CHAP - Chapelizod Heritage Association Podcast

Chapelizod only appears in documentary sources from around the early 13th century CE, but the archaeological remains of the area point to human activity in the Liffey Valley from the depths of Irish prehistory. The most significant – and earliest – archaeological site in the area of Chapelizod is the Knockmary Cist or Knockmary Cromlech, located at the summit of Knockmary Hill where it holds a commanding view of the village and surrounding landscape.You can find the site by entering the Phoenix Park through the turnstile at the top of Park Lane. Continuing straight ahead, you follow the narrow path to the top of the hill. Cross the road, and continue up the driveway. Go right along the hedge at the top, and you will come upon the remains of the cromlech (pictured above). Today, all that can be seen at this site on the small hill above Chapelizod are five upright stones supporting a large capstone. Once upon a time this assemblage of stones served as the rock chamber of the tomb – the remains of which are often known as a dolmen or cromlech. They would have been covered in a mound of earth; some accounts describe the original mound at Knockmary to have had a height of 15 feet and a diameter of 120 feet (Borlase, 1897).The largest stone measures roughly six foot six inches at its longest point. This capstone is made of calp, also known as “black quarry stone”. Later in time, this type of rock was commonly used for building works, and can be found incorporated into many of Dublin’s buildings; but this particular example is believed to have been dredged from the bed of the Liffey and brought up to this hill overlooking the valley (Borlase, 1897). It is supported by five smaller upright stones, creating a hollow void in which human remains and grave goods were deposited. The remains of three men were found inside this chamber when the mound was excavated in 1838. Numerous artefacts were also recovered: a small flint knife and a necklace of small sea-shells, perforated with small holes and strung together with a vegetal fibre that may have been seaweed. Four highly ornamented ceramic urns were also discovered in the mound, placed individually in their own small stone-lined chambers.These date to a later period in Irish prehistory – the Bronze Age. Whereas the bodies placed within the main cist at the center of the monument were buried whole, the urns contained the ashes of burned human bone. This represents a shift of not only technology, but also burial practices and perhaps religion between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age.The story of the Knockmary Cist’s discovery is closely tied to the emergence of archaeology from antiquarianism in the 19th century. Even up to the 1960s the site was associated with the semi-mythical earliest colonists of Ireland, the so-called Fir Bolgs:“The first people assumed to have dwelt in this country are the Firboigs, a pasture loving race, who inhabited Ireland about two thousand years ago. This deduction was made from the discovery of two Cromlechs in the nineteenth century, one on Knockmary Hill, overlooking Chapelizod, and the second in a sandpit near the village.” (McAsey, 1962, 37)Two centuries earlier the interpretations were a lot more fanciful, based on the theory that stones such as this served as the altars or temples of Druids. This idea was only challenged in the mid-1800s, when empirical evidence was being sought to discover the true function of these mysterious monuments. In 1837 a man named George Petrie pioneered this work at the archaeological landscape at Carrowmore, County Sligo – the largest cemetery of megalithic tombs in Ireland. The results of this were presented to the Royal Irish Academy in 1838; the same year that Thomas Larcom, then director of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, wrote to Petrie notifying him of the newly discovered site in the Phoenix Park. Full details on the context surrounding Petrie’s work in Carrowmore, the excavation of the Knockmary cist and the shift towards archaeological methods in Ireland can be found in the excellent article by David McGuinness (2010).The remains of a second dolmen, originally located close to that on Knockmary Hill, can today be found in the tapir enclosure of Dublin Zoo.Further Reading:David McGuinness (2010) "Druids' altars, Carrowmore and the birth of Irish archaeology." The Journal of Irish Archaeology, Vol. 19, 29-49.William Copeland Borlase (1897) The dolmens of Ireland, their distribution, structural characteristics, and affinities in other countries; together with the folk-lore attaching to them; supplemented by considerations on the anthropology, ethnology, and traditions of the Irish people. Available to read here.Robert Alexander Stewart Macalister (1912) Ireland in pre-Celtic times. Dublin: Maunsel and Roberts. Available to read here.Carmel McAsey (1962) "Chapelizod, Co. Dublin." Dublin Historical Record, Vol. 17, No. 2, 37-53.Wm. Thompson, Robert Mallet, Samuel Ferguson, Professor Kane and Mr. Petrie (1838) "May 28, 1838." Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Vol. 1 (1836 - 1840), 177- 191.

