to
enter, but it is seldom refused.
Like too many other spots in Ireland, Clontarf has its tragic memory as
well as its glorious one, for it was here that O'Connell's Home Rule
movement, to which thousands of men had pledged fealty, dropped suddenly
to pieces because of the indecision of its leader at the first hint of
British opposition. But there is no need to tell that story here.
* * * * *
The town of Howth consists of one long street running around the base of
the hill and facing the harbour and the Irish Sea. The harbour is
enclosed by impressive piers of granite, and was once a busy place, for
it was the Dublin packet station until Kingstown superseded it. Since
then, the entrance has silted up, and now nothing rides at anchor there
but small yachts and fishing-boats. On that clear and sunny day the view
was very beautiful. A mile to the north was the rugged little island
known as Ireland's Eye, and far away beyond the long stretch of low
coast loomed the purple masses of the Carlingford hills. Away to the
east stretched the Irish Sea, greenish-grey in the sunlight, with a
white foam-crest here and there, and to the south lay Dublin Bay against
the background of the Wicklow mountains.
High on a cliff above the haven lie the ruins of St. Mary's Abbey, and
we presently clambered up to them. We found them encircled by an
embattled wall, but a neighbourhood urchin directed us to a pile of
tumbledown buildings at the corner as the home of the caretaker. He was
not there, but his wife was, as well as a large collection of ragged
children, and one of these, a girl of ten or thereabouts, was sent by
her mother to do the honours. She was very shy at first, but her tongue
finally loosened, and we were enraptured with her soft voice and
beautiful accent. Her father was a fisherman, she said; they were all
fisher-families who lived in the tumble-down pile, which was once a part
of the abbey and so comes legitimately by its decay, since it is four or
five hundred years old, and has apparently never been repaired.
Of the abbey church itself, only the walls remain, and they are the
survivals of three distinct buildings. The west front is part of the
original Danish church, built in 1042, and is pierced by a small
round-headed doorway, above which rises an open bell-turret. In 1235,
the Archbishop of Dublin rebuilt the Danish church, retaining only its
facade. The interior, as he remodelled it, consisted of a nave and one
aisle, separated by three pointed arches. They are still there, very low
and rude, marking the length of the Archbishop's church. Two centuries
later, this was found too small, and so the church was lengthened by the
addition of three more arches. They also are still standing, and are
both higher and wider than the first three. The tracery in the east
window is still intact, and is very graceful, as may be seen by the
photograph opposite this page, in which the variation in the arches is
also well shown. Note also the round-headed doorway at the side, with
the remains of a porch in front--a detail not often seen in old Irish
churches. And, last of all, note the ruined building in the corner.
Although it has no roof, it is still used as a dwelling, as the
curtained window shows.
[Illustration: RUINS OF ST. MARY'S ABBEY, HOWTH]
Just inside the east window of the church is the tomb of Christopher,
nineteenth Lord Howth, who died about 1490. It is an altar tomb, bearing
the recumbent figures of the knight and his lady, the former's feet
resting, after the usual fashion, on his dog. Considering the
vicissitudes of weather and vandalism through which they have passed,
both figures are surprisingly well preserved.
The Howth peninsula still belongs to the Howth family, who trace their
line direct to Sir Almericus Tristram, an Anglo-Norman knight who
conquered and annexed it in 1177, and the demesne, one of the most
beautiful in Ireland, lies to the west of the town. The castle, a long,
battlemented building flanked with towers, is said to contain many
objects of interest, but we did not get in, for the gardener informed us
that it was open to the public only on Tuesdays and Saturdays. The
grounds are famous for their gorgeous rhododendrons, and there is a
cromlech there, under which, so legend says, lies Aideen, wife of Oscar,
son of Ossian and chief hero of those redoubtable warriors, the Fianna.
* * * * *
In Ireland, during the summer months, sunrise and sunset are eighteen
hours apart, and so, though it was rather late when we got back to the
hotel, it was as light as midday. We were starting for our room, when a
many-buttoned bell-boy, with a face like a cherub, who was always
hovering near, stopped us and told us shyly that, if we would wait a few
minutes, we could see the parade go past.
During the morning, we had noticed gaily-uniformed bands marching hither
and thither, convoying little groups of people, some of them in fancy
costume, and had learned that there was to be a great labour celebration
somewhere, with music and much oratory. We had not thought it worth
while to run it down, but we said we should be glad to see the parade,
so our guide took us out to the balcony on the first floor, and then
remained to talk.
"You would be from America, sir, I'm thinking," he began.
"Yes," I said.
"Then you have seen Indians!"
"Indians? Why, yes, I've seen a few."
"On the war-path?" he cried, his eyes shining with excitement.
I couldn't help laughing.
"No," I said. "They don't go on the war-path any more. They're quite
tame now."
His face fell.
"But you have seen cowboys?" he persisted.
"Only in Wild West Shows," I admitted. "That's where I have seen most of
my Indians."
"They're brave lads, aren't they?" and his eyes were shining again.
"Why, have you seen them?" I questioned in surprise.
"Ah, I have, sir, many times, in the moving-pictures," he explained. "It
must be a fine thing to live in America!"
I found out afterwards that the Wild West film is exceedingly popular in
Ireland. No show is complete without one. I saw some, later on, and most
sanguinary and impossible they were; but they were always wildly
applauded, and I think most Irishmen believe that the life of the
average American is largely employed in fighting Indians and rescuing
damsels in distress. I tried to tell the bell-boy that life in America
was much like life everywhere--humdrum and matter-of-fact, with no
Indians and few adventures; but I soon desisted. Why should I spoil his
dream?
And then, from up the street, came the rattle and blare of martial
music, and we had our first view of an Irish performer on the bass-drum.
It is a remarkable and exhilarating spectacle. The drummer grasps a
stick in each hand, and sometimes he pounds with both of them, and
sometimes he twirls one over his head and pounds with the other, and
sometimes he crosses his arms over the top of the drum and pounds that
way. I suppose there is an etiquette about it, for they all conduct
themselves in the same frenzied fashion, while the crowd stares
fascinated. It is exhausting work, and I am told that during a long
parade the drummers sometimes have to be changed two or three times. But
there is never any lack of candidates.
There were thousands of men in line, that day, members of a hundred
different lodges, each with its banner. Their women-folk trooped along
with them, often arm-in-arm; and they trudged silently on with the slow
and dogged tread of the beast of burden; and the faces of men and women
alike were the pale, patient faces of those who look often in the eyes
of want. It melted the heart to see them--to see their rough and
toil-worn clothing, their gnarled and twisted hands, their heavy
hob-nailed shoes--and to think of their treadmill lives, without hope
and without beauty--just an endless struggle to keep the soul in the
body. Minute after minute, for almost an hour, they filed past. What
they hoped to gain, I do not know--a living wage, perhaps, since that is
what labour needs most in Ireland--and what it has not yet won!
Our Buttons had watched the parade with the amused tolerance of the
uniformed aristocrat.
"There's a lot of mad people in Dublin," he remarked cheerfully, as we
turned to go in.