The 1916 Easter Rising & Ringsend. the Unveiling of the Seamus Grace Archives

Book your space on the FREE Walking Tour at

1916easterrisingcoachtour@gmail.com

or scan the QR Code

 

The Pigeon House Hospital written by Trevor James

The Pigeon House Hospital.

Trevor James

Nowadays, with a large sewage woks on one side and a waste incinerator on the

other, the Pigeon House doesn’t seem the ideal site for a hospital, but if you want an

isolated place to put people who have a deadly infectious disease and who are likely

to arrive by ship, then you can see the advantages.

Cholera was one of the feared infectious diseases in the 1800s. It first appeared in

the UK in the 1830s, probably brought from India by returning military and it swept

through Ireland in 1832. Another epidemic occurred in 1848/9 and a temporary

cholera hospital was established in Pearse Street (or Brunswick street as it was

then). In 1873 the fear of another outbreak of cholera led Dublin’s leading doctors to

recommend that anyone with symptoms of cholera arriving into the port should not

be brought to hospitals in the city but should be treated in a hospital close to the port.

A location on the south wall, about 500 metres before Pigeon House Fort was

recommended.

British Medical Journal 16 Aug 1873

This raised many objections both from the military authorities at Pigeon House Fort

and the residents of Ringsend and Irishtown, so, as an alternative, an eighteen bed

ship -the Prudence-was acquired by the South Dublin Union to be moored in Dublin

bay and act as an isolation facility for any cholera patients arriving at the port. The

cost of acquiring and fitting out the Prudence was £1700 and it was kept at anchor

off the North Wall 3 . However, by the end of the year the threat of cholera seemed to

have passed and the ship had never been used (except for housing a drunken sailor

on one occasion). By 1877 it was still unused although three caretakers were

employed to look after it . Acompany employed to inspect the ship in 1877 found

that it was filthy and had deteriorated significantly. There were proposals to sell it but

the inspectors put its value at only about £100 so it was considered a better option to

retain it, dismiss the caretakers, and keep a handyman on board to maintain it, just in

case of a new epidemic.  The hospital ship remained in the port for the next 25 years, 

apparently kept in good condition despite being used on only a few occasions and never 

for a case of cholera. In fact, the threat of cholera had greatly diminished, and although 

there had been outbreaks throughout Europe it had never reached Ireland since the 1850s.

In 1892 there were outbreaks of cholera in Liverpool and Glasgow and the port

authorities were on high alert but no cases were found here. However, there were

other highly infectious diseases that might be carried in on board ships. Outbreaks

of smallpox and scarlatina had demonstrated the need for an isolation hospital in

Dublin and a site on the Crumlin Road was recommended 6 but this was never acted

on.

In 1900, the Corporation was advised by Dr Flinn, the Local Government Board

Medical Inspector, that the hospital ship “although useful as a means of intercepting

a few seaborne cases of disease is totally unfit for an emergency of any magnitude

that might arise”. He went on to advise that, in view of the fact that cases of bubonic

plague had occurred in Glasgow, the Corporation should immediately equip the old

submarine mining station at the Pigeon House Fort as an isolation hospital. The

Corporation had purchased the Pigeon House Fort in 1897 and in September 1900,

they agreed to the proposal. However, this agreement was rescinded as the threat

of plague diminished and although alternative sites were proposed, all were objected

to and none was proceeded with.

There was a great deal of disagreement among the various interests (ie The Public

Health Committee, the Corporation, the Dublin Sanitary Association) as to the

suitability of the Pigeon House site but matters came to a head in December 1902

when a sailor was diagnosed with smallpox and the hospital ship refused to admit

him. There was also an outbreak of typhus at the time and none of the hospitals had

facilities to isolate him. Eventually he was isolated in the Hardwicke hospital but they

had to close a ward to do so. More cases occurred and this was the impetus that

was needed. The new Pigeon House isolation hospital opened on March 4 th 1903.

When the isolation hospital was opened the hospital ship became redundant and

was sold for scrap for £27.

Within days of its opening the new hospital was full and work was started on new

wards. A letter in the Irish Times from the President of the Royal College of

Surgeons, Sir Lambert Ormsby, describes it as an ideal hospital of its kind, both as

regards situation and equipment. By the 28 th March there were 43 cases being

treated and by the time the outbreak terminated in July 1903, 255 persons had been

treated for smallpox and 33 had died. After this, the hospital thoroughly disinfected

and kept ready in case of a new outbreak. But there were no further outbreaks

except for a short period in 1907 when there were fears of an epidemic of cerebro-

spinal meningitis. and the hospital lay more or less idle until about 1909

It remained virtually unused until about 1909 when it became an agent in the fight

against tuberculosis (TB) which was the big killer in Dublin in the early part of the 20th

century. At that time over 15% of all deaths in Ireland were from tuberculosis (or

consumption as it was also called). In 1907 Lady Aberdeen, wife of the Lord

Lieutenant, had begun a crusade against TB. She established the Women’s National

Health Association of Ireland with the aim of reducing infant mortality and eliminating

TB. In 1909, she persuaded Allan A. Ryan, the son of Thomas Fortune Ryan, one of

America’s richest men, to fund a hospital for the more advanced, though not

hopeless cases of TB. He guaranteed £1,000 annually for five years, so the WNHA

approached Dublin Corporation with a view to obtaining the Pigeon House Road

Hospital. Although at first dubious, the Corporation finally agreed to lease part of the

premises to the Association, at a nominal weekly rent of one shilling a week, but with

the proviso that, if there were a new outbreak of cholera or smallpox, the

tuberculosis patients would be immediately removed.

