To Hell or Monto E-Book

Maurice Curtis

• Herausgeber: THP Ireland
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 263

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

There was a time when the two most notorious red-light districts not only in Ireland but in all of Europe could be found on the streets of Dublin. Though the name of Monto has endured long in folk memory, the area known as Hell was equally notorious, feared and renowned in its day. In this new work Maurice Curtis explores the histories of these dark remnants of Dublin's past, complete with their gambling, duelling and vice, their rowdy taverns and houses of ill repute.

Leseprobe

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many people were helpful in researching this book. Two of the most historic areas of Dublin are covered and consequently I am very grateful to individuals and residents of these areas for their help. Hell was located on the fringes (in more ways than one) of the Liberties, and Councillor John Gallagher of the Liberties Heritage Association was a guiding light and inspiration. He fought the good fight on the Wood Quay issue for decades (see my book The Liberties, 2013). He also fought many other battles for the people of his beloved community. In the Monto area, like the Liberties, one individual also stands out – Terry Fagan. A special thanks to Terry and the North Inner City Folklore Project. Terry Fagan is not your typical folklorist; but then again, Dublin’s Monto and its people are not typical subjects. Born and reared in Corporation Buildings, the heart of the one-time notorious red-light district, Monto, Terry has written much on the area over the years. ‘With all these new developments that are springing up around us, we feel it is important for something to be preserved and documented before the whole place fades into history’, he argues. A graduate of the ‘Redbrick Slaughterhouse’, Rutland Street School, Terry’s determination to bring to life the history of this fascinating part of Dublin came to fruition in his writings and history-promoting activities in the area. Terry Fagan is truly a walking encyclopaedia about all things Monto. Growing up in the area has given him first-hand experience of the many changes, bad and good, visited upon this unique area in Dublin. Not only that but he personifies the distinctive and unquenchable spirit of Monto, a spirit that was much in evidence in 1913, 1916 and the War of Independence, and that has played a hugely important part in modern Irish history. Des O’Hanlon of the famous old historic pub, Cleary’s, also made me feel very welcome, as did the Monto Barber on Amiens Street.

Thanks to Alan O’Keefe of the Herald for information on Darkey Kelly. Of immeasurable help and inspiration was John Finnegan, who wrote articles on Monto in the Evening Herald in April 1972, which subsequently became the book The Story of Monto. Likewise my thanks go to Larissa Nolan of the Irish Independent and Lisa-Marie Griffith. Eamon McLoughlin, the radio producer of the documentary No Smoke without Hellfire, and fellow researcher Phil O’Grady were helpful with information about Darkey Kelly, as was Charles Gregg with his song about Darkey Kelly called ‘Second Class Woman’. Karyn Moynihan, of the Women’s Museum of Ireland, provided much information on Margaret Leeson. Mary Lyons has done much service, particularly for her work on Margaret Leeson. D. Fallon of the ‘Come Here to Me’ history blog was helpful on many aspects of Dublin’s history. Mark Simpson was helpful for his detailed information on the ‘madams’ of Monto. Thanks also to Niamh O’Reilly of the Global Women’s Studies Programme, NUI Galway, for her documentary Three Hundred Years of Vice. I am also grateful to David Ryan and Michael Fewer for their landmark work on the Hellfire Club. Thanks to Maggie Armstrong of the Irish Independent for her observations that the squalor and brothels of Monto were a large part of James Joyce’s Ulysses. Director Louise Lowe and designer Owen Boss of Anu Productions’ have done much in recent years with their extraordinary yet disquieting theatrical presentation of a four-part history of Monto called The Monto Cycle. Thanks also to Harold Beck and John Simpson for their research on James Joyce; their work on the madams deserves particular praise and I found their notes indispensable. Senator David Norris and Peter Costello added much to my understanding of James Joyce. Grateful thanks in particular to the legendary Oliver St John Gogarty biographer, Ulick O’Connor, for his kind permission to use Gogarty’s material. Thanks also to Dr Maire Kennedy in Dublin City Libraries and Archives, and the very helpful staff in Pearse Street Public Library deserve particular gratitude. June O’Reilly, with the able help of Larry and Nuala, was of immense help with her photographic skills. I am very grateful also to Ronan Colgan and Beth Amphlett of The History Press for their constant encouragement, skills and indefatigable patience. Finally, my gratitude goes to the people of the Liberties (wherein Hell is to be found) and Monto for their help, friendliness and encouragement.

