Temple Bar

1

MONKS OF THE TEMPLE -
EARLY HISTORY

The growth and development of Temple Bar should be seen in the context of the wider history of medieval Dublin and Ireland. There is archaeological evidence to suggest that the area was first inhabited by Gaelic clans and subsequently by marauding Vikings in the tenth century. The western end of Temple Bar lies in part of the old city that was a Viking town. The remains of Isolde's Tower, part of the thirteenth-century city wall, in Exchange Street Lower, indicate the importance of this part of the town.

To the east of this old city, outside the walls, the Augustinians built a monastery, the Holy Trinity Friary, in the late thirteenth century, in the area of modern-day Cecilia and Crow streets, with lands stretching along the banks of the River Liffey. The historic name of the district was not Temple Bar but St Andrew's Parish, an eastern suburb of medieval (Anglo-Norman) Dublin, located outside the city walls. The old name survives in the form of St Andrew's church, just off Dame Street.

FROM THE VIKINGS TO THE NORMANS

The Normans came to Dublin by invitation - an overture by Dermot MacMurrough, exiled King of Leinster. MacMurrough hoped to win back his kingdom, lost in a dispute with the High King of Ireland. His arrangement with Richard de Clare, the legendary Strongbow, was one of many reciprocal military actions between the Irish, the Welsh and the English at a time when lords and kings were jostling for power. Dublin town fell to the Normans in 1170. The Vikings fled to Oxmanstown on the north bank of the Liffey. Strongbow married Dermot's daughter Aoife and exerted control over the city of Dublin to such an extent that his king, the Norman Henry II, came to Dublin in 1172 to check Strongbow's power. In 1185, Henry declared his son John Lord of Ireland. John unexpectedly inherited the kingship and thus the Lordship of Ireland was tied to the English throne. From then onwards, Dublin started to take on its medieval shape with the building of Dublin Castle (1204-1230) on the site of an old Gaelic (subsequently Viking) fortification, the establishment of a proper administration structure, and the building of churches and monasteries. As early as 1192, Dublin Corporation was established and trade guilds encouraged. Over the succeeding generations, commerce improved and Dublin became a small city, necessitating the improvement of water and drainage, roads and houses and public buildings. The ruling Normans were used to greater convenience in their daily lives and set about laying water pipes as early as 1244. By 1245, a supply of water ran from the River Poddle to their grand stone castle on the hill. The tidal nature of the River Liffey at this point means it was undrinkable, so for generations Dublin residents resorted to alternatives - ale, wine and whiskey, hence Winetavern Street on the periphery of Temple Bar.1

The old defences were strengthened with the building of better walls and gates and towers. The only surviving old gate of Dublin (and of the thirteenth century) is on Cook Street, adjacent to the two St Audoen's churches, with the old walls and battlements accessible from St Audoen's Park on High Street. The remnants of Isolde's Tower, one of the towers guarding the city, are still visible on Lower Exchange Street, which itself follows the direction of the old walls of Dublin.2

FROM THE MONKS TO THE REFORMATION

On the eve of the mid-sixteenth-century Reformation, the area now known as Temple Bar was sufficiently populous, albeit barely, to be served by a church, St Andrew's. In addition to this church and the Thingmount, an old centre for administering justice, one of the most important features of Temple Bar was the open area known as Hoggen Green, now College Green. St Mary de Hogges Abbey was near this (on the site of present-day Bank of Ireland) and the Augustinian Holy Trinity Friary was halfway between this and the walls of the medieval city. Today, part of the thirteenth-century friary is visible within an apartment-restaurant complex called 'The Friary' in Temple Bar. The friary was founded about 1282 and its site is believed to be marked by the conjunction of Temple Lane, Temple Bar, Fownes Street Upper and Cecilia Street. The site has been partially excavated and is listed on the National Monuments Service database. Those excavations revealed around seventy burials from between the late twelfth century to the fourteenth century, remains of the friary on the east side of Cecilia House and, in 1996, excavations exposed a section of wall with a relieving arch and a corner tower.