The new Allan A. Ryan Hospital for Consumption officially opened on 23 August

1910. It consisted of a two-storey red brick building, with accommodation for twenty-

five patients, set in two acres of ground. The patients were to be those who were not

too far advanced and had reasonable prospects of recovery. The male patients

occupied two wards on the ground floor, and the female patients were on the first

floor wards accessed by an external stairs. There was also accommodation for the

nursing staff. There was no effective treatment for TB at that time: the best that

could be done was to create a healthy environment – fresh air and nourishing food.

Since many poor families could not afford nourishing food, this in itself could be a life

saver The average stay of the patients in the hospital was thirteen weeks, and in that

time they achieved an average weight gain of 19lbs.

Allan A Ryan Hospital 1910

Over the next few years the hospital expanded but there remained a pressing need

for places. Legislation on the prevention of tuberculosis was enacted and Dublin

Corporation were required to make provision for treating TB so they agreed to take

over the hospital and use it for their own patients. The Corporation approached

several orders of nuns to request them to provide staff for the running of the hospital.

Having nuns administer hospitals was pretty standard practice at the time and it was

usually the cheaper option or as the Corporation noted it would ‘show a financial

economy in the cost of the nursing staff’. The Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de

Paul responded to the request and agreed to provide four nuns for the Pigeon House

Road Hospital including one sister superior, who would manager the hospital. The

nuns took up duty on 24 October 1918.

Although closed for a short time in 1920 because of lack of funds, the hospital,

renamed as St Catherine’s, continued operating until the mid 1950s. Larry Kelly in

his book The Pigeon House gives a personal account of life (and death) there. By

the 1950s better living conditions and effective treatments had dramatically reduced

the incidence of TB and made the Pigeon House Hospital redundant. It closed its

doors for the last time in August 1955.

Arrangements were made with Cork Street Hospital to provide medical, nursing and

ancillary personnel to staff the new facility.106 The provision was timely as a fresh

outbreak of smallpox occurred infecting sixty-five cases in the first quarter of

1903. The first eleven-cases of this fresh outbreak were treated in the Hardwicke

hospital.

Sources

Irish Independent 5 Sep 1892

Irish Times 5 Nov 1874

Freemans Journal 25 Jul 1874

Dublin Evening Mail 10 May 1877

Dublin Evening Mail 9 Sep 1877

Freeman’s Journal 12 Aug 1896

Freeman’s Journal 4 Sep 1900

Irish Times 7 Sep 1900 page 6

Irish Independent 9 Oct 1903

Irish Times 17 March 1903.

Ringsend's Rebel Priest, Father Flanagan

 

Patrick Flanagan was born on April 7^th 1883 in Dublin. A good student at school, he went onto study at Clonliffe College to begin the process to join the priesthood. He completed his studies at Maynooth University and in 1909 he was ordained. His first appointment as a curate was to the south city suburb of Ringsend. As a passionate believer in the Gaelic League and a supporter of the nationalist cause, he set up Fianna Phadraig in Ringsend in 1911, just two years after his arrival in the parish. According to Sean O’Shea’s Witness Statement at the Bureau of Military History, he said that he was a member of Fianna Phadraig and that their uniform was a grey shirt with an orange kerchief, blue breeches, grey puttees and a green wide-brimmed hat. He added,

‘Fianna Phadraig was a scout unit organized on similar lines to Fianna Eireann. The unit was founded by Father Pat Flanagan, C.C., Ringsend. We were if anything better trained from the military point of view than Fianna Eireann. We met the latter iii a scouting exercise on Ticknock in the summer of 1915 and proved to be the better unit on that occasion.’

The 1913 St. Patrick’s Day parade organised by the Gaelic League and conducted in ‘flashes of sunshine alternating with periods of snow’ included the participation of the Fianna Phadraig along with the Fontenoy Hurling club also from Ringsend. In July, the newspapers reported that at the ‘Aeridheacht Mor’ (Large Open Air Gathering) held in Shelbourne Park,

‘An interesting display of camp life given by Fianna Phadraig claimed much attention, while the choice selections rendered by the Artane Band, Mr. H. Lowe conducting, were thoroughly appreciated’

According to O’Shea

‘Fr. Flanagan had some liaison with "D" Coy., 3rd Battalion, the local Volunteer unit and the members of the Fianna were understood to be at the Company's service for despatch work and the like.’

But the Reverend’s involvement was more active. It was reported in the newspapers that on March 29^th 1914, before the split, Father Flanagan presided at a meeting of the National Volunteers. He would become a close confidant of many of those who would later become involved in planning the 1916 Rising.

O’Shea added in his witness statement,

‘without ever raising his voice from the pulpit he succeeded in stamping out drunkenness and loutishness from Ringsend. His chief weapon was the Fianna, a well-trained body with its own pipe band. He had a definite military outlook. He took the Fianna on winter's evenings through the history of the Boer War and showed us that that war had been imposed on a peaceful people by a bullying Empire. He told us how the Boers fought and how they could have won. He understood guerrilla warfare and passed his knowledge on to us. We imbibed all this for four or five years before the Rising. We were the first Fianna unit to carry arms openly. This was the year before the Rising. He borrowed .22 rif1es from all quarters so that we could march to the Tattoo we held in Shelbourne Park. At that Tattoo we gave military display of attack and defence firing blank from our rifles. We performed a display of tent-erecting and camp-fire singing.’

