DUBLIN

DUBLIN. The rapid physical, economic, and demographic expansion of Dublin in the late Middle Ages came to an end in the mid-fourteenth century. The most striking feature of the long period of stagnation that ensued—which lasted until the early seventeenth century—was the cessation of the suburban growth previously promoted by the Anglo-Norman monastic foundations. As a result, the city's core remained within the old walled settlement, which was located on the south side of the River Liffey, nearly a mile from where the river met the sea at Dublin Bay. In keeping with its position as Ireland's main port and the administrative capital of the English lordship, the city was secure against contraction. Even disruptive changes such as were caused in the 1530s by the dissolution of religious houses as part of Henry VIII's efforts to promote a Protestant Reformation could be turned to at least partial advantage; it encouraged some redevelopment and contributed to the emergence of the wealthy Catholic Old English elite that exercised a dominant command of civic politics in the second half of the sixteenth century. By this time also, the city had recovered from the devastating effects of the Black Death (1348), though its population continued to suffer the effects of epidemic disease. According to contemporary estimates, 3,000 people, or one-third of the city's population, then reckoned at 9,000, succumbed to plague in 1575. Modern assessments, however, put the city's population around that time at a more modest 5,500 to 8,000.

The condition of the city improved greatly from the early seventeenth century as, following the decisive military defeat of the native Irish, a new ruling elite—the New English—comprising soldiers, officials, settlers, and artisans, who arrived in substantial numbers from England, displaced the previously dominant Catholic patrician families. Dublin grew rapidly as a commercial, administrative, and industrial center as a result. This was not without interruption, notably during the war-torn 1640s, but the setbacks experienced then were soon reversed, as the growth of the city's population from about 20,000 in the 1660s to 45,000 in 1685 attests. Propelled by the immigration of English and French Protestants (Huguenots), the population had doubled again by 1730 when it exceeded 90,000. The city continued to grow rapidly, but the main engine of demographic growth thereafter was the in-migration of Catholics from the countryside, which pushed the population to 182,000 in 1798. The denominational character of the city was transformed in the process; in 1715, the city's population was nearly 70 percent Protestant, whereas in 1798 it was 70 percent Catholic.

Rural dwellers were drawn to the city in large numbers by the prospects of employment. One of the most vibrant sectors was construction, as the wealthy aristocratic elite (which also sustained a network of fine craftsmen, luxury goods sellers, and aesthetic, cultural, and intellectual endeavors) stimulated a building boom that transformed much of the city. As a result, not only were graceful townhouses and elegant public buildings introduced into the much reconfigured old city (to which the Wide Street Commission [1757] made an important contribution) but extended suburban development flourished as well, promoted by ambitious developers who oversaw the construction of classical Georgian squares and long streets of imposing houses with distinctive red-brick fronts to the southeast of the old city and north of the River Liffey. The relocation of the Custom House closer to the mouth of Dublin Bay was no less critical since, in tandem with a new easterly bridge, it moved the center of the city out of its old walled town and half a mile closer to the sea. It also linked the various major developments of the eighteenth century, which was critical to Dublin's emergence by the end of the eighteenth century as the "second city" of the British Empire and one of the most improved cities in Europe.

See also Cities and Urban Life ; Cromwell, Oliver ; England ; Ireland ; Plague .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cosgrave, Art, ed. Dublin through the Ages. Dublin, 1988. An informed and informative collection of essays.

Dickson, David. "The Demographic Implications of the Growth of Dublin 1650–1850." In Urban Population Development in Western Europe from the Late-Eighteenth to the Early-Twentieth Century, edited by R. Lawton and R. Lee, pp. 178–189. Liverpool, 1989.

McParland, Edward. "Strategy in the Planning of Dublin 1750–1800." In Cities and Merchants: French and Irish Perspectives on Urban Development, 1500–1900, edited by L. M. Cullen and Paul Butel, pp. 97–108. Dublin, 1986.

