through the repeated applications of the duke of Ormond to Charles II. The site chosen for it was that of the ancient priory of Kilmainham, founded by Strongbow for Knights Templars. The building, completed in 1684, according to a plan of Sir Christopher Wren, is an oblong, three sides of which are dwelling-rooms, connected by covered corridors. The fourth contains the chapel, the dining-hall, and the apartments of the master, who is always the commander of the forces for the time being. The Royal Hibernian military school in Phoenix Park (1765) provides for soldiers’ orphan sons. The Drummond Institution, Chapelizod, for the orphan daughters of soldiers, was established in 1864 by John Drummond, alderman, who left £20,000 to found the asylum. The Hibernian Marine Society for the maintenance of seamen’s sons was established in the city in 1766, but now has buildings at Clontarf. The Roman Catholic Church has charge of a number of special charities, some of them educational and some for the relief of suffering.
History.—The name of Dublin signifies the “Black pool.” The early history is mainly legendary. It is recorded that the inhabitants of Leinster were defeated by the people of Dublin in the year 291. Christianity was introduced by St Patrick about 450. In the 9th century the Danes attacked Dublin and took it. The first Norseman who may be reckoned as king was Thorkel I. (832), though the Danes had appeared in the country as early as the close of the previous century. Thorkel established himself strongly at Armagh. In 1014 Brian Boroihme, king of Munster, attacked the enemy and fought the battle of Clontarf, in which he and his son and 11,000 of his followers fell. The Irish, however, won the battle, but the Danes reoccupied the city. Constant struggles with the Irish resulted in intermissions of the Danish supremacy from 1052 to 1072, at various intervals between 1075 and 1118 and from 1124 to 1136. The Danes were finally ousted by the Anglo-Normans in 1171. In 1172 Henry II. landed at Waterford, and came to Dublin and held his court there in a pavilion of wickerwork where the Irish chiefs were entertained with great pomp, and alliances entered into with them. Previous to his departure for England, Henry bestowed the government on Hugh de Lacy, having granted by charter “to his subjects of Bristol his city of Dublin to inhabit, and to hold of him and his heirs for ever, with all the liberties and free customs which his subjects of Bristol then enjoyed at Bristol and through all England.” In 1176 Strongbow, earl of Pembroke, and chief leader of the Anglo-Norman forces, died in Dublin of a mortification in one of his feet, and was buried in Christ Church Cathedral, where his monument remains well preserved. A fresh charter was granted in 1207 by King John to the inhabitants of Dublin, who had not yet made their peace with the neighbourhood, but, like the settlers in other towns, were at constant feud with the native Irish; so that two years after the date of this charter, whilst the citizens of Dublin were celebrating Easter at Cullenswood, they were set upon by the Irish of the neighbouring mountains, and 500 of them killed. The scene of slaughter is still called the Bloody Fields, and Easter Monday denominated Black Monday. On each succeeding anniversary of that day, with the prevalent desire of perpetuating a feud, the citizens marched out to Cullenswood with banners displayed—“a terror to the native Irish.” In 1216 Magna Carta, a copy of which is to be found in the Red Book of the Exchequer, was granted to the Irish by Henry III. In 1217 the fee farm of the city was granted to the citizens at a rent of 200 marks per annum; and about this period many monastic buildings were founded. In 1227 the same monarch confirmed the charter of John fixing the city boundaries and the jurisdiction of its magistrates.
During the invasion of Ireland by Edward Bruce in 1315 some of the suburbs of Dublin were burnt to prevent them from falling into his hand. The inroad of Bruce had been countenanced by the native Irish ecclesiastics, whose sentiments were recorded in a statement addressed to Pope John XXII. Some notion of the defence made against Bruce’s invasion may be gained from the fact that the churches were torn down to supply stones for the building of the city walls. Bruce had seized Greencastle on his march; but the natives re-took the town, and brought to Dublin the governor who had yielded to Bruce. He was starved to death.
Richard II. erected Dublin into a marquisate in favour of Robert de Vere, whom he also created duke of Ireland. The same monarch entered Dublin in 1394 with 30,000 bowmen and 4000 cavalry, bringing with him the crown jewels; but after holding a parliament and making much courtly display before the native chieftains, on several of whom he conferred knighthood, he returned to England. Five years later, enriched with the spoils of his uncle, John of Gaunt, Richard returned to Ireland, landing at Waterford, whence he marched through the counties of Kilkenny and Wicklow, and subsequently arrived in Dublin, where he remained a fortnight, sumptuously entertained by the provost, as the chief magistrate of the city was then called, till intelligence of the invasion of his kingdom by Bolingbroke recalled him to England.
In 1534 Lord Thomas Fitzgerald, better known as Silken Thomas (so called because of a fantastic fringe worn in the helmet of his followers), a young man of rash courage and good abilities, son of the Lord Deputy Kildare, believing his father, who was imprisoned in the Tower of London, to have been beheaded, organized a rebellion against the English Government, and marched with his followers from the mansion of the earls of Kildare in Thomas Court, through Dame’s Gate to St Mary’s Abbey, where, in the council chamber, he proclaimed himself a rebel. On his appearing before the wall with a powerful force, the citizens were induced through fear to give admission to a detachment of his troops to besiege the castle; but, on hearing that he had met with a reverse in another quarter, they suddenly closed their gates and detained his men as prisoners. He then attacked the city itself; but, finding it too strong to be seized by a coup de main, he raised the siege on condition of having his captured soldiers exchanged for the children of some of the principal citizens who had fallen into his hands. After much vicissitude of fortune, Lord Thomas and others concerned in this rebellion were executed at Tyburn in 1536.
At the outbreak of civil war in 1641, a conspiracy of the Irish septs, under the direction of Roger Moore, to seize Dublin Castle, was disclosed by one Owen Connolly on the eve of the day on which the attempt was to have been made, and the city was thus preserved for the king’s party; but the Irish outside began an indiscriminate extermination of the Protestant population. In 1646 Dublin was besieged, but without success, by the Irish army of 16,000 foot and 1600 horse, under the guidance of the Pope’s nuncio Rinuccini and others, banded together “to restore and establish in Ireland the exercise of the Roman Catholic religion.” The city had been put in an efficient state of defence by the marquess of Ormonde, then lord-lieutenant; but in the following year, to prevent it falling into the hands of the Irish, he surrendered it on conditions to Colonel Jones, commander of the Parliamentary forces. In 1649 Ormonde was totally defeated at the battle of Baggotrath, near Old Rathmines, in an attempt to recover possession. The same year Cromwell landed in Dublin, as commander-in-chief under the parliament, with 9000 foot and 4000 horse, and proceeded thence on his career of conquest.
When James II. landed in Ireland in 1689 to assert his right to the British throne, he held a parliament in Dublin, which passed acts of attainder against upwards of 3000 Protestants. The governor of the city, Colonel Luttrell, at the same time issued a proclamation ordering all Protestants not housekeepers, excepting those following some trade, to depart from the city within 24 hours, under pain of death or imprisonment, and in various ways restricting those who were allowed to remain. In the hope of relieving his financial difficulties, the king erected a mint, where money was coined of the “worst kind of old brass, guns and the refuse of metals, melted down together,” of the nominal value of £1,568,800, with which his troops were paid, and tradesmen were compelled to receive it under penalty of being hanged in case of refusal. Under these regulations the entire coinage was put into circulation. After his defeat at the battle of the Boyne, James returned to Dublin, but left it again before