 

After the rebel surrender in 1916, some fighting was still proceeding in the Ringsend district on a small scale. Fr. Paddy Flanagan was asked by the military to try and stop it. But the Reverend would get more than he bargained for according to Monsignor Curran.

 

"Father Paddy Flanagan, Curate of Ringsend, was arrested yesterday and sent to Richmond Barracks. Poor Father Mooney, P.P., was detained a prisoner, under armed guard in his own house, from twelve noon until 6.30, and then only freed on the promise not to leave the place for three days."

Father Flanagan became the only Priest to be arrested and imprisoned in the aftermath of the Rising but was released on Tuesday, 9th May, 1916. He provided a dreadful account of the treatment of the prisoners in the Barracks under the British military

 

Patrick’s brother, John, had also become a priest and was attached to the Pro-Cathedral when the Rising began. According to Monsignor Curran,

‘Fr. John Flanagan of Marlborough Street who went with Fr. Byrne [Later Archbishop of Dublin] to Parnell Square, and there found that Eoin McNeill's countermanding orders were being carried out.’

Father John would later find himself at the heart of the action inside the GPO hearing confessions of the rebels. According to the Monsignor

 

In 1918 Patrick Flanagan was transferred to Aughrim Street Church and later made parish priest of Booterstown in 1939. He was then involved in the building of a new church on the Merrion Road, Church of our Lady Queen of Peace, opposite St Vincent’s Hospital today.

 

In the building of the church, he built a round tower, similar to the Glendalough tower of St. Kevin’s. It was described at the time by future Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave as ‘Flanagan’s Folly’.  He died in 1956, his brother, by then Parish priest in Fairview ad Mariano, predeceased him in 1935. Archbishop McQuade was the chief celebrate of the funeral mass.

Derek Dunne, a Ringsend Olympic Hero & Musician

A Facebook post on the Ringsend Home and Abroad page caught my attention and led to some seasonal detective work and a unique story of a proud Raytown man. The post by Colette Lain was this,

‘Remembering my brother Dermot Dunne who died on Christmas Eve 1973 aged 30. Carried over the bridge a week later. He represented Ireland at the 1960 Olympic Games aged 16.’

Dermot was born to father Peter and mother Clare, and lived on South Dock Street off South Lotts Road, Ringsend. Aged just sixteen, what sport did he compete in, how did he do? Why just fourteen years later was his coffin earning the very traditional carry across Ringsend Bridge to St. Patrick's Church? As I went through the newspaper archives it was a surprise that at the age of 16 years 363 days, he was born in September 1943, he represented Ringsend, Dublin and Ireland at the Olympics games held in Rome. An Irish team that featured the likes of Maeve Kyle, Billy Ringrose and Ronnie Delaney. Although today we associate Irish Olympians with sports like boxing, athletics and rowing, Dermot represented Ireland at the Men’s Freestyle Bantamweight wrestling competition. A member of the Vulcan Wrestling Club and a pupil at Ringsend Tech. His ability was recognised by his competitors at an International wrestling tournament in 1959 held in Scherwin, near Hamburg, Germany. The East German wrestling authorities spotted the then 15 years old talent and said they expected him to be a world champion within four to five years. He had however initially been denied a place on the plane to Rome but after an appeal by his club Vulcan and the Irish Amateur Wrestling Association, Dermot was given a place in the Olympics. To help pay their way, a fundraiser as held in the National Stadium. 

In Rome Dermot won his first match to remain unbeaten. He beat Victorrio Mancini of San Marino in a wrestling match that lasted over eight minutes. The next match was against an Italian challenger Chinazzo but Dermot lost in two minutes twenty one seconds. His tournament came to an end in his next bout when Im Gwang Jae from South Korea beat him into submission after 2m 45 seconds. Dermot officially finished joint thirteenth in the Olympic Games. 

When he finished school he began working in his father's engineering business, his father was a well known greyhound owner and trainer at Shelbourne Park. But the young man was about to embark on a new adventure. He crossed the Atlantic and made his way to Toronto, Canada. In 1966, along with fellow Irishman  Michael Croly formed the band The Irish Rebels. They began playing in the numerous Irish venues across Toronto. In 1967, they released their first single on the little known Outlet record label but they were being noticed. They were signed by RCA Victor in Canada and released their first album ‘Rebel by Name and Nature's. The recording featured Dermot, Michael and Cork born Sean Broderick on vocals, Harry Beatkey on banjo, Eric Budman, lead guitar, Jim Morgan, bass and Frank McGowan on tin whistle and was produced by Jack Feeney. The first single from the album was ‘Mursheen Durkin’. They were initially booked for a one week residency at the famous Toronto Golden Nugget club. So popular was Dermot and his band that the one week stretched into six months. The band was also earning extensive airplay on Canada’s big country and western focussed radio stations including the giant CFGM Radio., The popular RPM magazine when reviewing the album stated,

‘Although only three of the group play instruments, they managed to play a total of seven instruments including harmonicas. Two thirds of their material is rousing and pubster type.’

When they played a two week engagement at The MacDonald Hotel in Edmonton they received extensive airtime and interviews on the major local radio station CFRN, even helping to raise funds for the local children's hospital. They then headlined the Old Time Festival in Alberta and were featured on CJRY which had millions of listeners on both sides of the Canadian / US border.’
By now they were attracting crowds at venues unseen before amongst the Irish bands touring Canada. They also appeared in the popular TV show ‘The Pig and Whistle Show.