CONTENTS

Title

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. Penal Times

2. A Place Called Hell: Tales from the Crypt

3. Forty Steps to Hell

4. Winetavern Street and Smock Alley

5. Copper Alley and Fishamble Street

6. Darkey Kelly and Pimping Peg

7. The Eagle Tavern, the Blasters and the Hellfire Club

8. The Black Dog, the Black Pig and Hell

9. Snuff Boxes and the End of Hell

10. Benburb Street, Portobello and the Curragh Wrens

11. A Place Called Monto

12. World’s End: The Streets of Monto

13. Soldiers and Sailors: Dublin, a Garrison City

14. Flash Houses and Kips: The Madams

15. Piano Mary and Lily of the Lamplight: The Street Walkers

16. Regiments March Out, the Legion Marches In

17. Monto in Revolutionary Times

18. Dicey, Rosie and Kitty: Monto in Song and Story

Epilogue

Further Reading

Copyright

INTRODUCTION

This book looks at two of the most infamous and notorious red-light districts in Dublin: Hell and Monto. Hell was the centre of vice, gambling, duelling, rowdy taverns, bawdy houses and other disreputable activities in the eighteenth century. Monto took over the mantle in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Hell was located along the lanes and alleyways at the front and back of Christ Church Cathedral and extended from Cork Hill, Copper Alley/Fishamble Street, John’s Lane East, St Michael’s Hill/Skinners Row (now Christ Church Place), Winetavern Street and to Cook Street. Monto was located between Amiens Street and Lower Gardiner Street, between Sean McDermott Street and Lower Talbot Street and only a short walk from O’Connell Street and Dublin Port.

Hell was identified on Rocque’s Map of Dublin, 1756 and the name was in common usage in the eighteenth century and beyond to describe an area of notorious taverns (e.g. Winetavern Street, so called because of the large number of ale and wine houses), brothels and gambling houses that were clustered together, essentially in the shadow of the cathedral and the old walls of Dublin. This was where Dublin’s prostitutes, pimps, cutpurses, rakes and murderers houses were to be found. Darkey Kelly, Pimping Peg, Molly Malone, disreputable taverns and coffee-houses as well as the Smock Alley Theatre and the infamous Hellfire Club were all associated with Hell.

Though the name Monto has endured in folk memory, it was not the first major brothel area in Dublin. Hell was equally notorious, feared and renowned in its day. And like Monto, the police (watch) dared not venture in! It was in the early eighteenth century that the cobbled streets and laneways were laid out around Copper Alley, Smock Alley, Fishamble Street and the surrounding area, on land acquired by William Temple (1554–1628). This included the former lands of the Augustinian friary that had stood here for nearly 500 years until the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. Once the monks had departed the taverners, publicans and prostitutes stepped in, and for a century or so thereafter, until the very late eighteenth century, it and the wider area in the immediate vicinity of Christ Church Cathedral had a very disreputable reputation and were known far and wide as Hell.

Monto took over from Hell with the demolition of the old lanes and alleyways around Christ Church Cathedral in late eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries. This was the work of the Wide Streets Commissioners, who wished to abolish the old medieval lanes and alleys that dominated old Dublin, and where prostitution flourished. However, their changes just resulted in prostitution moving to new quarters in the city and soon Monto was full of brothels and houses of ill repute. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Monto was the most famous red-light district in Dublin, possibly Europe. However, the name ‘Monto’ never appeared on any map as it was the nickname. The name is derived from Montgomery Street (now called Foley Street), which runs parallel to the lower end of Talbot Street, towards what is now Connolly Station.