Churchview, number 34 on the Main Street of Chapelizod, is a detached three-story Georgian building that lies sandwiched between two lanes leading to St. Laurence’s Church. The building is commonly known as the House by the Church Yard and has long been associated with the name of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, the Irish writer of supernatural, Gothic and mystery fiction.The village and its history made a strong impression on Le Fanu’s imagination, and the characters and stories he grew up with re-appear in several of his works. In these, Le Fanu likes to look back at the heyday of the village in the middle of the 18th century, when a bustling social life revolved around the officers of the Royal Irish Horse Artillery. Le Fanu spent his childhood in Chapelizod, while his father worked as chaplain in the Hibernian Military School. The Hibernian Military School was built to educate the children of the 400 soldiers of the Royal Irish Horse Artillery, garrisoned in the area.Built around 1740, the sadly dilapidated building of Churchview is one of the earliest surviving structures in the village. It is believed by many to be the house which gives its name to Le Fanu’s 1868 novel ‘The House by the Churchyard’, a work in which Le Fanu combined a lively portrayal of life in Chapelizod in the 1760s with a macabre tale of deceit, murder and retribution.The story opens with the annual festivities held on nearby Palmerstown Green, where we are introduced to some of the residents of Chapelizod. These include General Chattesworth and his eligible daughter Gertrude, the local rector Doctor Walsingham and his ill-fated daughter Lilias, and some of the more colourful officers of the regiment, including Lieutenant Puddock and Gunner ‘Fireworks’ O’Flaherty. Courtships, rivalries and duels - all treated with a strong element of farce - provide much of the plot in the first half of the novel, until the arrival in the village of a mysterious stranger by the name of Mr Mervyn sets in train a sequence of sinister events, culminating in the attempted murder of Doctor Sturk in the Phoenix Park by an unknown assailant. Sturk’s body is carried back to his house (perhaps the very building that stands on Main Street today), where he lies in a coma until the key to the mystery is at last revealed when he is briefly brought to his senses by being trepanned, the desperate operation carried out by a whiskey-soaked Dublin doctor known as ‘Black Dillon’, who arrives by coach at dead of night.Although less well known than Bram Stoker or Edgar Allan Poe, Sheridan Le Fanu has always been regarded as a key figure in the development of Gothic and mystery fiction. His vampire novel ‘Carmilla’ influenced Stoker’s creation of ‘Dracula’, and many writers of ghost stories have paid tribute to his subtle ability to make the flesh creep. The English writer E.F. Benson said of him: “No one else has so sure a touch in mixing the mysterious atmosphere in which horror darkly breeds.”Le Fanu’s novel ‘The House by the Churchyard’ was also admired by James Joyce, who – like Le Fanu – knew Chapelizod in his youth and who wove elements of Le Fanu’s story into his own ‘Finnegan’s Wake’.During the second half of the 18th century, the appearance of Dublin city transformed as buildings like the Customs House, Trinity College, and the Four Courts were constructed. Other building works were undertaken to improve the streetscapes of the inner city, and magnificent Georgian mansions were constructed for the city’s elite. However, following the Act of Union in 1801 – through which the Irish parliament in Dublin was removed and united with British parliament in London – there was a marked reduction in the property prices in the city. Many of the old Georgian houses were converted into tenements, each containing multiple large families renting individual rooms in the building. These inner-city tenements became notorious for their squalor, and the neighbourhoods surrounding them gained a reputation as slums.It was in this context that Churchview was converted into tenement style housing. Little is known of the history of the house during this period of its existence, apart from that a David Cant is recorded as living there in 1914, when the rated value of the premises was £13.Like many tenement buildings in Dublin during the 20th century, the building accommodated a staggering number of people. The Irwins and their eight children lived