A second album was released in 1971 titled ‘The Rebels Songs of Ireland. According to entertainment journalist Tony Wilson writing in the Evening Herald in 1972, The band became a trio with a number of musicians joining Dermot and Mick including Mayoman Keith Kennedy.

According to entertainment journalist Tony Wilson writing in the Evening Herald in 1972,

‘‘Dermot with Irish show business manager Sean Jordan and guitarist Gerry Hughes formed a booking agency in North America for touring Irish bands.’

In December 1973, Dermot returned from Canada  to his native Ringsend to attend a family wedding. It was while he was at home in South Dock Street that he accidentally fell down the stairs and died. 

According to mudcat.org fellow band member Michael Croly died in his sleep. 

The Allan Ryan Hospital, Ringsend

Allan Ryan

For many Dubliners the location of The Allan Ryan Hospital would draw a blank but it was an Important addition to the nation's capital and the aforementioned Allan Ryan was a controversial character. 

Lady Aberdeen

When Isobel Maria Marjoribanks married John Hamilton Gordon in 1877, she took on the title of Lady Aberdeen. Her husband, Lord Aberdeen, was a Liberal party member of the House of Lords. In 1893, he was appointed as Governor of Canada. While there, his wife became an active women's rights campaigner organizing the National Council of Women in Canada. 

 

In 1905, when the Liberal Party gained power in Westminster under Prime Minister Henry Campbell Bannerman, Lord Aberdeen was appointed as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and the couple departed Canada moving to Dublin and into the Vice Regal Lodge in the Phoenix Park. Today the Vice Regal Lodge is Aras an Uachtarain home to the President of Ireland. 

As she had done in Canada, Lady Aberdeen made herself quickly acquainted with the state of women's rights in Ireland and what was needed socially and economically to improve women's conditions especially in the poorer part of the city she now found herself in. She became involved in and patron of the Women’s National Health Association of Ireland. In 1910, the association's primary focus was on the treatment and prevention of Tuberculosis, more commonly known at the time as consumption. By 1907, sixteen of every one hundred deaths were attributed to TB. 

 

In June 1909, the Aberdeen’s visited America. At a dinner held in their honour in New York, Lady Aberdeen met entrepreneur Allan A Ryan. Ryan was born in 1880 in New York, the son of one of the United States’s richest men at the time, transportation tycoon Thomas Fortune Ryan. Allan became a major player on Wall Street and it was at his zenith that he met Lady Aberdeen. She, without much persuasion, had Ryan agree to providing an endowment of £1,000 (€150,000) per annum for the following five years. Lady Aberdeen returned to a Dublin gripped by a TB epidemic especially affecting the poor and working-class areas of the city. 

 

In August 1910, with Lord and Lady Aberdeen in attendance, the Allan Ryan Home Hospital for Consumption under the auspices of the Women's National Health Association was officially opened at the Pigeon House just beyond Ringsend. It was located close to today's ESB power station on the banks of the Liffey. It was described as being a venue for the treatment of advanced but not hopeless cases of TB. Formerly part of Dublin Corporation's isolation building which had been used to treat patients during a smallpox outbreak. When the hospital opened it had eighteen beds but that quickly rose to fifty. The first patient was admitted on October 31st. Male patients were accommodated in two wards on the ground floor, while the female patients were on the first floor. There were thirteen staff including two physicians, a matron nurse, four nurses, a cook, a laundress and a number of maids employed from the locality. Four more shelters were then added to the Allan Ryan Hospital with the financial support of Lord John Lonsdale, secretary of the Irish Unionist Party. 

 

Lady Aberdeen also ran a number of fundraisers to fund both the hospital and babies club in Ringsend. One of the largest and most successful was held in Herbert Park. Along with the Allan Ryan Hospital, Lady Aberdeen used funds to build the Peamount Sanatorium.

 

On December 1st 1913, the running of the hospital was transferred to Dublin Corporation. While the hospital was for the treatment of those with TB, Lady Aberdeen also tried to persuade women especially, that prevention was better than cure. To this end she tried to educate the women in poorer areas including Ringsend that breast feeding their children was better than the often-tainted milk that was helping to spread the disease. She set up a number of what were called Babies Clubs including one in Ringsend. But with a growing national sentiment in Ireland the clubs were often treated with contempt and boycotted. The motives of Lady Aberdeen and Lonsdale were publicly questioned in newspaper letters from residents in Ringsend. Both the hospital and babies club were staffed by what was known as Jubilee Nurses, the forerunner of the district nurse. The Jubilee Nurses scheme was founded in 1887 to commemorate Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee. One of the most important Irish jubilee nurses was Annie P Smithson who was both a nurse, an author and a staunch republican who was jailed by Free State forces in 1922 but rescued from Mullingar jail by Muriel McSwiney amongst others. Smithson was born on Claremont Road in Sandymount and was later secretary of the Irish Nurses Organisation. In February 1911, New York lawyer John Quinn sent £25 (€4000 in today's money) to Lady Aberdeen specifically to provide meals for the children attending Ringsend national school on Thorncastle Street.

 

Lord and Lady Aberdeen remained in Ireland until February 1915. Allan Ryan meanwhile speculated heavily on the stock exchange and went bankrupt in 1922. He was disowned by his father and received none of the $200 million that was left when Thomas Fortune Ryan died in 1928. He had heavily invested in a passion project, a car described as ‘the sexiest car ever made’ the Stutz Bearcat. For a certain generation you may remember the 1971 TV series ‘Bearcats’ starring Rod Taylor and Leslie Nielsen that featured a Stutz Bearcat. His failure was later seen as one of the markers that lit the way to the Wall Street crash in 1929. The Allan Ryan Hospital was returned to Dublin Corporation and closed its doors in 1955.