Winetavern Street and Christ Church Cathedral in the late 1950s. (Courtesy of GCI)

Chapter Lane in the vicinity of Christ Church Cathedral, 1913. This is typical of the kind of lanes and alleys that were in abundance in Hell. (Courtesy of GCI/harvest)

The upheaval caused by the 1798 Rebellion, the Act of Union and the abolition of the Irish Parliament in 1800 had a major economic impact on the life of Dublin. The bulk of the city’s people forged a precarious existence in high-density, poor-quality housing, surviving on the low incomes earned from casual labour. Ill health was endemic and mortality rates extremely high. There was large-scale desertion of the city by those associated with the Irish Parliament. Within a decade, many of the finest mansions (such as Leinster House, Powerscourt House and Aldborough House) had been sold. Many of the large four- and five-storey houses in areas such as Gardiner Street, Buckingham Street, Montgomery and Mecklenburgh Streets and Summerhill were sold to unscrupulous property developers and landlords who reduced them to tenements. Many of these tenements became brothels, and the life and legend that was Monto was born.

The nineteenth century also saw nearly ten army barracks located in Dublin. Prostitution derives from poverty and follows armies as sure as night follows day. Because there was a ready customer base from the thousands of soldiers stationed in the city, Monto became, according to a Dublin judge in 1901, ‘Europe’s most dreadful den of immorality’.

Strolling in Sackville Street in early 1920s. This area was a favourite meeting place for Monto prostitutes and soldiers from the many army barracks dotted around the city. (Courtesy of Dublin Forums/Rashers)

Cover of a religious pamphlett warning about the perils of Hell. (Courtesy of CTSI)

Griffith’s Valuation map of Monto and the surrounding area, c. 1854. The main district of Monto was in the vicinity of Montgomery and Mecklenburgh Streets. These streets are today called Foley ad Railway Streets respectively. (Courtesy of CSO/GCI)

This book then describes the two most notorious red-light districts not only in Dublin and Ireland but in also in Europe. Both places were renowned throughout the British Empire. Students at Dublin’s Trinity College were threatened with penalties if they went near Hell. Another student and in a later time, James Joyce, prowled the streets of Monto and found inspiration for his writings, most notably, of course, Ulysses.

1

PENAL TIMES

In the eighteenth century, Dublin was very similar to other cities in Europe. In the middle of that century it had a population of between 100,000 and 120,000 people, and rapidly expanding with immigration from Britain and rural Ireland. It was regarded in importance as the second city of the British Empire. The city presented vivid contrasts however, and visitors noted the crowds of beggars, the poor quality of the inns and taverns, the squalid wretchedness of the oldest part, around Christ Church Cathedral, whilst also noting the fine new areas of the city, and the brilliant and hospitable society that lived there. New, fashionable squares and roads were built at the Rutland (now Parnell) Square, Mountjoy and Gardiner Street areas north of the River Liffey, and Stephen’s Green, Merrion and Fitzwilliam Squares south of the river. Stephen’s Green was boasted of as the largest square in Europe. The Liffey Quays were admired, and the new Irish Parliament House, opposite Trinity College (now Bank of Ireland), built between 1729 and 1739, was regarded with envy. All this prosperity and grandeur was built by the Protestant ascendancy and nobility who ruled Ireland at this time and who were getting ever-more confident, as evidenced by the grandeur of certain parts of Dublin and crowned with the establishment of a separate Irish Parliament (Grattan’s Parliament) in the closing decades of the eighteenth century.1

Winetavern Street, c. 1900. (Courtesy of GCI)

THE PENAL LAWS, POVERTY AND MORAL MAYHEM

However, this confidence was based on shaky foundations. There was a price to pay for the improvements in certain parts of Dublin city. According to historian Maurice Craig, ‘the dirt, the gaiety, the cruelty, the smells, the pomp, the colour and the sound so remote from anything we know, were all to be found in much the same proportion from Lisbon to St Petersburg.’ However, he noted, Dublin was unique because ‘it was an extreme example of tendencies generally diffused’. Craig even suggested that Dublin had more in common with Calcutta than European cities. Dublin was, along side its splendour, renowned for its squalor. ‘Ireland itself is a poor country, and Dublin a magnificent city; but the appearances of extreme poverty among the lower people are amazing’, wrote Benjamin Franklin after a visit to the capital in the early 1770s. The historian W.E.H. Lecky noted that Dublin possessed many elements of disorder, including savage feuds, rioting and bull baiting. The Cornmarket open area near St Audoen’s church was the location for bull-baiting, which saw a bull being partially tied to a pole with a rope of a certain length to give it enough space to move and then attacked (or baited) by the fiercest dog possible. The poor of Dublin found this to be of great amusement.2

Christ Church Cathedral in the early nineteenth century. It appeared in the Dublin Saturday Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 10, 1832.

