Irish Jesuit Province

How Old Is Dublin?Author(s): George A. LittleSource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 82, No. 965 (Jan., 1954), pp. 11-15Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20516682 .

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HOW OLD IS DUBLIN?*

By DR. GEORGE A. LITTLE

IT has been held, and in some quarters is still held, that there was

no city at Dublin or in any other part of Ireland until the Norse, Dane or other Scandinavian came along and taught us how to

build them and how to live civilly. This was suggested by the

early historians who feared to state it in its full blatancy. Then

when Halliday wrote his Scandinavian History of Dublin it

was considered that the matter was closed; that there was no city here before the Norse came. However, nowadays it is granted by a

great number of historians that there might have been a little fishing

village with a few mud huts on the south side of the Liffey estuary. First and foremost it is perhaps best to say that Dublin deserved

the status of "

City "

in this pre-Norse period. The first thing that

one thinks of in this context is that a city is a big place. Kilkenny is a city; so is London. What is big, then? What is your criterion

for size? Kilkenny is a small place. London is a big place but still

Kilkenny is a city. Again one is told that it is by Royal Charter that a town gains this status but there were cities long before there were

any Royal Charters. One must get some sort of identification to fit

this word "city" to every town to which it is applied. The only common factor in every city?it doesn't matter in what part of the

world you seek or in what period of history?the only common factor

is municipal autonomy. That is, that a community of people living

closely together frame certain laws for their convenience which fit

into the national pattern of law, but which act independently of it.

Now, that quality is the sign manual of a city. I should have said, perhaps, that one of the people who claimed

that there was no city in Dublin or in any other part of Ireland was

a man we all hold in the highest respect, the late Professor Eoin

MacNeill. MacNeill stated that there was no city in Ireland because

the formation of cities was in antipathy to the Irish code of law?the

Brehon system. That is true! There is no controverting that fact

but nevertheless, there is the difficulty that if you go to Clonmacnoise

or to Glendalough or similar sites, you will see the ruins of cities.

*From a recorded lecture.

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IRISH MONTHLY

Here you have something in conflict to law and that thing which was

in conflict to law was the Church, because the Church requirements rose superior to the ordinary laws laid down in the ancient code.

Hence around the monasteries grew the cities. Their remains are there to see.

There were apparently three names for Dublin: Ath Cliath, Duibh

linne and Druim Choll Choill. How was it that Dublin, the principal Norse settlement in the whole country, had three Gaelic names and no Norse one? All the others had Norse names, but not Dublin, yet Dublin was the senior settlement. The name of the city was

undoubtedly Ath Cliath Duibhlinne. We can dismiss Druim Choll

Choill at once. It was rarely used and the context in which it was

used showed that it was merely a topographical description and not

properly a name at all. So now we have got but two names; Ath

Cliath and Duibhlinne. According to O'Halloran, these two are

simply one name. They simply mean "

The Hurdle-ford of the dark

river pool". Interestingly enough, this is very close indeed to the

interpretation given of "

London ". London, in British Celtic perhaps, is Llyn Dun?the Brown River-Pool. In our case is it

" The hurdle

ford of the dark river-pool". Now, that name was cumbersome; it was very long and people began to do as we all do?use a portion of it?just as most of us, for instance, talk about Carrick-on-Shannon as "Carrick", and so on. The Irish people used Ath Cliath and

the Scandinavians and English used Dublin. "

Ath Cliath "

is always found in Gaelic manuscripts. In the others is found "Duibhlinne".

That latter title is grammatically interesting, because as you see it is

in the genitive case. It is one of the proofs that Ath Cliath (the only

likely nominative) went before it. Even on the Norse coins that

have survived, this word is always in the genitive case. It was a

clumsy name; a long name, hence as I have said, it became broken

up in that way. There was, however, a reason for this length of title :

namely, that a Munster King named Mogh, whose name in fact is

enshrined in the name " Munster ", decided to try conclusions with the

Ard Ri, Con, at that period. They fought several battles, concluding at first with the Battle of Magh Lena, near Tullamore. It was fought in A.D. 166. It was inconclusive. At the conclusion of the battle

there was simply no verdict. It was impossible to say who was the

victor, so a peace conference was held and it was decided to divide

Ireland into two equal portions and the boundary line was taken from

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OLD DUBLIN

Dublin to a little place in Galway called Clar?n Bridge. Clarin Bridge was originally called

" Ath Cliath ". It was, therefore, very necessary

to differentiate between these two important points, so Dublin was

called " Ath Cliath Duibhlinne

" and the Galway "Ath Cliath" was

called "

Ath Cliath Meadhraighe ". A line was presumed from one

to the other and this division followed the great road, the Slighe Mor.

The nature of the Ath Cliath is one which has been amusingly debated for a long time. It used to be said that the Ath Cliath

consisted of bundles of withies tied together. These were thrown into the river and people walked across them to get to the other side.

