Come Here To Me!

Chapters of Dublin is a wonderful resource, and one I come back to time and time again. There, I recently found J.T Gilbert’s excellent History Of Dublin, a work I had frequently seen referenced but never read myself. Chapters of Dublin have volume 1 of the work online, where it can be read for free. This folks, is what the internet is for.

Volume 1 focuses on the areas around Christchurch and Dublin Castle, with Fishamble Street particularly fascinating.

In Fishamble-street were the “Swan Tavern” (1639), the Ormond’s Arms” (1662), the “Ossory” (1664), and the “Fleece Tavern” (1666). The locality of the latter, on the western side of the street, is still indicated by “Fleece-alley,” which, in the last century, was chiefly occupied by velvet eavers, man of whom were distinguished for the beauty and richness of the fabrics which they manufactured.

Here, in the reign of Charles I., was the “London Tavern,” which in 1667 is described as “a timber house slated, a base court, a back building more backward, and a small garden in Fishamble-street.” In this tavern was the office of Joseph Darner, a noted usurer, who in a contemporary elegy is described as follows:-

“He walk’d the streets, and wore a threadbare cloak;
He” dined and supp’d at charge of other folk;
And by his looks, had he held out his palms,
He might be thought an object fit for alms.
So, to the poor if he refused his pelf,
He used them full as kindly as himself.
Where’er he went, he never saw his betters;
Lords, knights, and squires, were all his humble debtors.
And under hand and seal, the Irish nation
Were forced to owe to him their obligation.
Oh! London Tavern, thou hast lost a friend,
Though in thy walls he ne’er did farthing spend;
He touched the pence when others touch’d the pot;
The hand that sign’d the mortgage paid the shot.”