In 1798, Revd James Whitelaw, rector of St Catherine’s church on Thomas Street, described his experience of working in the area of the Liberties, near Christ Church Cathedral: ‘the streets are generally narrow; the houses crowded together; numerous lanes and alleys are occupied by working manufacturers, by petty shopkeepers, the labouring poor, and beggars, crowded together to a degree distressing to humanity …’ The tenements which he described as ‘truly wretched habitations’, often had thirty or forty individuals to a house. Varying degrees of filth and stench, infectious diseases and darkness inconceivable was the life and lot of the wretched inhabitants in the vicinity of the two Dublin cathedrals. He noted the teeming population living in overcrowded conditions and asked, ‘… why are brothels, soap manufactories, slaughter-houses, glass-houses, lime kiln, distilleries, etc., suffered to exist in such over-crowded conditions?’ His Dublin was a place of overwhelming smells, with no decent sewage system, where each house had its own cesspit and where nightsoil-men might empty them every so often. And if they did not, the nearby River Liffey served as a useful cesspit for the inhabitants. His observations were echoed by Curwen, an English visitor, who noted that poverty, disease and wretchedness existed in every great town, but in Dublin he found the misery indescribable.3

There are many factors responsible for this chaos. The deplorable state of the poorer classes in the eighteenth century was partially due to the rapid rise in the city’s population. In the space of little more than a century the population of Ireland had increased from 1.2 million in 1695 to 6.2 million in 1820, with many rural dwellers fleeing the frequent countryside famines and adding to the chaos and problems of the city. Also, to some extent the curtailment of the Catholic religion may be a significant explanation for the extreme poverty. Because of the Penal Laws (brought into force in 1695 and not repealed until Catholic Emancipation in 1829), the only religion was the established Church. The Penal Laws were, according to Edmund Burke, ‘a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man.’ Among other things the laws banned Catholics from owning land, excluded them public office and certain professions and denied them the right to vote.

The result of the laws was that the Protestant planters, in a minority, suddenly became massively wealthy, powerful and privileged, holding the reins of power in the military and government and having the lands, titles and lifestyle to do whatever they wished. They were the new rulers of Ireland, based in Dublin. They were, however, constantly under the scrutiny of London, and all laws pertaining to Ireland first had to be ratified in Britain. Furthermore, with rising prosperity in Ireland as a result of the expansion of the cloth, woollen and linen trades, the UK Government imposed sanctions to ensure that England’s economic interests did not suffer.

Street names such as Dirty Lane (now Bridgefoot Street), Mullinahack (from Irish, meaning ‘dung hill’), Murdering Lane (off James’s Street) and Cow’s Lane give an indication of the living conditions in the area around the cathedrals of Dublin. Cutt Throat Lane, also off James’s Street, was another name that was somewhat self-explanatory. The lane, which was in existence as far back as 1488, was changed to Roundhead Row in 1876 and Murdering Lane was changed to Cromwell’s Quarter, which is still there to this day. It was in this context that the great satirist and wit Jonathan Swift lived. From his vantage point at St Patrick’s Cathedral, in the heart of old Dublin, he could plainly see that poor children were living in squalor and wrote about the cruel and inhuman treatment meted out to Ireland by London. Gulliver’s Travels, A Modest Proposal and other writings, tackled the major issues of the day in his unique, satirical style. In A Modest Proposal, Swift suggested fattening these undernourished children and then feeding them to the rich people. Children of the poor, he proposed, could be sold into the meat market at the age of one, thus combating Dublin’s rapidly rising population and unemployment. This would spare families the expense of child-rearing while providing them with a little extra income and contributing to the overall economic well-being of the country. Despite such concerns, Swift had little regard for the many beggars of Dublin, whom he regarded as ‘thieves, drunkards and whore-mongers’.4

Winetavern Street in the early 1960s. (Courtesy of GCI)

Excessive wealth concentrated in the hands of the minority ascendancy created the conditions for excessive poverty for the majority and the consequent adverse social and living conditions. And this is the context for the growth of Hell.