on the first floor, the Farrells, with four children, lived on the second floor, and the Doyles with two children lived on the top floor. A bachelor Mr Flaherty had the basement all to himself. There are also reports of a local boxing club situated in the basement at some stage during the buildings life.The Irwin’s were the biggest and last family to have lived in the house. Frances Martin Irwin herself, the mother of the family, was raised in Chapelizod and was one of the lucky children who attended the Hibernian Military School, where Sheridan Le Fanu’s father was Chaplin years before her time.Although it was not as squalid as some of the tenements of the inner city, it was certainly overcrowded, and at a young age Angela and Mary Irwin had to move out of their childhood home into Martin’s Row. The rest of the children followed suit – Monica and Tony Irwin moving to the nearby Mulberry Cottages – as did the building’s other tenants, until Frances was the only person left behind. Of Frances’ eight children, half remained close by in Chapelizod, and she lived in Churchview until her death in 1968. She is buried in the Hibernian Military School in the Phoenix Park.The descendants of the Irwin family still live in both the Mulberry Cottages and in Martin’s row, continuing their link with Chapelizod. In the years following her death the building remained unoccupied, and today the house by the churchyard stands apparently forgotten, in a state of dangerous neglect – waiting for a skilful and sensitive hand to resurrect it from its death-like slumber.Further Reading:Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1851) Ghost Stories of Chapelizod. First published in the Dublin University Magazine, January 1851. Republished posthumously in the 1923 collection Madam Crowl's Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery, edited by M. R. James. Available to read online here.Carmel McAsey (1962) "Chapelizod, Co. Dublin." Dublin Historical Record, Vol. 17, No. 2, 37-53.Kevin Brennan (1980) "J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Chapelizod and the Dublin Connection." Dublin Historical Record, Vol. 33, No. 4, 122-133.John Cronin & Associates and Cathal Crimmins Architects (2003) The Built Heritage of Chapelizod: A report to Dublin City Council and The Heritage Council as a part of the ‘Chapelizod Urban Design, Conservation and Land Use Plan 2003’.

The village of Chapelizod is located between the River Liffey and the steeply sloping hills leading up to Ballyfermot to the south and the Fifteen Acres of the Phoenix Park to the north. A map created sometime between 1655 and 1666, as part of Sir William Petty’s Down Survey of Ireland, shows Chapelizod with a church, a structure at the location of the King’s House, two mills, and the ford of St. Laurence – but no bridge – crossing the river between the two ancient roads leading westwards out of Dublin city. The village of St. Laurence was located on the south bank of the River Liffey in between the ford and Palmerstown.In 1662 the newly appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, James Butler the Duke of Ormonde, initiated the conversion of the ancient King’s House into the Viceregal Lodge (the residence of the Lord Lieutenant before Áras an Uachtaráin was constructed in 1751). The Duke of Ormonde contracted a man named William Dodson to enlarge the building, and around the same time a letter was sent from Dodson to James Butler, which contained an invoice of 195 guineas, 1 shilling and 7 pennies for “making one new bridge at Chappell Izard”. Completed in the 1660s, this is the oldest known masonry bridge built across the River Liffey in County Dublin.The Liffey served as the backbone of Chapelizod's industrial past. In 1380 King Richard II of England granted control of the fishery, weir, and millrace of Chapelizod to the Priory of the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, a monastic order based in Kilmainham. Flax was dried on the fields that extended along the southern banks of the river, before being used to weave cloth in the mills that were built along the river banks. Later, there were even attempts to manufacture silk in Chapelizod! Much later in time the Phoenix Park Distillery was built alongside the river, drawing upon the Liffey for its hydraulic power and as a source of the key ingredient for their drink.People have long valued the River Liffey for its natural beauty as much as its