WITH

BY DODDER'S BANKS

ITHIN the area of Dublin county the River Dodder comes only second to the Liffey in importance, while it is questionable if even the Liffey itself can surpass it in the beauty of its surroundings. Greatly changed, however, is the appearance of this pleasant stream since the reservoirs of the Rathmines Township damned its waters into the large lakes that form in the lap of the Dublin Mountains a kind of miniature Killarney, almost as beautiful in its own way as the famous "Heaven's reflex" of the South.

Strangers often remark nowadays upon the oddly sunken appearance of the Dodder, stealing its lowly way along by the foot of high gravel banks topped with gorse and wild thyme and similar mountain-loving or water-seeking plants. This sunken look is in the first place the result of the tempestuous way in which the river was wont to tear its way along in time of flood, carrying a great deal of both bed and banks along with it in its wild torrential passage. The second cause is easily discoverable in the immense quantities of sand and gravel that are yearly carted away to the city for building and other purposes by those who have a proprietorial right in them, and who help to make a living out of this particular industry.

The river rises on the northern side of the Kippure Mountains and flows on by Castle Kelly, Bohernabreena, Oldbawn, and Firhouse to Templeogue, and from there by Rathfarnham and Miltown (where its banks form a favourite Lover's Walk'), Clonskeagh, Donnybrook, and Ballsbridge, until it discharges itself into the sea at Ringsend. At these latter points, except on very exceptional occasions, its flow is placid and gentle even to sluggishness; but higher up it forms a brisk and lively stream that in times gone by, before it was dammed, was subject to such sudden and violent floods as were frequently known to have carried away bridges and inundated the whole tract of country surrounding it. Its

entire course is but twelve miles long, but absorbing as it does the whole catchment of the surrounding hills, and being frequently swelled by heavy showers and mountain floods, it is often wild and boisterous, and of very large volume for its length. For this reason it acquired in the old days a sinister and dangerous reputation, and many a poor traveller passing down to the city or some lowland village in the morning by an easily crossable ford met his death on the way home-should heavy rain have intervened-by attempting to get back by the same, but no longer passable way.

A deep millstream that runs through Templeogue and Kimmage is a branch of the Dodder, and used formerly to afford the whole water supply of the citizens of Dublin, the right of which was saved to them by an Act of George I. Just at Templeogue House it passed through the property of the Domvilles, and at the time when the ill-starred young Lord Santry (a member of the famous or infamous "Hell-Fire Club" that held its sittings in Montpelier House, on top of one of the Dublin Mountains), was about to meet with the death penalty for the murder of an inn-servant in a drunken brawl, his relatives, the Domvilles, succeeded in saving his life by threatening to cut off the citizens' water-supply if his execution took place. Another small tributary, running by Cruagh and Rockbrook, which turned the wheels of several mills on its way in more prosperous times, flows into the Dodder at Rathfarnham, whilst formerly a branch of it "diverged in a channel by the garden of Dublin Castle, supplying the stable and other out-offices with water, and filling the moat that then encompassed that fortress."

There is a curious petrifying quality in the waters of the Dodder, according to Dr. Rutty. "It dribbles," he says, "down the sides of the banks in some places on the west side of Rathfarnham Bridge, where I found some curious sparry bodies... It also cements the parts of clay and gravel and forms solid rocks, some of them of a stupendous bigness, in several places along its banks between this and

the rise of the river from the mountains of Castle Kelly; and all those are manifestly mere petrifactions from the calcareous matter deposited by the water, for they all fermented strongly with spirit of vitriol."

VOL. XLIII.-No. 499

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66

In King John's Charter to the City of Dublin this stream is mentioned by name as the "Dother," and its course from the sea was prescribed as part of the boundaries of the "Liberties" of the City of Dublin. And in 1331, "when a grievous famine afflicted all Ireland, and the city of Dublin especially, the citizens in their highest distress received an unexpected and providential relief at the mouth of this river, where a prodigious number of large sea-fish, called Turlehides, that filled the bay, were cast on shore. They were," as Harris alleges, "from thirty to forty feet long, and so bulky that two tall men placed one at each side of the fish could not see one another." (This fish story sounds as though it might have been the origin of the classic phrase "very like a whale!")"The Lord Justice, Sir Anthony Lacy, with his servants and many of the citizens of Dublin killed above 200 of them, and gave them to the poor to carry them away at their pleasure."