(c) The Ringsend and District Historical Society 2024

Ringsend and Irishtown's Churches, A Historical Tour

Trevor James looks at the history of the churches in Ringsend and Irishtown through three centuries.

In this article I want to briefly describe the history of the churches of Ringsend and Irishtown, past and present.  There have been three main denominations with churches in the area, Roman Catholic, Church of Ireland and Methodist.  There was also a Presbyterian church on the corner of Tritonville Road and Sandymount Road, and I have included it although it lay just outside the Irishtown parish boundary.

St. Matthew’s

The oldest church in the Ringsend/Irishtown area is St Matthew’s in Irishtown, founded in 1704 to serve the growing population of Ringsend which was then the principal port of Dublin.  The port was busy with sailors, fishermen and customs officials, many of them Protestant, but the nearest church was in Donnybrook and the route to Donnybrook was regularly cut off by marshy ground, high tides and highwaymen.  The Church of Ireland archbishop of Dublin, Dr William King, petitioned the Government to pay for a church in the area and this was agreed.  Because of parliament’s involvement, the church was called the Royal chapel of St Matthew.  Although the church was within the parish of St Mary, Donnybrook, as a Royal Chapel it was the responsibility of the monarch to appoint the chaplains.

When the church was built it was virtually on the coastline, but land reclamation over the last 300 years has moved it further inland.  The original church was built to a design by Sir Christopher Wren which was used for several other churches of the period.  It was smaller than it is now, basically a rectangle with no transepts on the back wall is just beyond where the transepts now start. It had a gallery all around, with an organ and choir in the balcony above the entrance porch facing the altar. The tower, which has the bell, was also lower than it is now but in 1713, at the request of Dublin corporation, the tower was raised to its present height and a small pyramidal steeple and weather vane was added, to act as a navigation aid for ships coming along this dangerous coastline. The steeple was removed after it was damaged in a storm in 1839.

For the first 15 years the church was serviced by ministers from Donnybrook church but in 1723, Reverend John Bohereau (or Borough) was appointed as the first minister. He died three years later and is buried in the churchyard. In 1832, a building was erected beside the church, on church road which housed a day school, a Sunday school, and infant school, a dispensary with a physician and a shop for supplying the poor with necessities at reduced prices. It was demolished in the 1960s.

In 1871, the Church of Ireland was disestablished, that is, it ceased to be the official state church and became independent of the government. St Matthews thus lost its Royal Chapel status and became a normal parish church with its own vestry or self-governing body of laypeople. Reverend Stoney, a curate from Donnybrook was appointed as the first rector of the new parish and he quickly set about making changes. He removed the high walls which had surrounded the church and he closed the graveyard which was already full.  In 1878 he began a building programme which created the church as it is today. The main body of the church was nearly doubled in length and new transepts were added. The galleries were taken down and the organ moved. The changes increased the capacity of the church from about 350 to over 600. He also ended the practice of families being allowed to buy pews.

Inside the church, the mosaic tiling on the floor was completed in 1891 and the stained-glass windows were installed between 1890 and 1899. Two of them were donated by the Reverend Stoney’s family and one, depicting Christ stilling the waves, was donated by the church warden, Sir Robert Jackson, in memory of his son, a ship’s surgeon, who was washed overboard in a gale off the Canary Islands.

In the tower, there was originally a single bell but in 1888 a set of eight tubular bells was installed, the first tubular bells in any church in Ireland.  These could be played by a single person and their sound was a feature of Irishtown until the 1970s. They are still in the tower but some part have been corroded and the bell is now a recording.

In the 1970s, as attendances dwindled, a new parish hall was created within the church by partitioning off part of the nave under the old gallery.  The front doors were closed, and an entrance the side was used, but in 2018 the porch was reinstated and the front doors opened once again making the church as it is today.

CATHOLIC CHURCHES

There has been a Roman Catholic chapel in Irishtown for centuries.  It was in Chapel Avenue and according to tradition it dated back to the 16^th century.  

In 1786 a new parish of St Mary’s was created and a young newly ordained priest, Father Peter Clinch, was appointed as the first parish priest.  The parish consisted of Irishtown, Ringsend, and Donnybrook and much of Sandymount.

The parish had two chapels, one in Donnybrook, where the Garda station is today, and the other in Chapel Avenue, Irishtown. Father Clinch was apparently a very popular figure among Catholics and Protestants alike but, after only five years in charge of the parish, he was crossing the Liffey in a boat when he got an accidental blow of an oar which broke his jaw. Complications set in and tragically he died soon afterwards. He is buried in the graveyard of St Matthew’s where his gravestone still stands. 

The Catholic population of the area steadily increased and by the mid-1800s the old chapel was no longer fit for purpose.  As the Freeman’s Journal put it : “The present venerable but very small and inconvenient chapel, humble in structure, possessing no architectural pretensions and hidden amongst a crowd of half ruinous dwellings, - endeared though it may be to the memories of those who held fast to the faith in the church in days of bitter persecution – must be considered to have served its purpose and a larger and nobler structure must now be upraised in Irishtown equal to the spiritual requirements of the Catholic inhabitants”.

So, in 1850, plans were drawn up for the erection of a new church on land that had been given by the landlord, Hon Sidney Herbert, and fundraising began in earnest.  This was a poor parish but every week the names of those who had donated (and the amount) were published in the Freeman’s Journal.