Lanes and alleyways near Winetavern Street, 1960s. (Courtesy of Dublin Forums/dan1919/breen)

Some charities did exist during this time to try to help the poor of the city. Dublin’s oldest charity, the Sick and Indigent Roomkeeper’s Society, was founded in 1790 in response to the appalling poverty – the vicinity of the cathedrals. Likewise, the first Dublin Magdalen Asylum was opened in 1765 in an attempt to save prostitutes (‘fallen’ or ‘seduced’ women) from a life of vice, debauchery, disease and an untimely death.5

THE ORMOND AND LIBERTY BOYS

The ‘debasement of human nature’, as it was described by Edmund Burke, saw the rise of much violence in the old city, particularly from the 1730s onwards. This was greatly facilitated by having a very poor, almost non-existent, policing (or ‘watch’) system. A watchman, the forerunner to the policeman, usually carried a bill, which was a long pole with a hook for catching fleeing lawbreakers and a lantern, as public lighting was extremely scarce in old Dublin. However, these watchmen were quite useless when they came up against organised gangs that roamed the city. Gangs such as the Ormond Boys (Catholic butchers from Ormond Quay) and the Liberty Boys (Huguenot Protestant weavers from the Liberties) were constantly at each other’s throats – literally, using swords, knives, bludgeons and hangers to slash leg tendons and meat hooks to hang up their victims. This factional fighting, with its bloody battles, reprisals and ferocity, and involving some horrific injuries, lasted throughout the eighteenth century. It often intensified during the many local fair and maypole events.

Duels, kidnappings and murder were also common. One of those murdered was Paul ‘Gallows’ Farrel, a city constable much hated by the Liberty and Ormond Boys. He was a known informer and the factions joined forces to kidnap, torture and then hang him.6

One of the leaders of the Liberty Boys, Thady Foy, murdered a watchman. He was tried and subsequently hanged and quartered outside the Tholsel, at Skinners Row, across from Christ Church Cathedral.

Riots were also frequent and the public whipping of those prosecuted for rioting had little effect. Arguably, all these events were symptoms of a society uncomfortable with the numerous divisions and expressing their discomfort through chaos and violence.7

THE PINKING DINDIES

Throughout the eighteenth century, peaking in the 1770s and 1780s, robbery and violence, particularly against women and prostitutes, were increasingly common for those moving around the city. Chaises and sedans were often pulled over and their occupants held up. Some of the most commonly stolen objects were pocket watches and purses, and silver belt and shoe buckles. It was not uncommon for those walking along the street to be deliberately jostled by a passer-by looking for a duel. Dublin also had swarms of ‘sharpers’, adept at disguise, shoplifting, pick-pocketing, ring-dropping, coining and availing themselves of any opportunity for procuring money that may arise. Visitors to Dublin were frequently warned to ‘look to their pockets’ or suffer the consequences.

Map of Dublin in late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries showing the area around Hell and the Liberties. (Courtesy of GCI)

Another class of thugs (deriving from the ascendancy and essentially Trinity College Dublin students) known as the Pinking Dindies were skilled in the art of ‘pinking’ – slashing their victims with the point of their protruding swords. A favourite weapon of the students out on a rampage was a heavy metal key attached to an innocuous handkerchief. One would not take too much notice of the handkerchief until one felt the brunt of the key on one’s person. Rampant violence in everyday life was an intrinsic part of the character of both the well-off and the dispossessed. The Pinking Dindies were also known as ‘rent collectors’ – essentially racketeers, extorting money from the many prostitutes around the cathedral area.

