St. Patrick's Cathedral, which Swift made famous, dates, like Christ
Church, from Norman builders; but it was renovated fifty years ago at
the cost of Sir Benjamin Guinness, head of the famous brewery. Christ
Church, on the other hand, was rebuilt out of whisky--the restorer
was Mr. Henry Roe. Broadly speaking, the century which began with the
legislative Union was marked in Dublin by the growth of distilling and
brewing and the decay of all other industries. Guinness's is to-day one
of the sights of the city, and admission by order, easily procurable,
will take the visitor over the biggest thing of its kind anywhere
to be seen--and, let it be said, one of the best managed. Nowhere
are workmen better treated, and no rich manufacturers have made more
public-spirited use of their wealth. Dublin owes to Lord Ardilaun not
only the opening but the beautification of St. Stephen's Green, once an
enclosure but now a very attractive public park in the middle of the
city's finest square. We may well thank Providence for this one great
industry--but of how many it has had to take the place!
Dublin in its metropolitan days was a true centre of craftsmanship
and art. I have spoken of the architecture, which used so finely the
dove-coloured limestone of Wicklow. Gandon, who designed both the
Four Courts and the Custom House, was not Irish, but Ireland gave him
his opportunity and in Dublin only can he be judged. No great painter
adorned that period among us; but all the subsidiary arts flourished
exceedingly. Horace Walpole used to send across his books to be
bound; Sheraton, Chippendale's rival, was a Dublin artist-craftsman;
glass-cutting, silversmiths' work, all these things furnished men with
infinite skill of hand and grace of design. Within twenty years after
the Union all these things had vanished like a dream.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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