The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 21, November 21, 1840

by Various

THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.

Number 21.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1840.

Volume I.

THE SOUND AND ISLAND OF DALKEY, COUNTY OF DUBLIN.

The little rocky island of Dalkey forms the south-eastern extremity of the Bay of Dublin, as the bold and nearly insulated promontory of Howth forms its north-eastern termination. It is separated from the mainland of the parish from which it takes, or to which, perhaps, it gives its name, by a channel called Dalkey Sound, which is about nine hundred yards long, three hundred and eight yards wide at its south entrance, and two hundred and nine yards wide at its north entrance; the soundings in mid-channel varying from ten to five fathoms. This channel was anciently considered a tolerably safe and convenient harbour, and was the principal anchorage for ships frequenting the little castellated seaport town of Dalkey, from which merchandise was transferred to Dublin, as well by boats as by cars. Hence also the harbour of Dalkey was frequently used in former times on state occasions for the embarkation or landing of the Irish viceroys and other state officers. The Lord Deputy Philip de Courtney landed here in 1386, and Sir John Stanley, the deputy of the Marquis of Dublin, in the following year. In 1414, Sir John Talbot, then Lord Furnival, and afterwards the renowned Earl of Shrewsbury, landed here as Viceroy of Ireland; and in 1488, Sir Richard Edgecombe embarked at this harbour for England, after having taken the homage and oaths of fidelity of the nobility who had espoused the cause of Lambert Simnel. Here also landed Sir Edward Bellingham, Lord-Lieutenant in 1548, and Sir Anthony St Leger in 1553; and it was from this harbour that the Earl of Sussex, in 1558, embarked a large body of forces to oppose the Scottish invaders at the isle of Rathlin; and lastly, again, it was here that the unfortunate Sir John Perrot landed as viceroy in 1584. The conversion of this sound into an asylum harbour was at one time contemplated by government, and a plan for the purpose was proposed by the Committee of Inland Navigation; but from certain objections which were made to it, the project was abandoned. The situation would certainly have been a more imposing and magnificent one than that ultimately chosen.

The island of Dalkey is of a nearly oval form, having a very irregular surface, in part rocky, and in part consisting of a fertile salt marsh, very valuable for the cure of sick cattle, who by feeding on it quickly recover and fatten. It is five hundred and twenty-eight yards long from north to south, and three hundred and eight yards wide from east to west, and comprises about twenty-nine acres of pasture. Its shore is rocky, and in some parts precipitous, and it commands the most beautiful views of the bays of Dublin and Killiney. Among several springs of fresh water on it, one on its south-west side has long been considered to possess sanative properties, and was formerly much resorted to for the cure of scurvy and other diseases. On the same side there are the roofless walls of an ancient church dedicated to St Benet or Benedict, the patron of the parish; and at its south-eastern extremity there is a battery, and a Martello tower which differs from all the other structures of this class erected on the Irish coast, in having its entrance not at the side but on its top. It is traditionally stated that during the remarkable plague which visited Dublin in 1575, many of the citizens fled to this island for safety.

Dalkey island has several smaller ones contiguous to it, one of which, denominated Lamb Island, is covered with grass, while the others present a surface of bare granite. Of the latter islets one is called Clare Rock, and another the Maiden Rock, an appellation derived from a tradition said to be of twelve hundred years’ antiquity, that twelve young maidens from Bullock and Dalkey having gone over to this rock to gather duilisk, they were overtaken by a sudden storm so violent as to prohibit assistance from the larger island, and all miserably perished. To the north of these islands is situated the group of rocks called the Muglins, extending one hundred and thirty-two yards in length, and seventy-one in width. On those rocks, in 1765, the pirates Mac Kinley and Gidley were hanged in chains for the murder of Captain Glass.

Most of the features we have thus noticed, together with a portion of the adjacent shore of the bay, are exhibited in our prefixed illustration; and to the older citizens of our metropolis, as well as to many others of our countrymen, they must, we think, awaken many stirring recollections of the striking changes in the appearance of the scenery in many districts adjacent to the city, as well as in the character of the citizens themselves, which have taken place within the present century. It does not, indeed, require a very great age for any of us Dublinians to remember when the country along the southern shore of our beautiful bay, from Dunleary to the land’s-end on Dalkey common, presented a nearly uniform character of wildness and solitude—heathy grounds, broken only by masses of granite rocks, and tufts of blossomy furse, without culture, and, except in the little walled villages of Bullock and Dalkey, almost uninhabited. The district known as the Commons of Dalkey, which extended from the village to the eastern extremity of the bay, “the Sound,” or channel lying on its north-east, and the rocky hill of Dalkey on its south—this in particular was a locality of singularly romantic beauty, a creation of nature in her most sportive mood, and wholly untouched, as it would appear, by the hand of man. Giant masses of granite rocks, sometimes forming detached groups, and at others arranged into semicircular and even circular ledges, gave the greatest variety and inequalities of surface, and formed numerous dells of the greenest sward, so singularly wild and secluded that the elves themselves might justly claim them as their own. To these natural features should be added those of the rocky iron-bound coast, with its little coves, commanding from its cliffs the most delightful views of Killiney Bay, the Sound, the Island of Dalkey, and the Bay of Dublin. These latter features still remain, and can never change; but of all the others which we have noticed, what is there left? Scarcely a vestige that would remind the spectator of what the locality had been. The rocks have been nearly all removed, or converted into building materials for an assemblage of houses of all kinds of fantastic construction, surrounded for the most part by high and unsightly stone walls; and, except in the views obtained from some spots in it, the picturesque beauty of Dalkey common is gone for ever.

The common of Dalkey is now a place of life—a suburb, as we might say, of the city; but at the period to which we have alluded, it was ordinarily a scene of the most desert solitude. A few cottages stretching from the village along its southern boundary, and a solitary cabin originally built by miners, and which still remains, were the only habitations to be seen. But though thus uninhabited, it was not at all times a scene of loneliness. On Sundays and other holidays its rocks and dells were peopled with numerous pic-nic or sod parties of the middle class of the citizens. The song went round, and the echoes were startled by the merry notes of the fiddle or the flute, to which the several groups of happy dancers footed the Irish jig and country dance. Nor were such pic-nics confined exclusively to the citizens of the middle class—the sporters of jaunting cars and jingles. Parties of the higher ranks occasionally assembled here on week days, and had their rural fetes on a larger and more magnificent scale. It was our own good fortune to be an invited guest to one of these, of which we may be permitted to give some account, as an example of a state of manners and usages of society in Ireland now no longer to be found in persons of the class to which we refer. It was a pic-nic party given by the Alexanders, the Armits, and the present popular and deservedly honoured veteran the Commander of the Forces in Ireland—then lieutenant-colonel of the 18th or Royal Irish Fusileers, which were at the time quartered in Dublin. On the morning of as beautiful a day in June as ever came, the inhabitants of the leading thoroughfares of the city, and those along the road side from Dublin to Dunleary, were surprised by the unusual crowds of open carriages of all kinds conveying the youth and beauty of the aristocracy of the metropolis to the chosen scene; and when the fine band of the Fusileers, in their magnificent full-dress uniforms of blue and gold, were seen to pass along on the same route, innumerable parties of the inferior ranks of the inhabitants of the city and south-eastern suburbs were hastily formed to follow in their wake. At noon, or a little after, not only the majority of the original party were assembled in a beautiful and extensive green amphitheatre, surrounded by rocky cliffs, but those cliffs were themselves covered by a crowd of smaller parties—tributary stars around the more splendid galaxy that occupied the centre of the brilliant scene.