The choice of site was not to the liking of many Ringsenders who complained that it was too far away and that the four thousand Catholics in Ringsend / Irishtown had a better claim to it.  Although it was technically within the parish of Irishtown (albeit on the border) they felt it was too close to Sandymount.  They petitioned Herbert not to allow the building, but their protests were in vain for on 7^th May 1851 the first stone of the “Star of the Sea” Church was laid.  The design for the church was to be ‘a Gothic temple’ which ‘for beauty of architecture and interior arrangement (would) vie with any suburban church in the country’. At that time there was no building between the church and the sea, and it would have been one of the first buildings that ships coming into the bay would see. 

Freeman's Journal 17 April 1851

The work progressed rapidly, mainly using local labour, and by the end of 1852, the walls were all completed, and it was ready for roofing. Disastrously, on St Stephen’s night 1852, a terrific storm blew throughout Dublin and the front and rear gables, with their elaborate Gothic windows, were blown down and fundraising had to start again.  Money was borrowed and the work began again.  Soon the walls were rebuilt and the church was roofed. This was the time of the Great Dublin exhibition, a spectacular trade, arts and industry fair in the grounds of Leinster House and many visitors to the exhibition made the trip to Irishtown to view the beautiful new church.

The church cost about £6000 to build and for some time after the parish was in debt to the tune of £2000.  However, on the Feast of the Assumption, 1853, Star of the Sea was solemnly dedicated by His Grace, Archbishop Cullen and the chapel in Irishtown was closed.

Ringsenders were still unhappy about the site of the new church. Although it was called Star of the Sea, Irishtown, they thought it was too far away.  In any case the population of the area was increasing rapidly and by 1857 it was already beginning to prove insufficient for the number attending mass.

In these circumstances Fr O’Connell began planning for a new chapel at Ringsend.  The site of the church was the plot of ground where St Patrick’s now stands. This was the site of the church presbytery, which also served as a Sunday school for girls run by the Sisters of Charity, and another building which housed an evening school, which provided an education for eighty young men and boys.

On April 13th, 1858, Fr. O’Connell laid the first stone. Three weeks later, he held a public meeting in the school room, Ringsend, attended by many of the influential and wealthy parishioners from the area (including St Mary’s, Haddington Road and Star of the Sea)  to organise the fund-raising for the new church.  It was to be ‘a very unpretending , humble, but at the same time appropriate edifice, and one such as is wanted in this village’.   

The building, designed by J E Fuller, was a simple rectangle, capable of holding 300 people and cost only £800 compared to the several thousand that Star of the Sea had cost. A subscription list was opened, and help was sought from all quarters since it was clear that the vast majority of the local parishioners would not be able to contribute.  The Freemans Journal carried an article seeking funds for the church in Ringsend, “a centre in which is collected a vast amount of abject poverty and wretchedness, unfortunately of magnitude too great to be efficiently relieved by public bounty, however munificent” and hoping that “the benevolent public will do, as they always do, their duty to the poor”. 

                St Patrick's Church

 The benevolent public did their duty and St Patrick’s was dedicated on 14 July 1859 by Archbishop Cullen.

Evening News 13 July 1859

Soon after its opening, St Patrick’s became the designated church for Catholic soldiers stationed at Beggars Bush barracks and Pigeon House Fort.  A special service was held for them every Sunday and the troops would march to church from their barracks under their senior officer.

As the twentieth century advanced the church became totally inadequate to meet the needs of the parish and the new parish priest, Canon Mooney, was determined to build a new church. While the old church could only hold 300 people, according to Canon Mooney there were 5000 parishioners.  However, the parishioners were for the most part from the “moneyless, working classes”

A meeting was held in 1907 to discuss the possibility of raising enough money to build a new church, for Archbishop Walsh had instructed the parish that they were not to get into debt in building the church. 

Dublin Leader 9 Jan 1909 p4

The archbishop was aware of the situation in Ringsend and wrote to Canon Mooney saying: “I have had a very considerable experience in the matter of Church building in and around the city, and throughout all parts of the Diocese. It is not my practice to approve, of works of the kind being undertaken when they are not really necessary. But in all my experience, extensive as it has been, I have met with no case in which the need for the building of a church was more painfully obvious than it is in Ringsend. Nor have I met with any case in which the local resources fell more painfully short of what is needed for the building of a Church even, of the simplest and most unpretending character.

You need all the help that can come to you from your friends outside the Parish as well as from your own good people. The £1,000 which I promised to the people of Ringsend as my contribution towards the building of their church will be forthcoming whenever you are in a position to inform me that you have a sufficient sum in hand to justify us in starting the work of building. The sooner you are able to give me the good news the better I shall be pleased”.

Dublin Leader 2 Nov 1912

The foundation stone was laid by the Archbishop of Dublin on 29 October 1911.  The church was designed by W.H. Byrne and Son in a Gothic revival style which was common for Roman Catholic churches of the period in Ireland. The plan was to build the church in sections so that the original church could be used until it was replaced.  A fundraising notice in the Dublin Leader in November 1912 claimed that the first half would be completed in a few weeks but that the second half would not be commenced unless the full sum necessary to build it was raised.  This was a condition that the Archbishop had set.

The first half, which was the sanctuary, was completed and blessed by the archbishop on 29 July 1913 but it seems the full sum was not raised immediately because in 1915 the church was still “rising rapidly to completion.”