industrial usefulness, as expressed by James Fraser in his Hand Book for Travellers of Ireland, published in 1844:“The road from Chapelizod to this town [Lucan] may be agreeably varied, by keeping the left bank of the Liffey. The scenery, which is purely rural, is, perhaps, the best of that character around the city; and equal to any part of the Liffey's circuitous course. The high banks, the neat villas, and rustic cottages, with their accompanying plantations; — the mixed cultivation, with the extensive fields of strawberries, mingling with all the variety of crops which market gardens exhibit; the meandering of the Liffey, and the various rapids occasioned by damming its waters in order to propel the machinery connected with the small factories along its course; the verdant meads which occupy the sinuosities of the narrow valley, and the undulating road which is carried over the summits of the little hills, all combine to render this a very charming stretch of rural scenery.”The Strawberry Beds extend for some two miles along the north bank of the river upstream from Dodson’s Bridge. From as far back as 1837 this area was famous for the small, pale, and exquisite strawberries that grew along the steep slopes of the valley. Holidaymakers would descend to Chapelizod and beyond to enjoy these delicious fruits, frequenting taverns and hotels like The Wren’s Nest and, from 1865, the Angler’s Rest. The strawberry plants sadly disappeared in the early years of the 20th century. The Liffey also provided ample opportunities for fishing throughout Chapelizod’s history, both upstream and downstream from Dodson’s bridge. The southern bank of the Liffey up as far as Ballyfermot was a popular site for sports like duck shooting, which continued until around 1950, and in more recent times the river is used by the many rowing clubs that line its banks to the east.Dodson’s Bridge and the Liffey have also provided literary inspiration for many of the writers that have lived in Chapelizod. The bridge served as the setting of Peter Brien’s ghostly encounters in a short story named The Spectre Lovers, written by Sheridan Le Fanu in 1851 and published in the Dublin University Magazine. The River Liffey was later personified by Jame’s Joyce’s character Anna Livia Plurabelle in Finnegans Wake, a character no doubt inspired by Joyce’s days spent in Chapelizod walking across the bridge and along the river banksOn June 16th, 1982, the bridge was renamed as Anna Livia Bridge to mark the centenary of the birth of James Joyce. Today, the Anna Livia Bridge continues to serve as a vital fording point between the northern and southern areas of the village, and a significant link between north and south Dublin, and it continues to provide one of the best views of the River Liffey from within the village.Further Reading:Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1851) Ghost Stories of Chapelizod. First published in the Dublin University Magazine, January 1851. Republished posthumously in the 1923 collection Madam Crowl's Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery, edited by M. R. James. Available to read online here.James Joyce (1939) Finnegans WakeCarmel McAsey (1962) "Chapelizod, Co. Dublin." Dublin Historical Record, Vol. 17, No. 2, 37-53.Francis Elrington Ball (1906) A History of the County Dublin: Clonsilla, Leixlip, Lucan, Aderrig, Kilmactalway, Kilbride, Kilmahuddrick, Esker, Palmerston, Ballyfermot, Clondalkin, Drimnagh, Crumlin, St. Catherine, St. Nicholas Without, St. James, St. Jude, and Chapelizod, as well as within the Phoenix park. Dublin: Alex. Thom & Company.Kevin Brennan (1980) "J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Chapelizod and the Dublin Connection." Dublin Historical Record, Vol. 33, No. 4, 122-133.James Fraser (1854) A Hand Book for Travellers in Ireland: Descriptive of Its Scenery, Towns, Seats, Antiquities, Etc., with All the Railways Now Open, and Various Statistical Tables. Dublin: James McGlashan.A.E.J. Went (1954) "Fisheries of the River Liffey: II. Notes on the Corporation Fishery from the Time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries." The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Vol. 84, No. 1, 41-58.John Cronin & Associates and Cathal Crimmins Architects (2003) The Built Heritage of Chapelizod: A report to Dublin City Council and The Heritage Council as a part of the ‘Chapelizod Urban Design, Conservation and Land Use Plan 2003’.