SKETCHES OF DUBLIN IN THE LAST CENTURY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 102, 10 April 1875, Page 7

SKETCHES OF DUBLIN IN THE LAST CENTURY.

Stories of the district of Essex Bridge abound. „„, ■*** any one cast his eye over the Ordnance Map of the city and note a space on the southern bank of the river bStaSnS S^Sm*"^!. 011 , *?e? c eaSt andend^ at MshSSTtfeet Hill and D*™ T th f l7^ hein S marked by Castle street, Cork Digger tnan the blade of a good sized pocket-knife, but itreurettsssss&rs? old times a 4 - w *«' siw -« TTon^T I°^ on Grattan Bridge, we look to the Cifcv fffl^ssa^c. sMps fast * Cork Zt atln^V^S 0 ? 11111 was du-ectly after Sh£^ Snd » Yiffi r? aS Xt We > the hand ' «* lead m e nS £c! suits of AriJl^r* 8 a . ma j it 6 r of twe^7 Pounds, a couple of S? oL ' mt^ a paiT of black velvet breeches, laced, a raEwwE ; but S . Ucll Use he make of this lifted stockS;S thatj & ? a Limerickwidow with a dowry of five hundred a year, he went on "acquiring " lands so fast as to arouse Ws kep v fortune, and to charge him with criminal dishonesty. Queen Ir^JpLt&iL^^^an^S-S; SET »f and r P° sse ssions," the ex-law clerk died at fatnnw?/S mgSUChanh T Orand and leaving such a kingdoms diS" S ° nS Pe6rS) aS n6Ver any Subject of these fchree On the high ground by the Castle— called after him Cork Hill " —the prosperous adventurer built a lordly mansion, which after his death, became a seat of government, then, falling as he had risen! S^i " y. e + ars roUed ! ™> to coffee-selling, to duels, t fenS ang classes, to a htenoy academy, to a wild-beast show, to a cockpit, till at last, something less than a century after King Death if2i nd I poor ****** °? the Eaia,wegeta last gliinpsi of his lordgr pleasui-e-house given up to an exhibition of "apaintinoby Raphael and several fleas tied by gold chains ?" This locality kept its hold on the height of fashion till close DubSnT;??^^- 6^ en tHe Duke of Hamilton <«SbS Dublin in 1755 with his beautiful Irish wife, Elizabeth Gunning, they lodged at the Eagle Tavern, on Cork Hill, and the street £ ll?™i I *™» blo< * edupby eager crowds, resolved to obtain a S^Pf • I c^ y d^ ess - Hereabouts lay the choicest haunts Sin? Ohe^ lan -^y^g fashion, the taverns, coffee-houses, theatres, clubs, and so forth. Gold-laced and sworded roysterers swaggered about from club to tavern, from tavern to theatre, and from thea*hJL^ a f^ ' a v d ° ne standin S on this bridge at dead of night in the era of the "brass monarch." aforesaid, might have- heard the oaths of brawlers, and perchance the clink of rapiers borne to him xrom Cork Hill or Smock Alley, Smock Alley is still Smock Alley in the mouths of the inhabitants, despite of every effort to change its name. Here it lies up Parliament Street, a few yards only, first turning to the right. ]£ this poor, abject lane stood the famous Smock AUey Theatre. Enter the burial-vault of the Church of Saints Michael and John, and you stand m the pit of the theatre, on the spot where close-packed crowds laughed, wept, cheered, rioted, in times now long gone by. •What names puissant rise up before the mind as one stands m fancy uponthis classic scene ! Farquhar, Nicholini, Booth, Quin, Margaret Woffington, Garrick, Sheridan, Cibber, Barry, Mossop' Macklm, Daly, Kemble, Mrs. Inchbald, Mrs. Siddons herself, and a host or others of no mean roputo in their day, graced the boards of Smock Alley during the century and a quarter of its disturbed career, at the end of which time its fato was to be turned into a flour and whiskey store, and finally to fall of itself, at the same time that Napoleon fell, leaving a site for a Catholic Church and novestige of itself but an old arched passage, which can to this day be seen. Looking aa-ound one in this vault, and seeing by a dim funereal light the simple narrow honses of the dead, it is not easy to realise that here, in this very spot, was the pit so feared bymanagers and actors ; the pit that fiercely hissed, and loudly called, and madly cheered, or more madly rose in wrath, and wrecked with demon fui-yj the pit from which Dudley Moore leaped on to the stage on a certain anniversary of William of Orange, durinothe reign of dull Queen Anne, and recited a prologue to the play oi lanierlaue, wJuch Government had forbidden to be spoken : the pit from which " Kelly of Comiacht," a « Trinity boy," inflamed with wine, sprang on the stage, and, being baffled in his pursuit of an actress, hit the manager, Sheridan's father, with an orange, and organised a series of riots which kept-Dublin in a fever tor weeks, closed the theatre for awhile, brought Solly himself face

to face with the Lord Chief Justice, and had the result of putting an end to the system till then prevailing, under which, in the •words of Benjamin Victor, stage manager, " every person who had a sword was sure to draw it on the stage-door keeper, if he denied him entrance ; " and, as the elder Sheridan tells us, " every stripling, by an acquaintance with the actors, by a bribe of a shilling, or by virtue of a big look and an oak sapling, could get admission behind -the scenes, and be immediately initiated into the mysteries of Mars and Venus. Once, under Mossop's sceptre, Smock Alley went as high as " King Lear," and once, in Sheridan's managerial day, it fell as low as dancing dogs ! A few yards around the comer stood the theatre of Fishamble Street, and this too had its ups and downs ; for in the spring of its youth it brought Handel's " Messiah " to light, and in its worn old age, when its fortunes were controlled by " Frederick Freebryne, Esquire— by friends and patrons entitled Mickey Free— a shilling fee gave one not only a seat in the best part of the house, but also the right of admission to the casino, where the gods and goddesses of Mr. Freebryne's temple deigned to speak and even drink with mortals. Coming up Smock Alley ; crossing over Parliament Street ; pursuing our way by Essex Street through a quarter once devoted to taverns, printing-offices, lampoons, epigrams, and the public papers ; entering Temple Bar, a street called after that worthy Englishman, the ancestor of Lord Palmerston, who told such lies against the Irish in his " History of Ireland," that even the British Government were ashamed of it ; passing the corner where a fruit stall was kept by Peg. Woffington's mother, and taking a turn or two, we come upon Crow Street, a place famous in many ways, last century the chosen home of assemblies, ridottos, and subscription balls for the pink of fashion in Dublin, and the scene until 1820 of the theatre which bore its name. Opened in 1758 by the notable Spranger Barry, once a silversmith in Skinner's Row, and abandoned at its grand climateric to the sale of hats and the accumulation of rubbish, this Crow Street theatre is allied with mighty names. It had its triumphs and failures, its tides of fortune, its splendors, and its squalors, its wanton riots, at one time organised by Magee, of the ' Evening Post/ at another by O'Connor, a ropemaker in Pill Lane, the owner of Dragon, a Newfoundland dog, who played in the " Forest of Eondy." Besides the most famous of these dramatic lights who appeared in later times at Smock Alley, the boards of Crow Street boasted Sam Foote, Dexter, Mrs. Fitzhenry, Catalani, Michael Arne (the composer), Eobert Owenson (Lady Morgan's father), Cheny, Cooke, Miss Farren, Edmund Kean, and the surpassing Miss O'Neill. No personal episodes more romantic than those of Miss Woffington and Miss O'Neill can be found in the annals of any stage in the world.