Overall, three religious orders occupied more than half of the lands that now make up Temple Bar (the rest is the old city and the area consisting of land reclaimed from the rivers Poddle and Liffey and the surrounding marshland). The lands of the Augustinians and the nuns of St Mary de Hogges would subsequently be the basis for the newer, developed part of Temple Bar stretching from Parliament Street to Westmoreland Street. There was also an order of nuns on the lands presently occupied by Trinity College Dublin.

'STICKY FINGERS' BRABAZON

The Tudor conquest of Ireland from the mid-sixteenth century onwards spelt a new era for Dublin, with the city enjoying a renewed prominence as the centre of the colonists' administrative rule in Ireland. These new colonists needed to be housed and rewarded for their services to the Crown. The suppression and confiscation of the monasteries during the English Reformation, from the mid-1530s, onwards facilitated this.

King Henry VIII (1491-1547), who became king in 1509, ordered that all churches, abbeys and monasteries were henceforth to be under his control. 60 per cent of Irish monasteries and friaries remained undisturbed in the Gaelic and Gaelicised parts of Ireland. Temple Bar, being in the Pale and under direct English influence and control, was not so lucky. If fact, the dissolution had an enormous impact on all of Dublin due to the concentration of cathedrals, churches, monastic houses and lands in the immediate vicinity of the city. The confiscated land was transferred to the English Crown via Dublin Corporation. The speed of land transfer was remarkable - many medieval estates and monasteries were transferred wholesale to private hands or to Dublin Corporation itself.

St Mary de Hogges went to the Crown. In 1591, the old monastery of All Saints was recommissioned as Trinity College Dublin. Cary's Hospital was built on some of the open land at Hoggen (College) Green in 1595 and consisted of a large mansion, garden and a plantation by the seashore. This subsequently changed hands and was renamed Chichester House. It became the seat of the Irish parliament in the early seventeenth century. Finally, St Augustine's Monastery was granted to the Sir Walter Tyrell, who came from a wealthy merchant family also involved in politics. One of his descendants, William Crow, later acquired the land. The Crow family soon built a number of large mansions and sublet plots of land.

Therefore, it is clear that the early history of the development of Temple Bar may be traced back to Dublin's monastic settlement and the dissolution of monasteries in 1541 which began a new era in the eastward expansion and development of Dublin.3

Henry VIII gave the monastery of St Thomas Abbey (on Thomas Street in the Liberties) and the land around it to his vice treasurer in Ireland at the time, William Brabazon, who had been sent to Ireland in 1533. William Brabazon's influence and control over government finances at the time of the Reformation had an enormous impact on the subsequent history of Temple Bar (and Ireland). It was he who oversaw the quick transfer of confiscated property to the treasury. Vice treasurer and three times Lord Justice, he was described by historian Hiram Morgan as the prototype New Englishman - 'a hard man with sticky fingers'. Brabazon and other officials such as Lord Deputies Grey and St Leger profited by renting out confiscated land at rates far below market values and leaving thousands of pounds of rent arrears uncollected. This fraudulent activity was not uncovered until three years after his death. When the widespread corruption was brought to light in 1556, St Leger was dismissed, tried and fined £5,000.4

REBELLION AND THE
GUNPOWDER EXPLOSION

Another important factor in the eastward expansion of Temple Bar was Queen Elizabeth I's determination to make Dublin a Protestant city. She established Trinity College in 1592 (on confiscated monastic lands) as a solely Protestant university and ordered that the Catholic St Patrick's and Christ Church cathedrals be converted into Protestant cathedrals. This move to Protestantise Dublin and extend the conquest, however, coincided with the great gunpowder explosion in Dublin in 1597. The background to the explosion was the English war against the Irish chieftains, the O'Neills and the O'Donnells, who had been successfully waging a campaign during the Nine Years' War. English soldiers and supplies were arriving in Dublin port (by Wood and Essex quays) and, by accident or design, a number of barrels of gunpowder exploded dramatically in the heart of the old city, near Dublin Castle, killing over 100 people and destroying half of the small city. The buildings on Cook Street, Fishamble Street, Bridge Street, High Street and St Michael's Lane suffered the most damage. This and the enormous cost of rebuilding led some merchants to decide to move eastwards, a move that was key to the growth and development of Temple...