A late eighteenth-century map of Cutt Throat Lane, near the Workhouse for Dublin’s poor and destitute. The Workhouse was on the site of present-day James’s Street Hospital.

It was also the time of personalities such as Captain Tiger Roche (b.1729), an army officer notorious for his many crimes and misdemeanours. He lived a life full of action and adventure mixed with violence, including murder, which forced him to flee to America, where he fought in any war he could find. On one occasion when he was arrested for stealing he sank his teeth into a prison guard’s throat. On returning to Dublin he challenged the Pinking Dindies on occasion to quell their excesses.

THE MARSHALSEA DEBTOR’S PRISON

Those people who owed money in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were quickly confined to the debtor’s prison called Marshalsea. Marshalsea Lane was off Thomas Street, between Bridgefoot Street and Watling Street. The lane, formerly beside Lynch’s Pub (near Massey’s at 141 Thomas Street), is now closed off. It took its name from a group of buildings known as the Marshalsea. The word comes from the name of a court held before the knight marshal of the king to administer justice between the king’s servants. The buildings were thought to have been built around 1770. Some of the imposing old walls are still visible from Bonham Street (off Watling Street) and behind the IAWS building on Thomas Street. Marshalsea’s debtors from all parts of Ireland were confined with their wives and families. Despite the addition of extra accommodation in the nineteenth century the Marshalsea was always extremely overcrowded while the confined site impeded ventilation. Some of the women in the prison complained at having to share the limited space with prostitutes, ‘women of the town, some from the very flags [street walkers]’. The length of a prisoner’s stay was determined largely by the whim of their creditors. It was run privately for profit; beds could be rented from the head warder for 1s per night. Those who could not afford a bed were consigned to a damp airless dungeon, about 12ft square and 8ft high, which had no light except that which was admitted through a sewer, which ran close by it and rendered the atmosphere almost insufferable.8

THE NUNNERY AND NEWGATE JAIL

Another even more notorious place of confinement was Newgate Gaol at Cornmarket, at the other end of Thomas Street and only a stone’s throw from the Four Courts and Hell. Newgate had been one of the entrance gates to the old city wall, situated at the corner of the Cornmarket. It was built of black calp. The remaining section of the old city walls we see today at Cornmarket/Lamb’s Alley originally had a tower, which served as a prison in the late Middle Ages. Established as the city gaol by Richard II in 1285, it had four drum towers, one at each corner, with a gate and portcullis. During the Penal Times this jail was full of clerics jailed for their practice of Catholicism. One section of the prison was known as the ‘nunnery’ because it was used to hold prostitutes who had been captured by the parish watch. It was later used as a debtor’s prison.

Its sheer inhumanity reflected the very hard times of the eighteenth century. A contemporary account of the cells for the condemned described them as ‘gloomy mansions indeed’. It was a monument of inhumanity and depravity, with the prisoners bound in leg irons all the time and forced to beg outsiders and passers-by for alms and food.

Punishment was particularly vengeful and extreme, reflecting the fears of the wealthy classes over any threats to their cosseted lifestyles. Hangings, burnings, transportation, whippings, pillorying, being placed in the stocks, were the order of the day. People were hanged for stealing, robbing and coining and were often heroes in the eyes of the mob. ‘De Night before Larry was Stretched’ and ‘The Kilmainham Minuet’ (or ‘jig’) were typical humorous ballads of the 1700s, extolling the good characters of the condemned.

The coffins of those to be executed arrived a few days before their demise, and many of the prisoners sold their bodies to surgeons before their execution. With the money earned, the prisoners would buy much drink and entertain their friends. It was said that many a condemned prisoner used his coffin as a table and for playing cards in the days before his demise.

The Dublin poor were not without diversions or amusements, despite the harsh living conditions they endured. Enormous amounts of pleasure were derived from bull-baiting, cockfighting and attendance at public executions. Between 1780 and 1795, 232 men and 10 women were hanged – such was the violence, mayhem in and the retribution exacted by the city. And this was a city of no more than 140,000 citizens. The prison was demolished in 1839.9

Illustration of medieval prostitution in Ireland. (Courtesy of GCI)

In the tumultuous, precarious and dangerous eighteenth century, we find Hell located in the heart of Old Dublin, with its prostitution, taverns, gambling, debauchery, smells, cess-pits and other horrors, and the overall mayhem that was an inevitable product of all the factors outlined above.