The belfry and clock tower must have been completed by 1916 because June that year a new set of bells was installed and blessed.   But clearly more was needed, and Canon Mooney continued to advertise regularly in all the newspapers and in 1917 he was still advertising in Ulster newspapers for funds to complete the church.

Frontier Sentinel 26 May 1917

He was a tireless worker but the strain of it may have been too much because he died in August 1917 only months after celebrating fifty years as a priest.  The church was by then complete although Canon Mooney continued to advertise for funding, presumably to furnish and adorn it, until his death. 

There are some beautiful stained-glass windows in the church.  One, depicting Saint Patrick at Tara, was designed by Harry Clarke and installed in 1923.  The window behind the altar was by Earley and Sons and was installed in 1929.

One of the features of the church is the four faced clock which was installed in 1916 and funded by the workers of the Glass Bottle Company.  The clock used to be wound by hand and was nicknamed ‘the four faced liar’ as the four faces often showed different times.  The bells are also a feature of Ringsend and chime every quarter hour.

METHODIST CHURCHES

When the Brixham fishermen came in the 1820s many of them were Methodists and it is likely they formed a small Methodist community here. At first, they would meet in a house on Thorncastle Street, opposite the site of St Patrick’s church.  The main Methodist chapel at that time was in Whitefriar Street but, as more Brixham families arrived, it was decided to build a small chapel in Ringsend.  The Bartlett and Blackmore families were very involved and were leaders in the community.

In 1830 construction began on a Chapel at Ringsend in Thomas Street.  It was a plain gable ended building with a front porch and it served the community there for over seventy years.  In 1901 there was some damage to the roof from a storm and consideration was given to acquiring a new church. 

The Pembroke Estate was approached to lease a site on Irishtown Road and a new church was built there in 1904.  It was designed by George Beckett and the building contractor was his brother James Beckett.  The new church opened in June 1904. 

The old church was offered for sale and at one stage there were plans for it to be converted into a cinema.  It was finally sold in 1914 and in 1936 the building was acquired by the Catholic Young Men's Society.

The roof of the old church can still be seen above the CYMS

A new hall was added to the church in 1932 and was used for Sunday School and Boys’ Brigade and Girls’ Brigade meetings. 

Ringsend Methodist church

                                                        Corner of O'Hurley Avenue (Once known as Watery Lane)

However, attendances at the church began to fall and there was a larger Methodist church in Sandymount, so in June 1961 the church was closed and the congregation merged with Sandymount. 

The site was sold and the building was demolished to make way for new apartments, built a few years later.  Apparently when the builders were working on the site, they came across four large stones engraved with names.  Thinking they were gravestones they stopped work on the site, not wishing to disturb the dead.  It turned out they were the foundation stones, each engraved with a patron’s name.

THE FLOATING CHAPEL

Around the end of the 18^th century there was a floating chapel in Ringsend docks. 

Around 1798, the Port of Dublin Society for the Religious Instruction of Seamen bought the hull of an old Danish vessel and used it as a floating chapel. It may have had two different mooring spots – on Sir John Rogerson’s Quay and in the Grand Canal Dock at the corner of Hanover Quay and Grand Canal Quay.  However, it began to deteriorate and needed repair so frequently that it was decided to build a church on shore. The first stone of the Mariner’s Church was laid by Vice-Admiral Oliver on July 18, 1832, in Forbes Street and the chapel opened in September 1833.  It was still there in 1881 when an appeal was made for donations, but it closed soon after.

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Although not in Irishtown, I have included the Presbyterian church since it stood on the boundary and was opposite Star of the Sea.  The church opened on 23 May 1858, only a few years after Star of the Sea was completed.  Like many of the churches of the period, it was in the Gothic style. A newspaper article extolled the virtues of the location – Great judgement was shown in the selection of the locality, which is a very pleasant one and at a convenient distance from town, whilst it is not unlikely that the attraction of a healthy walk, before or after service, on the white level strand of Sandymount, inhaling the fresh sea-breeze and enjoying the splendid views of the wooded shores of Clontarf, with the white terraces peeping out from among the dark green of the trees, Lambay Isle, the Hill of Howth, Killiney crowned with its obelisk, the lofty Sugar-loaf, and the Dublin mountains, a fitting background to the magnificent scenery may be the means of drawing out from the city many people who, otherwise would have spent the sabbath day less profitably.

The church was the founding place of the Girl’s Brigade which began in 1893 when Sunday school teacher, Miss Margaret Lyttle, who was running a girls’ choir, suggested that the girls do some physical exercises to warm up. The girls enjoyed doing the exercises, so they were included every week. One of the girls had a brother in The Boys’ Brigade which also performed similar physical exercises suggested that their group could be called The Girls’ Brigade. Soon, the idea was copied and became a formally recognised group with a constitution and uniform and eventually became a worldwide organisation.  Attendances in the church diminished over the years and in 1975 the congregation agreed to share the church on Sandymount Green with the Methodists.  For the following twenty years, the church was used as a parish hall .   In 1987, the spire had to be taken down as dry rot was found in the base.  In 1999, despite strong local protests, the building was demolished to make way for sheltered housing for the elderly.  As a Sunday Tribune columnist remarked “The crime was to choose old people over old bricks”. 

ABUNDANT GRACE

Perhaps the most recent ‘church’ in the area is the premises of the Abundant Grace Christian Assembly located in the old Regal cinema in Fitzwilliam Street. They have been present in the area since 2007 and were previously located in the old Irishtown Girls School, beside the Garda station.