In 1488, by an Act of the Parliament of Drogheda, the lowly Dodder is mentioned amongst many other things and places as forming part of the bounds of "the four obedient shires" constituting the Pale, i.e., Dublin, Meath, Kildare, and Uriel or Louth. In 1787, it is recorded, "occurred one of those remarkable floods, by which this river has been affected." Other tributaries besides those mentioned used to turn the great wheels of several mills at Oldbawn, Haarlem, and other places; but the mills, alas! are now but decayed and unlovely ruins, while the waters, owing to the bursting of a dam some years ago, have since been entirely deflected out of their former useful and picturesque course.

NORAH TYNAN O'MAHONY.

T

AN IRISH OUTLAW OF 1848

0 reprint an old book is often a more real service to the public than to bring out a new one; and the publishers have done a good deed in giving a new lease of life to Doheny's book, The Felon's Track,* which they have reprinted from the original edition published in New York in 1849. It is in some respects, a deeply interesting book. It is a narrative of the troubled and momentous days of the 'Forties, written by one who was among the foremost actors in the scenes he describes, and as such may well take its place on an Irishman's book-shelves in company with such works as Gavan Duffy's Young Ireland and John Mitchel's Jail Journal.

It cannot, indeed, compare in point of literary merit with either Young Ireland or the Jail Journal, classics both of them of Anglo-Irish literature. But this says little against it; and it has undoubtedly substantial literary qualities. Doheny writes with a certain measured dignity, with a rotund fulness of phrase, and often with a genuine eloquence which make his style seem a very fit and natural vehicle for his solid, serious thoughts, animated and penetrated as they are by deep and enduring love of Ireland.

The events he records are separated from our own day by two generations, for they happened some seventy years ago; and they may now be assigned to the region of history. It would be all the better if Irishmen generally were familiar with such history. Irish history of any period has an obvious claim on us from the mere fact that it is our own history, the story of our race. There are, unfortunately, some people

-in Ireland as elsewhere-who are without the natural sentiment of love for country, which is the foundation of this claim that our history makes upon us, people who see nothing By Michael Doheny. Dublin M. H. Gill

The Felon's Track. and Son, Ltd. Price 3s. 6d.

unreasonable or discreditable in the lack of an affectionate interest in their own people. But even such may feel the force of the utilitarian argument for the possession of such knowledge. History is a teacher, a wise instructor; it provides most valuable light and guidance for the problems of the present and the future; we can discover by it the sources of our strength and our weakness, the causes of success and of failure. And the nearer a period of history is to our own days, the more practically useful are likely to be its lessons. In a well-written preface, Mr. Arthur Griffith tells us something of the author.

"The man, who, roused from his bed at midnight by tapping fingers on his window and a voice whispering that insurrection was afoot, rose and rode away in the darkness to join himself to its desperate fortunes, was no young man ardent for adventure. Michael Doheny, when he left his home and his career to engage in the fatal enterprise, was a sober, middle-aged barrister, a man of weight and fortune, into which he had built himself by the hard toil of twenty years. His social anchorages were deep-cast-and no mere sentiment provokes such a man to throw aside the hard-won harvest of his life and risk the rebel's or the felon's fate.

"In the leadership of the Young Ireland Party Michael Doheny was, save Smith O'Brien, the oldest man and, like O'Brien, his counsels, while courageous, were always restrained. There was little other likeness between the men. Doheny sprang from the poorest class of the Irish farmers. At Brookfield, near Fethard, in Tipperary, where he was born in May, 1805, he followed the plough on his father's little holding, earning literally his bread in the sweat of his brow, and educating himself how he could, for his people were too poor to pay for his schooling. His indomitable perseverance and his thirst for knowledge overcame the formidable obstacles of fortune, and at thirty years of age the poor peasant boy had become a barrister of reputation for ability and fearlessness."

The mind and disposition of the writer reveal themselves on every page of the book. There is a grave earnestness, a high-mindedness, a sense of honour, an evident--if not always successful-effort to prevent indignation against