James Kelly

Dublin [Ir. dub(h)-linn, dark pool]. The Irish capital was established by Norsemen, an outpost in 841 and a town perhaps in 988, but has always had Irish names. The story in the Dindshenchas ascribes the name dub(h)-linn to the druidess Dub(h), who on learning that her husband Énna has taken a second wife, Áíde, drowns Áíde and all her family. In revenge Margenn, a servant of Aíde, casts a sling at Dub, killing her. She falls into a pool near the mouth of the Liffey estuary, which is named for her.

While the pool once made the Liffey navigable to larger ships, modern dredging has eliminated it. Some commentators see allusions to the dark pool in Ptolemy's (2nd cent. AD) name for the harbour, Eblana, as well as in the Latin name, Nigratherma. A Norse name for their settlement was Dyflinarski. The name of a nearby smaller pool has also been associated with the city; OIr. poll bec; ModIr. poll beag [small hole], anglicized Poolbeg. The usual Irish language name for the city, Baile Átha Cliath [Ir., settlement/town of the hurdle ford], denotes the narrowest point on the Liffey, forded in pre-Norse times by the road between Tara and Wicklow, near the Wood Quay area, west of the modern commercial centre. It was a ‘hurdle ford’ because of a causeway built of woven wicker, boughs, or hurdles. The ford was known by different names in Irish tradition, including Áth Liag Mairgene [Ford of Margenn's Sling Stone], after the killer of Dub(h).

As a town established by invaders, Dublin does not figure largely in early Irish tradition, although several important sites lie within the environs of modern metropolitan Dublin, including Da Derga's Hostel on the River Dodder and Cnucha [Castle Knock], scene of a significant Fenian battle. James Joyce seized upon the little-known modern tradition that Fionn mac Cumhaill's body lay stretched beneath the city of Dublin from the Head of Howth in the east to Phoenix Park in the west. The Arthurian hero Tristan visits Dublin after traversing the Irish Sea in a rudderless boat. Extensive excavation of Viking Dublin followed the accidental discovery of buried ruins at Wood Quay during construction of an office building in the mid-1970s. See J. M. Flood, Dublin in Irish Legend (Dublin, 1919); G. A. Little, Dublin Before the Vikings (Dublin, 1957); Royal Irish Academy, Dublin (Dublin, 1988). See also MAG NELTA.

DUBLIN. The capital of the Irish Republic, Dublin pre-dates the 9c Scandinavian settlements and some parts of the city have been English-speaking for almost 800 years. It is the birthplace of among others Jonathan Swift, Oliver Goldsmith, Richard Sheridan, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, James Joyce, Sean O'Casey, Iris Murdoch, and Samuel Beckett. The speech of middle-class Dubliners is closer to RP than is any other variety of Irish speech, but it differs from RP in four ways: (1) It is rhotic, with a retroflex r. (2) The realization of /t, d, n/ is more dental than alveolar. (3) It has more aspiration in words like part, tart, cart (syllable-initial /p, t, k/). (4) The sounds wh and w are distinguished, so that which/witch are not homophones. This speech is the norm for the middle class throughout the Republic. The speech of working-class Dubliners has the following features: words such as thin and this sound like ‘tin’ and ‘dis’ (‘Dere was tirty-tree of dem’); words such as tea and peacock sound like ‘tay’ and ‘paycock’; in words like fat and fad there is often an s- or z-like hiss (/fat^s/, /fad^z/: syllable-final affrication); in words such as castle and glass there is a front (short) /a/; in words such as suit and school there is a diphthong, so that for many people suit/suet are homophones; in words such as but and hut there is a centralized /u/; words such as tie and buy sound like ‘toy’ and ‘boy’; the diphthong /æu/ occurs in such words as how and mouse, and in some pronunciations such words tend to be disyllabic; words such as border and porter tend to sound like ‘bordar’ and ‘portar’. See EUROPEAN UNION, IRISH ENGLISH.