Notes

1. Gilbert, John, History of the City of Dublin, Vol.1 (1854), pp.142-145; Lecky, W.E.H., A History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, Vol.1 (1892), p.173; Craig, Maurice, Dublin 1660–1860: The Shaping of a City (1952), pp.145-167; Moody, T.W. and Vaughan, W.E., A New History of Ireland: Eighteenth Century Ireland, Vol.4 (1986), p.105.

2. Maxwell, Constantia, Dublin under the Georges (1936), p.78

3. Whitelaw, James, An Essay on the Population of Dublin, 1798 (1805), p.96.

4. Swift, Jonathan, A Modest Proposal (1729), p.23.

5. Gilbert, J.T., History of the City of Dublin, Vol.1 (1854).p.149.

6. Ball, F.E., A History of County Dublin (1905), p.91.

7. Craig, Maurice, Dublin 1660–1860 (1952), pp.175–190; Lecky, W.E.H., A History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, Vol.1 (1892), p.207.

8. Curtis, Maurice, The Liberties: A History (2013), pp.49-54.

9. Gilbert, J.T., History of the City of Dublin, Vol.1 (1854); Henry, Brian, Dublin Hanged: Crime, Law Enforcement and Punishment in late 18th Century Dublin (1994), p.46; Curtis, Maurice, The Liberties: A History (2013); pp.49-54; Bennett, Douglas, Encyclopaedia of Dublin (1991).

2

A PLACE CALLED HELL: TALES FROM THE CRYPT

Little today remains of the small and narrow gated laneway in front of Dublin’s Christ Church Cathedral which bore the arresting name of ‘Hell’. The partially arched and gloomy passage was nearly 10ft below the floor level of the cathedral and about 9ft in width. This passage led to the Four Courts and to an open space named Christ Church Yard, about 98ft long by 50ft wide, before the south front of the church and next to Fishamble Street. In the seventeenth century the lane and the adjacent Christ Church Yard became a public thoroughfare, hence their inclusion on Brooking’s Map of Dublin for 1728 and Rocque’s Map of Dublin, 1756. Over time came the name Hell came to refer not just to the laneway but to the wider area around the cathedral that stretched from Cork Hill to Copper Alley, Fishamble Street, Winetavern Street and on to Cook Street, and included the surrounding cobbled lanes and alleyway, in the heart of medieval Dublin – essentially in the shadow of the cathedral and the old walls of the city.

This was where Dublin’s and Europe’s finest brothels, music halls and theatres, bawdy houses and gambling houses were concentrated, and it was the home to the madam of them all, Darkey Kelly. Hell even had links with the infamous Hellfire Club in the Dublin Mountains. It was a place you entered at your peril – a cauldron of infamy, debauchery, notoriety and murder. Even the authorities were afraid to go near the place. In his book, Me Jewel and Darlin’ Dublin, Éamonn MacThomáis claimed that the reputation of the area was so bad that The Provost of Trinity College Dublin told the students on more than one occasion that ‘Dublin’s Hell’ was out-of-bounds and that he would expel anyone found there at night-time.1

The arch over the iron gate at the entrance to the passage had a large wooden statue of the devil adorning it, greeting the visitor who dared venture into the area at night, a time when the place became even more shadowy because of the dearth of public lighting. This only helped to copper-fasten the area’s terrible reputation.

HELL AND ROCQUE’S MAP OF DUBLIN

But did Hell as the stories and legends describe it really exist, or was its reputation a figment of the imagination of locals? What is the truth of the stories that were associated with this part of Dublin for generations? When one looks at maps of Dublin in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the area around Christ Church Cathedral, the oldest part of Dublin, was an area crammed with cramped lanes, alleyways and narrow, sloping streets. There were no wide streets such as we see today. It was a typical, medieval district, with the average street being 12ft wide. Lanes and alleyways were even narrower.