Any investigation into the manner of construction will show that this was not the meaning of

" Cliath

" at all. The method of building

was similar to that of the "

Crannoga ". It was a system of putting great poles, interlaced with basketwork into the bed of lake or stream

and filling the aperture so formed with earth and stones. Now, I

have no doubt that that was the way in which a causeway was built over the Liffey, with, of course, the necessary bridge or bridges to

take the centre current. I expect there were several arches, because, of course, the capacity to cut long timbers was not possible so long as

the old saw-pit was used, so there must have been several arches

in order to accommodate the material at hand. That, I think, was

approximately the kind of building that was used at Dublin and it

resembled very closely similar works done elsewhere.

The first reference to Dublin by name was that by Claudius

Ptolemy, the Alexandrian Greek who wrote his geography about

A.D. 120. There he mentions it by the name "

Eblana Polis ". Now, that name possibly troubles people a little until they read down

the names of the various places he gives and they find that from

some peculiar rule of orthography, or by some corruption, he decapi tated a tremendous number of the names?4ie knocked off their first

letter. Apparently, he did this to the original of Eblana, that actually it was Deblana that he intended to convey which is a reasonable

effort at expressing the Latinized form "

Dublana ". That explanation seems to be true and it will be noticed that he puts

" Polis

" meaning

a "city" after it As I have said, Ptolemy wrote A.D. 120, but it is

fairly certain that he obtained his information from the works of either

Marinus of Tyre or Pythias of Massilia?two geographers who lived

quite 200 years before Ptolemy wrote his history, hence his information

regarding Dublin would actually be 200 years earlier than A.D. 120,

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IRISH MONTHLY

The trade from Dublin was very considerable; the map of Irish

trade in the 5th and 6th centuries, displayed in Professor

Fitzgerald's Geographical History of Ancient Ireland, shows the

various trade routes which display our shipping going from here to

Scandinavia; to the Mediterranean; to the North African Coast; and to various other distant places: We know it is true that they so

fared because some objects of obviously Irish manufacture have been

found in or near these places. Now, these voyages suggest the

seamanship which made possible the extreme resistance the Irish were

able to display towards the Romans. We were constantly at war

with their English colony under the name of Scots. This name was

given to us by the Romans. Scotia is derived from a word meaning a reaver or a raider. The Romans were the first people to name

us Scots. Ireland to them was Scotia Major and they called

Scotland?Scotia Minor. Our constant attacks on their territory

provoked them. Hadrian's Wall, for instance, was bunt

against us and our allies, the Picts. This resistance was kept

up extremely strongly and appears indeed a move by the Irish people to keep the Romans out of Ireland. Claudian, the Latin poet, describes the seas as being black with Irish shipping coming to attack

the Romans and (allowing for possible poetical exaggeration) our

expeditions must have been considerable to make him think in such

terms.

Tacitus, also, reminds us that the havens and ports of Ireland were

far better known to Continental shipping than were those of England, since they were much more convenient from the point of view of

weather conditions than those which were to be found in that country. Our shipping activity had a very important significance apart from

commercial or piratical purposes. It was a move by us it seems to

try to keep the Romans at home and away from our shores. This

is suggested by the fact that the moment the Romans left England our raids ceased. Now, that threat of invasion was not a dream.

Tacitus?in his Life of Agr?cola, describes Agr?cola as going up to

Galloway and there forming a bridge-head for the purpose of invading Ireland. To that project Agr?cola had been inspired by a

" quisling

"

from this country named Turlough, who urged him that (if he could

get over here) one legion could take the country. But the City of

Rome was itself beleagured and the Tenth Legion and the officers

who were designed for Ireland were recalled to Rome,

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OLD DUBLIN

Another protection against the Roman threat decided upon by our leaders here was increased mobility of our land forces. They decided to improve the roads. Now, there had certainly been roads

here before, but in A.D. 119 in the reign of Feidhlmidh Reachtmhar,

King of Ireland, roads were designed on a different pattern and it is

curiously interesting, if you look at the map of these roads charted

by Dr. Colm O'Lochlainn, you will see that they almost by-pass Tara.

Tara was not the objective the strategists were considering. Their

main preoccupation was to get troops to the main ports and to get them there quickly. They guessed well where to expect attack.

The Slighe Mor is significant; it was the first road made in Ireland, and considered the most important. This was the road which ran

from Ath Cliath Meadhraighe to Ath Cliath Duibhlinne. It was also

called "

Eiscir Riada." That this road was important and well built is borne out by its second name; namely, Riada, which means suitable

for vehicular traffic. The most important thing for our purpose in

looking at Dr. O'Lochlainn's map is to notice that the greatest road

junction in the whole of Ireland is marked at Dublin. Now, if there was no Dublin and if there was no reason to go there, surely there was need for a road junction to this place! If Dublin was only a

clutter of little mud cabins where would its place have been in a

road scheme? You will remember my mentioning Con and Mogh who made that treaty after the Battle of Magh Lena. How long did it last? Not longer than three years and some historians say but one year. Then they fell out because Mogh declared that Con had got the best of the bargain since the north side of Dublin Harbour received

more shipping than the South (Mogh's half). Was a king at that time going to throw an entire nation into war for a few mud cabins

?nd a fleet of little curraghs creeping up to a jetty?

(To be continued.)

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