Dublin. Dublin grew up as a Norse town in the 9th cent. Donatus, its first known bishop, died in 1074. In 1152 Dublin became an archbishopric. St Laurence O'Toole (Abp. 1162–80) made the cathedral chapter into a community of canons regular. The English invasion of Ireland took place during his archiepiscopate; Dublin became the capital of English government, and subsequent Archbishops until the Reformation were Englishmen nominated by the Crown. Under Elizabeth I the (Protestant) Church of Ireland was finally established, and in 1591 Trinity College was founded to support the settlement. The majority of the population, however, remained RC; Dublin was frequently governed by vicars-general, but normal diocesan life was resumed under Thomas Troy (Abp. 1786–1823). Under him Maynooth College was founded, the pro-cathedral begun in 1815, and many schools and religious houses established. Since 1929 Dublin has been the seat of a Papal nuncio.

Dublin, Ireland, USA Ireland: formerly Eblana, Dyflin, and Duibh‐linn, and locally Dubh Linn ‘Dark Pool’ from the Gaelic dubh ‘black’ or ‘dark’ and linn ‘pool’ and named by the Vikings for the dark waters of the River Liffey. The Vikings destroyed the existing settlement when they arrived in the mid‐9th century. They built a new settlement at the junction with the Poddle River from which an important trading post developed. The new Viking settlement was near a hurdled ford over the Liffey and this gave the official Irish name, Baile Átha Cliath ‘Town of the Hurdled Ford’ from baile, átha, and cliath ‘hurdle’. When the Irish Free State was created in 1922 Dublin became the capital. Dublin is also the name of a county in the province of Leinster. Ptolemy, the 2nd‐century Egyptian geographer, called the ancient settlement Eblana.

Dublin takes its name from the Irish Duibhlinn, ‘black pool’. Duibhlinn was an ecclesiastical centre seized by the Vikings in 841. It quickly became the main Viking military base and trading centre in Ireland and its Hiberno‐Norse rulers exercised power over its hinterland. After the victory at Clontarf (1014), Irish rulers established themselves as kings of Dublin and by the time Ireland was invaded by the Anglo‐Normansin 1169 Dublin was effectively the country's capital. It fell to Anglo‐Normanarms in 1170 and remained the headquarters of the English colony in Ireland. Georgian Dublin flourished and the abolition of its parliament in 1800 did little to lessen the city's expansion. Opposition to the Union led to the Easter Rising in the city in 1916, followed by the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1921, with Dublin as capital and the home again of an Irish parliament.

Dublin (Baile Átha Cliath) Capital of the Republic of Ireland, at the mouth of the River Liffey on Dublin Bay. In 1014, Brian Boru recaptured it from the Danish. In 1170, it was taken by the English and became the seat of colonial government. Dublin suffered much bloodshed in nationalist attempts to free Ireland from English rule. Strikes beginning in 1913 finally resulted in the Easter Rising (1916). Dublin was the centre of the late 19th-century Irish literary renaissance. It is now the commercial and cultural centre of the Republic. Notable sites include Christ Church Cathedral (1053), St Patrick's Cathedral (1190), Trinity College (1591), and the Abbey Theatre (1904). Industries: brewing, textiles, clothing. Pop. (1996) 953,000.

Dublin1 Uninc. town (1990 pop. 23,229), Alameda co., W Calif., a growing suburb in the San Francisco–Oakland area. There is light manufacturing. 2 City (1990 pop. 16,312), seat of Laurens co., central Ga., on the Oconee River; inc. 1812. Formerly a center for cotton processing and distribution, it is now a commercial and industrial center with lumbering and diversified manufacturing.

Dublin (Dubh Linn) Dublin. Eblana c.150, Dyflin c.1000, Duibh-linn 12th cent. ‘Black pool’. Irish dubh + linn. The official Irish name of Dublin is Baile Átha Cliath, ‘town of the hurdle ford’. Both names refer to the River Liffey.

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