The name of the capital of Ireland is a compound of two Gaelic words,
Dubh-Linn, which signify "the black pool," and was bestowed upon it more
than two thousand years ago. There is a complete history of the city
since the year 150 A.D., when a warlike king called "Conn of a Hundred
Battles," who had long been the overlord of all Ireland, was defeated by
his rival, "Mogh of Munster," and compelled to consent to a division of
territory, the line being drawn from High Street, Dublin, across to the
Atlantic Ocean near Galway. Three centuries later St. Patrick stopped on
his way from Wicklow to his home at Armagh. The people complained to him
of the bad quality of the water they were obliged to drink and he
relieved them by causing a miraculous fountain to spring up near the
site of the present cathedral that bears his name. In 1152 Dublin became
the seat of an archbishopric by a decree of the pope and, shortly after
the landing of Henry II., became the seat of the English government. In
1210 King John visited Ireland again and conferred many privileges upon
the city. In 1394 King Richard came over with an army of thirty-four
thousand and lived in great splendor in Dublin. All of the Irish
chieftains submitted to his conciliatory policy. The great O'Neill, King
of Ulster; MacMurrough, King of Leinster; O'Brien of Munster, and
O'Connor of Connaught, the four kings of Ireland, were knighted and
promised allegiance, but no sooner had Richard returned to England than
the country was again in confusion.
In 1409 the "pale" (or inclosure) of Ireland was established, with the
city of Dublin as its capital, a narrow strip of land thirty miles long
by twenty wide, which alone was under English control and whose
inhabitants alone in all Ireland could be relied upon to respect the
royal commands. Dublin has been besieged, invaded by pirates, has been
swept with plague and pestilence, and has been fought over by rival
princes, but has kept growing, and in Queen Elizabeth's time reached
such commercial importance that it was necessary to erect a custom-house
and a lighthouse to show the channel to those who went down to the sea
in ships. The people were famous for their wealth and fashion. An
official band of musicians played three times a week through the chief
streets, there was a city physician, a fire department, an attempt at
sanitation and waterworks were introduced, each citizen being allowed as
much water daily as would flow through a quill.
In 1661 the people of Dublin spent $150,000, which was an enormous sum
in those days, to celebrate the restoration, with banquets, fireworks, a
pageant, and various other evidences of rejoicing. And the king, as an
acknowledgment, sent the mayor a gold chain and conferred upon him the
title of "The Right Honorable, the Lord Mayor of Dublin." Under the
administration of Ormonde, Dublin expanded on all sides, and has since
been growing, although from time to time there have been periods of
distress and disorder.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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