RINGSEND MISSION HALL

Finally, a building that wasn’t really a church but was sometimes regarded as one – The Mission Hall in York Street.  The hall was built in 1896 as a Mission Hall for the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) and was funded largely by Sarah Elizabeth Bewley.  It was intended to be used both as a YMCA centre and  an inter-denominational Mission Hall.  As well as hosting prayer meetings there were many recreational activities.  The hall fell into disuse and there were plans to sell the land but the terms of the according to terms of the lease, it had to be kept in perpetuity as a resource for the people of Ringsend and each generation had to name trustees.   Today it is a café and training centre for young people.

James Foulis and His Resting Place in St. Matthews

Ringsend and District Historical Society member Trevor James has been looking at some of the people buried in the only cemetery in the locality at St. Matthews Church Irishtown. This is the first of a series of articles on some of the more fascinating burials. Today we look at Sir James Foulis

 

Sir James was a Scot, the son of Sir James Foulis of Colinton, Edinburgh, 5th Baronet, and his wife Mary Wightman. He was born about 1745 and became the 6^th baronet on the death of his father in 1791. He married Margaret Dallas in Edinburgh on 14 June 1791. They had no children. The Foulis family had been very active in Scottish politics and they had supported the Royalist cause during the Civil War between King Charles 1 and the Roundheads led by Oliver Cromwell.

 

Sir James joined the Midlothian Fencibles as an officer and was stationed in Ireland in the 1790s. At that time the United Irishmen were on the rise and there were huge tensions in Ireland. The government was clamping down very severely on possible rebels but they were afraid that militia where Catholics were numerous might not be loyal and these were sent to serve in England and were replaced by Scottish and Welsh cavalry, The Midlothian Fencibles were one of these militias. One of their regimental songs at the time runs:

 

"Ye Croppies of Wexford. I'd have you be wise

And not go to meddle with Mid-Lothian boys.

For the Mid-Lothian boys, they vow and declare.

They'll crop off your heads as well as your hair."

 

And crop off their heads they did. There were many outrages, tortures and mass executions committed by all these volunteer troops, but particularly by the Orange yeomanry of the countryⁱ. These were so savage that Major General Sir John Moore famously said, "If I were an Irishman, I would be a rebel!"

 

Following the uprising and the defeat of the rebels at Vinegar Hill, any captured men faced summary court-martials and were quickly executed. Sir James Foulis was in many cases the President of the court martials and he endeavoured to give the rebels a fair and impartial trial and spoke on behalf of some of them at their court-martials. For example, in the case of John Breen and others, the court-martial recommended the death penalty but Sir James added that because the evidence indicated that, “they apparently acted with reluctance, and evidently under compulsion, and they could not have acted otherwise while under the influence of the rebels, nor have attempted to escape without imminent danger to their own and their families lives”, the court should show mercy to these men.ⁱⁱ

 

Sir James remained in Ireland after 1798 and settled in Meath where he was the commander of a cavalry corps there. He sold Colinton in 1800 to Sir William Forbesⁱⁱⁱ, presumably as he had decided to settle in Ireland. Initially he had an estate near Navan. He wrote a number of pamphlets on ‘the Catholic Question” emphasising the need to understand the Catholic position^iv. He was also a member of a number of committees with Daniel O’Connell on the education of the poor^v. Because of his perceived impartiality he seems to have been well respected, at least by Catholics.

 

One 1798 rebel, Thomas Cloney, had been falsely accused of a murder at Vinegar Hill. He was to be executed when Sir James intervened and had him deported instead. Thomas later returned to Ireland where his family’s extensive property provided an income for him. He recounts in his autobiography how grateful he was to Sir James and how he had unsuccessfully tried to trace him^vi. However, he finally traced Sir James on the day after he had died on June 3^rd 1821 in a house in beside Harold’s Cross bridge^vii. Sir James was then in very reduced circumstances and living on a pension of £150 a year^viii, but, as a mark of respect, Thomas arranged for several of the prominent people of Dublin to attend in their carriages which, along with the carriages of his friends, made a fine funeral. Thomas also says in his autobiography that,

“if God grants me a little time to live, I will, with the assistance of other Irishmen who have experienced Sir James’s humanity or been well acquainted with his character, place over his grave a lasting monument of our respect and gratitude to prove that his venerated remains do not rest in the country of the stranger but in one ever ready to appreciate the virtues of the brave, the generous, and the humane”.

 

There is a stone over his grave which reads,

 

Sacred to the memory of

 

Sir JAMES FOULIS Bart.

 

late of Colinton, Nth. Britain

 

Obit 3d June 1824

 

at 79

 

Who placed it there is unknown.

 

 

ⁱ McGee, Thomas D’Arcy. A Popular History of Ireland from the Earliest Period to the Emancipation of the Catholics (Two Volume Set)

ⁱⁱ Dublin Evening Post 27 August 1807

 

ⁱⁱⁱ Margaret Warrender 1890, Walks near Edinburgh, Edinburgh, David Douglas

 

^iv Conspiracy detected and converted, 1803; Death of the Duke D’Enghien,1807

 

^v Dublin Evening Post 16 Jan 1821

 

^vi Cloney, Thomas. A Personal Narrative of Those Transactions in the County Wexford, in which the Author was Engaged, During the Awful Period of 1798. J McMullen 1832’

 

^vii                       1 Parnell Place on death certificate or 4 Parnell Place in Saunders’s Newsletter 25 Feb 1832

 

^viii                     Army widow’s pension record, 10 Aug 1824

 ^{(c) Trevor James}